Romania Trip

There have been few posts before now, and it's been simply a case of so much going on! From the Pentecost Festival through the SOLID Youth Festival and the wedding of Stephen and Kate Poch, it's all been go! However, I can now share my recap on our mission trip to Romania!

I write to you from re:generation Church itself on a mild Sunday afternoon to give you an overview of our trip to Romania. I would say it’ll be a “brief” overview, but given that I can’t promise that from the beginning, I won’t!

We left in the very early hours of the morning of Friday the 23rd July from the church to start the first leg of our drive to Romania in the recently purchased minibus (thanks to God and everyone who supported the fundraising financially and in prayer!) and in the Spearmans’ van. Heading down to the crossing (Le Shuttle) at Dover we met our first hiccup (which incidentally was rather significant) when the clutch in the Spearmans’ van gave way. This meant that Ross, Edd and Sam (Fowler) had to make their way back (with the majority of our luggage) to Essex and sort a replacement. The minibus made the crossing to France and continued on to Germany where we made our first overnight stop. The morning of the 24th of July (the majority of us) were woken by the sound of an air raid siren (which apparently was to warn local people of an accident on the highway!) After breakfast we headed on to our second stop in Austria, where we stayed in a beautiful cabin in the mountains, enjoyed local (salty) food and a lake. The less said about the latter, the better. Somewhere along the way, the DVD player caught fire and forced a roadside evacuation on the motorway! Our third stop was in Budapest, Hungary in a youth hostel building once owned by the KGB! We enjoyed the sights and sounds of the local area by day and by night before leaving the following day for our final destination: Minis, Romania on Monday 26th July.

Having settled in and had our first meal together on location – we settled down to bed before work (which as yet was still not entirely clear to us) the next day. We set of from a Networks’ (the charity we worked for out there) owned hostel in Minis to the office in Siria, Arad, for our induction and briefing on the work that we would be doing. The details of what we would be doing were thus:

The charity was bequeathed a plot of land by a local farmer in an impoverished Roma community known as Alpha and use of (lorry) containers for any purpose they saw fit. God gave them a vision to build a school for local Roma children. Such children would normally be excluded from school on the basis of factors relating to (but not directly with) their ethnicity, and the vision was (and still is) to see the school ready to start this September (in time for the new term this year.) Our job was to help this farmer (Mr. Jacob) in preparing his land, moving his livestock and and goods around to make the school a reality in time. In total, we had 5 days to do as much as possible. Previous teams had completed the construction of a new pigsty from scratch, and our jobs would range from stripping back the existing fence to prepare for the new one, levelling the old pigsty, carrying pigs to the new one (!) pulling out posts, moving concrete flagstones, clearing fly-tipped areas of concrete, burning excess tree cuttings and waste, making concrete blocks, ferrying sand, hardcore and waste, compiling materials etc. and generally being as helpful as possible.

And so it began, the first job I was assigned to was work (with Chris Ager) on the old fence, taking apart bits of television and asbestos (I didn’t break it or breath any in, promise) used to shore it up and clearing some of the trees/bushes growing near to future entrances. After this I was moved to the destruction of the old pigsty, which for someone with limited strength like me was an interesting challenge, but one that I took to with everything that I had!

I spent day 2 making a fire with Chris & Matt Ager and Callum making use of dumped firewood from the farm and bits of plastic (not advisable) in the middle of what appeared to be the street outside of the farm. Having completed the task (with a little bit of help from Nigel, the overall leader of the project at this stage) we moved on to moving flagstones from the old pigsty to the new site in pairs (as I did) or alone (if you were well ripped.)

Towards the end of the day, we were faced with a logistical challenge of a task that we as a team felt was not safe to do without either the correct equipment or the use of heavy lifting equipment – moving 5 concrete pipes (which must have weighed a good few tonnes each.) In the end we made it clear that we wouldn’t do it on the basis that going through with it might cost one or more of us our hands or our feet should we become crushed by it! This incident generated/added to some underlying tension between the team and some of the leaders, who didn’t necessarily show well developed traits of leadership.

