Sunday, August 7, 2011
Baptism
Cassidy, Megan Radke, Michaela again!
After very little sleep, (about 4 hours if you were lucky!) we met at church to attend the sermon. We participated in worship and communion (real wine, different then Bhawk) and Hunter and Emily shared their experiences at camp and how it has changed them.
After church, most of the congregation drove to the Jiu River for the baptisms. We heard everyone's testimony and listened to friends speak on behalf of those being baptized. From our team, we had:
Catie Smiley
Kristen Emerson
Jimmy Bero
Megan Watts
Megan Radke
Aubrey Fisher
and three Romanians were baptized. The stories were powerful and told of how God has been working in the lives of our teammates and the lives of Romanians.
There were three neat things about the baptism: 1. It was in a RIVER. 2. All the believers who were getting baptized wore white to represent the new life they were expecting. 3. After each person was baptized, all the people sing "Rejoice in the Lord always and Again I say Rejoice! X2 Rejoice! Rejoice! And again I say Rejoice!" (Except they were singing in Romanian and David led us in English). I really enjoyed this because the whole community was there supporting their brothers and sisters in Christ.
After the Baptisms, we went to Parc Romanecu and hung out with our Romanian friends, which was a blast of course. We threw around the frisbe, napped, ate ice cream, and enjoyed each moment we have left with each other. Michaela experienced her first good bye and is not looking forward to what Tuesday is going to bring (As is the rest of the team). We are heading off to our host families for an early bed time (hooray!)
So they are ushering us out of the church, Noapte buna!
After very little sleep, (about 4 hours if you were lucky!) we met at church to attend the sermon. We participated in worship and communion (real wine, different then Bhawk) and Hunter and Emily shared their experiences at camp and how it has changed them.
After church, most of the congregation drove to the Jiu River for the baptisms. We heard everyone's testimony and listened to friends speak on behalf of those being baptized. From our team, we had:
Catie Smiley
Kristen Emerson
Jimmy Bero
Megan Watts
Megan Radke
Aubrey Fisher
and three Romanians were baptized. The stories were powerful and told of how God has been working in the lives of our teammates and the lives of Romanians.
There were three neat things about the baptism: 1. It was in a RIVER. 2. All the believers who were getting baptized wore white to represent the new life they were expecting. 3. After each person was baptized, all the people sing "Rejoice in the Lord always and Again I say Rejoice! X2 Rejoice! Rejoice! And again I say Rejoice!" (Except they were singing in Romanian and David led us in English). I really enjoyed this because the whole community was there supporting their brothers and sisters in Christ.
After the Baptisms, we went to Parc Romanecu and hung out with our Romanian friends, which was a blast of course. We threw around the frisbe, napped, ate ice cream, and enjoyed each moment we have left with each other. Michaela experienced her first good bye and is not looking forward to what Tuesday is going to bring (As is the rest of the team). We are heading off to our host families for an early bed time (hooray!)
So they are ushering us out of the church, Noapte buna!
Dance the night away...
Hey Wisconsinites,
This is Cassidy, Michaela, and Megan Radke! We are exhausted as we write this blog because we were up dancing and eating until 3:30 in the morning yesterday (this morning??) We had a blast and learned so much about Romanian culture.
Our day started with cleaning the church for the wedding and the excitement started to build as we got dressed up. The girls even had to take over the boys bathroom for extra mirror space. The ceremony was similar to what we would expect at home, but we noticed that perhaps it was less formal.
However right after the ceremony we went to the reception at a hotel down the street and we realized that while we were dressed for the ceremony, we were underdressed for the reception. The guests had changed into very fancy clothes before the reception. When we had been seated, we translated the menu and realized we were in for a treat after the camp food. There were six courses in total which included samples of many kinds of food. Overall, it was an enormous amount of food and Lief couldn't even imagine finishing it all. The first course came at around 7pm and the cake was cut at 3 in the morning. In between each course we would dance for about an hour and a half to a mix of American music and traditional Romanian folk music. We learned lots of new dances and got a work out.
We had so much fun hanging out with the Romanians, eating, and dancing. We all agree this is how weddings in the States should be.
This is Cassidy, Michaela, and Megan Radke! We are exhausted as we write this blog because we were up dancing and eating until 3:30 in the morning yesterday (this morning??) We had a blast and learned so much about Romanian culture.
Our day started with cleaning the church for the wedding and the excitement started to build as we got dressed up. The girls even had to take over the boys bathroom for extra mirror space. The ceremony was similar to what we would expect at home, but we noticed that perhaps it was less formal.
However right after the ceremony we went to the reception at a hotel down the street and we realized that while we were dressed for the ceremony, we were underdressed for the reception. The guests had changed into very fancy clothes before the reception. When we had been seated, we translated the menu and realized we were in for a treat after the camp food. There were six courses in total which included samples of many kinds of food. Overall, it was an enormous amount of food and Lief couldn't even imagine finishing it all. The first course came at around 7pm and the cake was cut at 3 in the morning. In between each course we would dance for about an hour and a half to a mix of American music and traditional Romanian folk music. We learned lots of new dances and got a work out.
