Dorohoi

One of the amazing ministries that Melissa is involved in is taking kids to Summer camp. She takes children both from the village where she teaches school, and from a village called Dorohoi, about an hour from her home.

Because the kids are able to build friendships over camp, Melissa and Bogdan, and a lot of their friends help to facilitate those relationships by bringing the kids together to hang out a few times a year. They have a Bible lesson, and play games, and just get to have fun.

Things weren't so cut and dried on Melissa's side of things, however. They encountered many different wrenches into the carefully laid out plans. But God was still in control, and the day turned out to be wonderful.

For us, the work started the day before. Addie and Tiffany made over 70 cupcakes, while I helped take care of baby Matei.

After we got home from dinner after our day in the city, we helped Bogdan do some food preparation. Starting with preparing the chicken and vegetables.

Bogdan helping us sort the fresh chicken breasts and legs.

And by fresh, I mean there were still some feathers on them! 

Addie cut the fresh carrots, which involved de-worming them.

 Tiffany and I worked on cleaning the garlic, while Addie peeled onions and then worked on the carrots. After all the food work was done, it was time to head to bed.

Saturday morning we got up and helped look after Matei while Melissa took Bogdan to get the extra van, which turned into a small car. (One of the wrenches). But we all successfully got to the alternate location where we were meeting (another wrench). The kids had a great time playing on the playground and just fellowshipping with one another. The kids were adorable and we had a great time playing with them and getting to know them.

This little guy had too much fun...

Another game they played involved trying to eat an apple off the string.  It wasn't as easy as it seemed!

A great group of friends had an awesome day together. 

The lesson was on good fruit and bad fruit. One game that the kids played was picking and apple, reading the word on it, and putting on the good tree or bad tree. Addie the artist made the trees the day before.

They sang songs like Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, and tried teaching Addie and I This is the Day in Romanian. Addie has it down pretty well, but I still need a little more practice. 

For lunch we had Red Beet soup. And yes, everyone, I ate it. Here's a picture to prove it:

And then we had chicken and mashed potatoes. It was a great meal. Afterwards the kids were treated to the cupcakes that we spent the morning icing!

It was a great day with the kids, and we all had a lot of fun with them. It was hard to leave, but we had to return to get ready for the night train. We exchanged lots of hugs and lots of goodbyes.

Missing Suceava,

Ali