On day three (Thursday) the team was split 12/8 with the larger portion going to Alpha to continue the construction work and the smaller one going on to do some youth work in a place near Siria called Sharia. On this occasion, I opted to continue working on the farm, and on this occasion I was involved in the construction of a patio for some of the pigs outside of the new pigsty and a pen to contain them. Other jobs that were going on during this time (as far as I can remember) included making cement blocks and shifting bits of waste from various locations as well as clearing out a (potentially dangerously) dusty old warehouse. By this point, the weather had gone from damp low 20’s to a sunnier high 20’s and rising.

Day four saw much of the same work, though (apparently) useful tasks appeared to be dwindling in the absence of the bulldozer for the land on site. All the same, a few of us were drafted in to building the dog house using scrap pieces of metal cage, and wire – eventually finding the door to the piece we’d used somewhere else on site to complete the job – and it felt good to do so! I was also hailed by local children as somewhat of an attraction, having been (probably one of) the darkest people they’d ever seen in their lives, I was hailed first as “Papi” (which is a term used like “love” in English but with a tone of respect and then “African!” which was amusing a 30-strong crowd of children began to chant this until I came to sing “I Stand Amazed” to them, highly amusing.

Each day, we headed to a lake to wash of the dust (and pig poo, amongst other things!) and found that on each occasion, irrespective of the weather, it was FREEZING! Nonetheless, on the longer, hotter days – this was just what was needed! That said, I suffered horrendous cramp on account of the water temperature, so I struggled to stay afloat on one occasion and was wary of going in thereafter!

We got the weekend off, so the Saturday we had the day to explore a market (where Ben P. bought a chick he called ‘Chimpy’) and then spend the afternoon climbing a small mountain. A couple of us had to retire during the climb due to health-related issues but for those of us who reached the summit – we were rewarded with some spectacular views of the local scenery!

Sunday was a more relaxed day, with space to reflect and rest before Church with Networks in the evening where Andreas, the Swedish member of the team spoke powerfully on the need for Christians to have vision in the lives that they live and to see what God sees as we go about them.

His words matched his encouragement to a team that he went out with (myself included) to Sharia on the following Monday to do the kids’ club. Most poignantly, after a day of work with children, some of whom were malnourished, others had little or no clothes, most were filthy and all were full of joy he said to us, “Today, you have served kings and queens in God’s kingdom” words which will most likely stay with me for the rest of my life. Monday also happened to be our last day of work in Romania and between thinking of games to play with the kids, putting together a mime based on the parable of the lost son and drawing various barn animals for the kids to colour in it was a busy day! Still, the kids were amazing and we were sad to leave at the end. I was humbled by the excitement and love the children had for us.

We left early on Tuesday (5am) and headed on the 3 day journey home. Driving back through Hungary, we ventured to Krakow, Poland where we stayed overnight after a visit to the city for dinner and a sample of the night life (I visited a class little underground jazz club.) From there, we visited the Auschwitz museum for a harrowing tour and deeply moving history lesson. Highly recommended, if difficult.

Our next stop on the trip was in the Czech Republic (Prague) where we had a wonderful meal (for a very reasonable price) where we had a bit more time to explore in the evening and the day – so we took advantage by doing a bit of shopping and wandering before leaving in the early afternoon for Germany and our final stopover in Wurzburg. The final leg was fairly rapid, though on 2 occasions coming back from Romania, the van was stopped by customs for them to ask Edd and the others if they had cigarettes or drugs! We all were required to get out at the French border to the UK (although by the way, we had given Chimpy the chick away to Romanians) and from there we crossed the channel back home!

I’ve surely left out lots of details, missed stories where people were ill at various points or things that were for others to tell! All in all, an amazing trip where God was with us all the way (caring for the sick, protecting our minibus when the tyre burst/was slashed, giving us favourable weather conditions etc.)

Please pray for Networks that they’d be able to get the work that was done completed to start School in time for September so that many of the children we saw whilst working would be able to go to school for the first time.

Thanks so much and God bless,

Jason.