Moldova Mission Trip - Day 5 (Dan)

Hey, guess what, no beds to do today. Yep that's right, we are a day (more like half a day) ahead of schedule. So what are we gonna do, go shopping and site seeing (but I am getting ahead of myself). The morning started off not so great, it was good that we got to sleep in a little later but it also meant that everyone would be trying to shower about the same time. Now here at the IMP house, we (the guys (all 3 of us)) are staying on the third floor and get the least amount of water pressure (especially if other people are showering at the same time). I was finally able to shower at about 6:45 a.m. and guess what, NO WATER. I don't mean the slight trickle that we've become accustom to, I mean the shower was BONE DRY. I finally gave up; went to breakfast, attended the devotional and then finally got the much needed (much desired) shower.  Time for shopping..

 We headed downtown to the Art Market.. Man, the stuff to chose from.. Good thing that we are going back Saturday. Then it was off to McDonald's (yep, there is one here and the food tastes pretty much that same as back home). Finally a lunch that lasted less than 3 hours. 

Next stop, the Orheiul Vechi Monastery which is a Monastery complex that is carved into a massive limestone cliff. This place was cool, just had to make sure and duck (low hanging ceilings).

                       

Needless to say, this is where Stuart lost control. On our hike up to the Monastery we noticed a man standing off to the side painting with oil colors.

                                                                                           

So, we go enjoy walking around the Monastery and then on the way back down the hill Stuart got ahead of the group and boom, we stopped to talk the artist. Come to find out, his paintings are sold at the Art Market. The problem is, people fell in love with the paintings that he had just done or was currently working on. He was reluctant to sell anything because he liked to do several new paintings and then go home and paint copies of them before selling any of them. Lots of talking finally convinced him to sell (probably hoping that we would then go away); problem was not many people had Leu (Moldovan currency). Lauree really wanted this painting, so finally after making the a deal with yours truly, she was able to get it. I think the light came on in the artist's head; ahh, more sales available if I take them to my house to show them other paintings and offer to take American dollars. Off we went, about a 100 yards later  we are seeing paintings that this guy had done as well as stuff that his brother and friend had done. Several people ended up buying pictures from them and probably would still be there looking but Stuart showed up and reminded us that we had a Birthday party for 205 orphans to decorate for.

  Once we got back to the orphanage (took about 15 minutes), everyone headed into the cafeteria to decorate and I headed to the door to be "Dan the Doorman". My job today was to keep the kids out until we were ready. Sounds easy but yesterday they about overrun us to get to crafts. Today was easier, only 20 lined up and I was beginning to wonder where everyone was. It appears that they were taking a nap til 4:00 and then they were to go back to there classrooms to work on their homework. Luckily the director walked up and noticed that there was a huge shortage of kids. He pointed at 3 kids, said something and next thing I know this is what I saw:

                      

Wow, now if I can only not get run over once we open the doors for the "Big Suprise"....

Well, this is what they said I looked like next:

                                                                                

                                                               

The doors opened and boom a couple of hundred kids are looking for a place to sit. Talk about shocked at what was before them.

Now to my favorite party, in every picture that we took this week it was near impossible to get picture with the kids smiling. Today, I am going to get pictures of kids smiling; i get to clown around and have some fun and this is the end result:

    

As the party started to wind down it was Bible time. Yep, a Bible for every child and staff member in their native language. It was cool watching them look up John 3:16... 

                                                                                                     

After Jon spoke to them about the plan of salvation, the director came forward to thank us for coming and then several of the kids came forward to thank us as well.. We then went to meet with the director who provided us with snacks and juice. Afterwards, we all went out to the front of the orphanage for one last picture:

                                                 

With that I say, "So long Ivancea, may God continue to bless this orphanage, it's staff and the the KIDS that are in it." It was brought to our attention that Ivancea needs more beds, so who knows, maybe next year we'll be back to try and achieve a "BED FOR EVERY HEAD".

Tomorrow is another day, off to Orhei and the special needs kids. Check back and see what I have to say.

Please continue to pray for us, the kids and staff members that we come in contact with and our families and friends back home. 

Talk to ya tomorrow,

Dan