Day 3: Getting to Know Romania

An early rise on Sunday morning, and just after a wonderful breakfast prepared by the hospitality staff, the Trauma Team travels by bus to worship services at Tileagd Community Church. We are greeted by the very friendly members of the Gypsy community dressed in beautiful and colorful garments typical of Romanian Gypsy culture. These new converts represent the fruit of the labor of love in this area. As everyone begins to sing together various familiar worship songs in Romanian, the musicians provide the accompaniment on guitar and accordion. Adults, youth and the elderly alike all worship together as families arrive together for the service where the preached Word is shared by Pastor Titus. The excitement is high and the team is welcomed by a people we find quite warm and receptive. These we are told now serve to assist in the mission effort to aid the Gypsy community at Tileagd as the work continues to help them to recover from their plight with poverty. We experience their warmth and respond in kind as we exchange Christian embrace with a people whose eyes and hearts are filled with hope. Members of the Trauma Team are looking forward to returning to this community during the coming weeks to share in the humanitarian effort to instill hope for a future by working with these traumatized families utilizing psychological first aid.

It has been a wonderful morning and after lunch we are given a tour of various community projects where we will give our assistance and begin using our training and skills. These projects where we will offer our assistance include the Cihei Children’s Center where play therapy will be used to address the issues of children who have been abandoned and orphaned; the Smiles Farm, where the people who would otherwise be fatal victims of poverty for lack of food will now have the opportunity to plant and harvest crops of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The soil in Romania is rich in nutrients and fruit bearing trees line the farm’s acreage. We discover the largest fields of the most brilliant sunflowers we have ever seen and are suddenly reminded of the promise of abundant life and how we now have the opportunity to offer it to others as we live before them the Life that called us to this place.

--R. LaVerne Washington