Campulung, Romania

So here I am! I am visiting some missionaries that my family has supported for almost ten years. Estera and Vio are an extremely nice Romanian couple who are doing the Lord's work in Campulung. I started donating some of my money each month to their mission work when I was 14 and now I am here meeting them! What a cool thing! Today I spent the day making crafts. :-) Estera teaches Bible lessons for children and she needed to make examples of some of the crafts she has the kids do, but she is extremely busy, so I volunteered to make the examples. I made four crafts today and also attempted to draw puzzle pieces on a picture so Estera can cut it apart for an object lesson. We'll see how well I did when she gets home.

A few months ago Estera and Vio got an email about some kids who needed help. They had been abused and were often abandoned for days by their father. So Estera and Vio volunteered to take the children. They have been jumping through hoops ever since to try to be able to take care of the boys. First they just had the younger son, Danny, who is 3. But they found out they could get arrested just for having him living with them without certain paperwork, so they had to put him back into the care (or lackthereof) of their dad. They tried to get permission to have Danny and when they finally got permission, they had to search for him and found he and his brother living with some gypsie ladies on the street. Danny's dad wants Vio and Estera to have him, but getting permission is really hard. "Welcome to Romania!" is how Estera explained it to me. Their rules are really silly. When they finally did get some sort of permission, Danny's dad asked them to take his other son, Andrew, as well. Andrew is 6 and has some mental problems, so it has been extremely hard for Estera and Vio to care for both boys. But of course they agreed because they are amazing Christian people with huge hearts. But they are still waiting for the papers to come to them which has been a burden. Usually children in Romania get the medicine they need for free, but Estera and Vio have had to pay for a lot of medicine for the boys because they don't have the papers. And of course they are making big bucks as missionaries so it's not a problem (yeah right!)

I am glad that I'm here right now because I am able to help them out as much as I can with the boys and crafts and other small things. I guess this is a shameless plug for them, but if anyone who is reading this is looking to support a worthy cause or if your church might be looking for some super cool missionaries to support, I know just the people. They obviously didn't ask me to do this. I don't even think they know I have a blog. But I am here and seeing first hand what awesome things they are doing for the children of Romania, two of which are in their home right now. So I just thought I'd mention it just in case. :-) Let me know if you want more info. Now I think I'll get back to my crafts. :-)