Here's what happened.
Day 1: Arrived in Moldova from TeenStreet. Came a day early because my flight had been cancelled. Had the whole place to myself, which was kind of nice as it gave me a chance to slow down and relax a bit after the craziness of TeenStreet.
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| view out the window of the base in Moldova |
Day 2: Everyone else arrived. (Fun story: the first girl to arrive from my room was a teacher from Germany. She asked where I was from and I told her the United States. She then asks what state. I tell her Virginia. She then asks "oh, where in Virginia?" Normally at this point I would say "just south of DC" because really, who in Germany has heard of my town? But for some reason I tell her exactly where. And it turns out, she went to my University a few years before I did as part of an exchange program! I still can't believe I met a German girl in Moldova who knows the small University I went to.)
Day 3: Orientation to Moldova. We learned a little bit about the outreaches we would be going on, as well as some Moldovan culture and we met our team members. Basically the country is very Orthodox, and most don't know what it means to have a relationship with God. Many of the kids come from broken homes, or have an absent parent because they have to go out of the country to work. Many people also have an alcohol problem. We also learned not to drink the water...and that the Nistru is full of fun things like cholera. Yaaaaay.
Day 4: Loaded all our stuff into a van which left to head to the river. We took a bus. On this bus ride we commented that we went from being clean and washed people, to sweaty stinky people. The first hour was not so bad, as the bus wasn't that full...then more people got on. And more people got on. And more people got on...and they were hot and sweaty, and we were hot and sweaty, and they didn't open the windows, and...welcome to Moldova. Anyway, we got to the village where we met up with our stuff and the other families that were joining us, but would be travelling by car. We unloaded the van, had some lunch, and spent the next few hours building the raft.
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| The Raft almost complete. The two mini-rafts got strapped together to make the big Raft. All of our stuff then got arranged down the center, and we sat on the oil drums to paddle. Not the most comfy seat let me tell you. |
Day 5: And the rain rain rain came down down down the whole night long. My tent flooded, woke up to wet feet at about 1:30 am, tried to sop it all up with my towel. Eventually the rain stopped and I rung out the towel outside and put it by the door again. Woke up again around 3:00, more of my sleeping bag and blanket were soaked, the towel was totally waterlogged. That morning, we had to push the supply van up a giant hill that was a muddy mess. The road could hardly be called that, with giant holes and ditches all down it, we had to get rocks from one part of the road to re-pave the other parts. Eventually we got it up the hill. Then we went into the village to see if there were any kids around or people to talk to. Since it was raining, nobody was out. It quit raining in the afternoon, so we went to do a kids program at a camp near our site. It went well, we came back, had dinner, then helped push one of our family's camper van up the giant hill. That night it rained as well. My tent did not flood this time, as they put it inside another tent, and wrapped it in plastic.
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| My blanket and sleeping bag... |
Day 7: In the morning we hiked up The Hill into the village and did the program for the kids. It went pretty well, they LOVED the parachute!
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| Do you see The Raft? Waaaaaaaaaaaay down there??? I was not lying when I said it was a BIG HILL. |
We went back down the the campsite, had lunch, loaded up The Raft, and headed to the next village. After unloading The Raft and setting up camp (do you catch the theme here?) we went through the village inviting the kids to the program for the next day, as well as inviting any teens to play football/soccer that evening. A good number of teen guys showed up, and listened intently to the testimonies shared by our team leader and some of the other guys on our team. Lots of kids were around too, so we did an impromptu program for them. The mosquitos came out in full force as the sun went down, and we called it a night.
Day 8: We did another program for the kids in the morning. After the program and before loading The Raft, I got to wash my hair! It was glorious! I think five days is a new record. Then, off to the next village! We arrived in the late afternoon. Some of us stayed behind to make camp and cook dinner, others went into the village to invite the kids to the program the next day.
Day 9: Kids program in the morning after breakfast. We ended up having a lot of kids as well as their older siblings/parents who brought them. It was a Sunday, which for a lot of people, is their only day off. In the afternoon, we took some food packets to some needy families in the village. This was really difficult to see how poor some people's living conditions are, and how they have nobody to help them. It's hard to share an encouraging word to someone, when my problems pale in comparison to theirs (and you don't speak the language!). The only thing I could do was pray that God would be with them and touch their hearts. That evening we were joined by the other River Adventure group, a youth group from the Czech Republic. They started a day after us and visited the same villages the day after us. We had some traditional Moldovan food and a nice time of worship with the other group. Then time for bed! And let me just say, by this point I was feeling exhausted. I think every muscle was aching in my shoulders and back, and my rear end was sore from sitting on the barrel, and my hips were sore from sleeping on the ground. All a part of "roughing it" I guess!
Day 10: Loaded The Raft after breakfast and headed off again for the next village. Two of the families that were with us left, and another one joined. We did the kids program in the evening and the guys played soccer with the young guys of the village. The kids didn't pay attention as well as in some of the other villages, but once again the teens were really interested in listening to the guys' testimonies.
Day 11: Longest trip on The Raft ever. We were floating along just fine, had lunch on the raft, and ended up on the wrong side of the river. Suddenly the village came into view on the other side, and we started paddling to get across, headed into the wind. Nearly two hours later, we collapsed on the ground under a tree, exhausted. We did a program that evening, which went alright, even though everyone was beat. Some teenagers came around towards the end so some of the guys went to hit around the volleyball and later shared with them. There was one young man who was extremely Orthodox, and was arguing just to argue. Not sure if the testimonies were received as well as in some of the other villages.
Day 12: Last time loading The Raft! We had a little bit of hard paddling, the the wind was in our favor and we used the big parachute as a sail! Once we set it up and figured out steering, we were going along quite nicely. We didn't even have to paddle much, which we were all happy about.
We did a program at the kindergarten that afternoon, and another program for older kids late afternoon. The kindergarteners didn't quite understand the games, but they had fun anyways! And, there were LOTS of them.
Day 13: The van got driven to our village, and we loaded it up with The Raft in pieces and all of our supplies. We had breakfast and it departed. We did one last program for the kids, then had lunch. We went to visit a young man who was disabled--he couldn't walk and was confined to bed. He had a progressive illness since he was a child. We had an interesting chat with him and shared the gospel, it was hard to tell if he was receptive or not. The Czech team arrived and we caught a bus back to the base, and had nice showers, dinner, and a good night's sleep in real beds!
Day 14: Debrief in the morning, the we went into the city to "sight see" as a team. Not too much to see. Then we said goodbye to one guy who had a plane to catch, and went back to the base for one last night.
Day 15: Departure day. Woke up at 5:30 to go to the airport. A long day of traveling, and I was back in the UK. And it was raining. Welcome back!
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| sunrise from my window at the base. |