We had so much fun hanging out with the Romanians, eating, and dancing. We all agree this is how weddings in the States should be.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
CAMP Pics
Baby Hunny napping on the way to camp
Catie and Jenna repping the same shirt
Suns out guns out
Kayta with Stefi and Bianca
Lief's new haircut
Emily and Paul jamming during worship
Matt, Brendon, Micheala, and Rasvi during mustache night
Cassidy and Betty...awwww
Sister love
Hunny and his uni-brow
The white diamonds (a small group) doing air-band for a pic scavenger hunt
SPORTS TEAM!! WHAT WHAT!!
The most of the camp rocking the matching shirts
Paul strumming for Jesus
Megarad being awesome
Face-swipe: the newest trend
Erik you're culturally inappropriate
ROOMIES!
CAMP Pics
Lief showing off the six pack
Megan the Romanian whisperer
Jenna you're so cute
Tickle Tolly! fav past time
Hey Girl Hey!Friday, August 5, 2011
McBlog... Straight from McDonalds!
Hey it’s Aubs, Taylor and Jessica here at McDonalds in Craiova, enjoying some non-camp food yummm. It is 2 pm and we are finally awake after our long journey home. We were supposed to leave camp on Thursday at noon, but the bus drivers thought we weren’t leaving until Friday, so we had six more hours at camp! We left around 6 pm and arrived around 5 am this morning… an 11 hour bus ride!
Despite all the traveling excitement we had a blast at camp! Each morning, our team of Americans met at 7:30 am to plan for the day, talk about God sightings, and pray. After that we woke up our campers, had breakfast, and a quick morning session of worship. After that, we split off into our English classes: each class was run by two or three Americans, and had one translator and about ten students. This was followed by a time of small group challenges held by the sports team (shout out to mine and Tay Tays boys!) Then came lunch, and free time afterwards. The afternoons consisted of large group games (sports team wooo) or a special event like hiking or water games. After dinner we had nighttime sessions that were held by our awesome emcees Jessica and Kayta! We would play pull-up games and embarrass ourselves, have a meaningful time of worship lead by the band known as Magnum Octopus, and listen to one of the leaders speak about different topics relating to the theme of Magnum Opus. After session, we split into our small groups (cabin groups) for a meaningful discussion about the talk as we ate tea and biscuits (cookies).
Camp was an amazing experience for all of us, we built so many amazing relationships with the Romanians as well as our American team! We are so excited that we got to share about God’s love and learn new things about our faith in the process of doing so. One of the reasons camp was so meaningful was because we were unplugged from the rest of the world. We were surrounded by beautiful mountains, and had no way of connecting outside the camp… the world could have ended and we wouldn’t have heard about it J but it didn’t, so we’re all good.
We will share more personal stories on camp in blogs to come!
As for the rest of the week we have some exciting events planned for us J We will be guests at a traditional Romanian wedding tomorrow followed by a reception and night of dancing. On Sunday, we will be attending church, and we have the opportunity to witness the church’s annual baptism at the river. On Monday night we will be having a camp reunion with all the campers!!!!!! The only sad part is that we will have to say goodbye L to most of them that night because we leave the next day for our debrief in Budapest! And we are excited to share Taylor’s birthday with her on the 10th yay!
LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL BACK AT HOME. MORE STORIES TO COME!
Buna blog watchers! Tambalu! (Buna means hi.)
Written from camp on July 31st...
First full day at camp is coming to an end, and we would like to update yall on our adventures! Yesterday (Saturday), we arrived safely but late in the rain. We had a pretty chill afternoon (metaphorically and literally); we slept, ate, and had our night session in the cold. At camp, we have a very old Hungarian cook, and let’s just say all of the campers, Romanians and Americans, have had an interesting time adjusting to the cuisine. Besides the cold and cuisine, camp has been great! Today was our first large games day! The sun broke out for a while during our games, and it was a pleasant surprise. The games were fantastic and (AHEM TESS) Energy is one of the most fun games we have ever played!!!!!!! Also, we feel that we are connecting to the Romanian campers well during the whole day and especially small group. It is easy to see how God is moving and working through the first few days of camp. The questions that they are asking in response to our nightly sessions are a great start to figuring out who they really are as God’s greatest work. During our worship time, we sing a few songs where the Romanians can sing in their language while we sing in ours. These are very powerful moments in which we can see how big and mighty our Lord is. What I (Michaela) love about the Romanian culture is that they are so much quicker to show affection and start a deep relationship with another person than our culture.
A few quick shoutouts:
The Big MT to the fam: Miss you guys hope everything is well at home. Camp is great so far.
Fanman: Shoutout to sinks, for keeping my hands bacteria free.
Hunter “vanator”: Hey Mom and Kenz! Tell the rst of the Koeshall clan I say hi! Tambalu!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)