Romania Day 2!

We have successfully survived another day of Camp!

Yesterday after camp and lunch with the teens, we headed out to the orphanage for the children with special needs. We took a big box of toys and had so much fun handing out stuffed animals to the kids there. They loved having new things to play with. They are well taken care of and doing really well! It has been fun for me to go back year after year and see the progress they are making with those children.

After dinner we took over the Hotel Moldova "conference room" (which is about the size of a closet!) and sorted out all of the darling pictures we've taken of the children at camp. Mary, one of our wonderful volunteers, put together memory books for the children and was taking pictures like crazy getting enough of them for each child to make a book. We printed them all and sorted them into piles so each child can glue the pictures of themselves into the books. They turned out so cute and these children definitely love to have pictures taken of themselves!

We woke up this morning and got ready for day 2 of camp. We worked more on their performances and helped each of them make a costume or prop for their part in the play. They loved being able to take part in designing. I was working with Ionela D. who is playing Cinderella and wanted a pink crown. She was dumping out pink, purple and silver glitter glue on the crown and then would spread it all out with her fingers. By the finished product, the ground was littered with empty bottles of glitter and both she and I were covered in glitter!

The staff of the foundation here in Barlad has also been helping the children make crafts. They have been making beautiful baskets of flowers and bouquets of paper flowers. The staff is wonderful and the kids adore them. They are very caring and have made a lot of progress with those kids. They love working with the children and it has been really fun to get to know them and their families. They are so accommodating when we get here and I think they shut down their whole lives when we get here (ESPECIALLY Sorin!) to make sure we have all of the help we could possibly need.

Again, being here makes me realize what a difference we all (volunteers, donors, supporters, etc) are making on these children. Their progress year after year is astounding and I am so proud of the people they are turning into. The work we all do is really making miracles happen out here and I love seeing that!