Libertatii Camp Pictures

The last day of camp, my task was to gather pictures & put together a 10-minute slide show. The kids loved seeing themselves (and all of their friends) up on the big screen. We actually saved most of the best pictures, because tomorrow we are getting all of the kids together to watch video and look at more pictures. It's a good way for us to maintain contact with kids who don't normally come to church (probably 3/4 of the kids who were at camp are not from our church). Thankfully, someone else is responsible for this slideshow! Not my forte...

As promised, here are some more shots from church camp.

I was gonna' be good...

...and update you on everything right after my last post. But, alas, I was somehow distracted (can a 32-year old be diagnosed with ADD???) and am just getting back to it. So, where were we? Yikes, I just took a peak at my last posts and realized just how far behind I am. In short:

1. The water leak finally stopped after a week and a half. By then, it was leaking down the outside of the door, someone noticed & called the building administrator, he shut off all the water to the building, and my landlord finally realized I wasn't exaggerating. The electricity was fixed a week later (still scary, but at least it works), the door that I had been body-slamming to open or close was "trimmed" around the edges so that I can get in and out of my apartment again, and the mold continues to grow rampantly. My landlord promised to deal with that when he gets back from vacation...we'll see.

2. I taught a week of English classes at Bethany Baptist Church in Tarnaveni, about an hour's drive from Targu Mures. My students were a mixture of intermediate and advanced, so it was, ummm, interesting. A good start, though, considering the fact that we haven't done anything like this before. A couple of our students were from outside of the church (the true target group!), so I'm praying that the church will have opportunities to further develop relationships with them.

3. English camp ended the same day that our church kids' camp began. The church has used the camp facilities of Livada Orphan Care for the last couple of years, and this year we moved "with" them as they moved camp to a newly purchased property. That meant camp in army tents for this year. Unfortunately (read that sarcastically), this was the same week as my water leak, so I ended up coming home and sleeping in my own bed each night while waiting for my landlord to come (which he never did, that week).

What do you get when you mix together a huge piece of linoleum, a hose, and a botte of baby shampoo? A "kill-two-birds-with-one-stone" activity! The slip-n-slide was a favorite for the kids because it helped them cool down in our 100+ temperatures (at a camp with NO shade). The adults liked it, too, because it doubled as bath time for the kids :)
I have almost 1000 pictures from camp, so I promise more in the days to come.
4. After camp, I made a whirlwind trip back to Budapest for a 3-day vacation. No pictures from that trip...Rebecca and I were having too much fun shopping (ugh!), relaxing at the mineral baths, etc.
5. The next day, I traveled with my team to the Transfagarasan Highway, a highway pass through the Fagarasi Mountains. The road is only open in July & August. The cars were overheating half-way up, so we took the cable car the rest of the way up & enjoyed the view from the top. Can't say that I'm sad to have missed the ride on this road...

6. Next was a week of day camp at Libertatii. A family from Cincinnati came to do day camp with one of the orphanages in the afternoons, and they ministered to our church kids in the mornings. I have lots of pictures from this week, too (especially since I had no responsibilities...I just followed everyone around with my camera and helped out occasionally!) Just one pic for now (I used someone else's camera for most and haven't gotten copies yet) -

7. Finally, two weeks of our ABWE camps. I drove back & forth a lot (1 1/2 hours each way), alternating between time at camp and work on translation projects at home. The first week there were 100 teenagers & the 2nd week there were 50 young adults. I was able to spend the last 1/2 of the second week staying at the camp, enjoying great activities, singing, chapel time and all of the other good stuff about camp!
The teens loved the activity called "fight night" - I called it the World's Biggest Food Fight (here, they are flinging buckets of wet spaghetti at each other).

During young adult week, they decided to have the World's Biggest Campfire, instead.

Now, I'm staying home (for a few days, at least), catching up on translation stuff, and preparing for the next round of craziness. More pics to come, soon. I promise...

Romanian roads – 40 times more dangerous than the EU ones

Romania, one dead in every three accidents, UK, one in every 93, according to a report by the Romanian Academic Society (SAR) made public Thursday.

In Romania, there is an average of one death every three accidents, while in Germany the average one death in every 63 accidents, and in Great Britain, one auto accident fatality in every 93 accidents. At fault are the faulty designs of certain road sections, late maintenance works, the lack of ring roads. Auto traffic in Romania is excessively concentrated on national roads. Motorways, useful as they are, are not always priority no 1 and nor do they represent a solution to all traffic problems. One-third of national roads are in a terrible state, infrastructure is unsafe and an obstacle to economic development. All of the aforementioned reasons SAR experts say, lead to accidents with a very large number of victims.
Moreover, the study “Works under repair? SAR report on transport policy in Romania,” shows that the network of county and local roads should be urgently redone, so that a great part of the existing auto traffic could be redirected, which requires only a percentage point of the funding allotted to motorway construction.
Another conclusion of the study: in Romania, the cost of building a kilometre of motorway is twice more expensive than that in other countries in central and eastern Europe, such as Poland or Hungary. Moreover, some of the maintenance and operation costs are also double the average price in the European Union or the United States. The current institutional structure of Romania’s national railway operator CFR and the National Company of Motorways and National Roads in Romania (CNADR) are financially bankrupt actually. Instead of operating independently, they suffer are year in and year out the impact of political changes at the Ministry of Transports. At the same time, there is noticed a trend of substantial increase in auto traffic, at the expense of railway traffic. If the trend continues, the passenger section of the CFR (CFR Pasageri) risks to go bankrupt by 2020 from lack of customers.
Money, programmes and … fanciful strategies
Romania only has 264 kilometres of built motorways and numerous strategies for expansion which however have been dragging their feet for years now. By comparison, Portugal, a state half Romania’s size, has 1,500 kilometres of built motorway. SAR experts say that the motorways and expressways announced for the interval 2007-2013 are fanciful, as they suppose an investment absorption capacity of EUR 2 to 3 bln per year, although the actual absorption capacity never exceeds EUR 500 M. These great national road and railway projects are advancing at an extremely slow place, despite Community funding being available for several years now.
Compromise solutions: sensitising the public
If a great many years pass until infrastructure-related problems are settled, the Government decided to at least take different types of measures. The Tariceanu Cabinet decided Wednesday that the World Commemoration Day of Victims of Auto Accidents should be held on the third Sunday of November. Several ministries – Interior, Health, Transports, and Education, respectively, will organise public awareness and sensitising campaigns, together with NGOs, other legal entities and private individuals.
Severe accident at Mangalia
Four more persons died in a severe auto accident at the entry to Mangalia. The car with the four passengers on board, running at 150 kilometres/hours, hit an oncoming minibus. The four passengers in the car died right away and three of the passengers in the minibus were injured – two of them seriously. The minibus driver broke one leg in the accident, and local traffic was detoured. According to Police, high speed and driver tiredness could be responsible for the accident.
by Alina Munteanu

...and you all thought I was exaggerating the dangers of driving in Romania. Turns out it's actually much worse than even I thought!

- from "Nine O'Clock", an English language newspaper published in Bucharest