Happy Shortykiwzouy!

We have arrived in Romania, as many of you know! After eating at a truly Romanian resturant, seeing a bear, sight seeing the summer home of King Carol, and over 10 hours of travel (of course some pizza at Pizza Planet too) we arrived at our cabana in Straja. Let me please paint you a picture of Straja. In the Jui Valley there are 5 cities within close proximity (we are staying in Lupeni for the rest of the semester). When you walk (or if you are lucky get to ride in a maxi-taxi) up the side of the southern incline of the valley, you come to a small ski-resort town which has a mini market, a couple club/bars, a couple resturants, an Orthodox church, and multiple cabanas. Also there are many shepherd dogs, sheep, horses, and cows randomly running down the slope. We stayed in a cabana owned by New Horizons which is on the slope going up to a large cross which glows at night. We (as a collective student group from Northwestern + Solita from Calvin) decided we were going to hike up to the cross every morning for devotions to get ready for our week long hike in the Retazat mountains.

After a few days for getting over jet-lag, we were interduced to "Viata" - a summer long program where over 500 students, mostly in the highschool age range, from all over Romania come to learn what it means to work together as well as push themselves in ways they never would have dreamt, such as hiking up to Straja peak, rock climbing, high ropes courses, and trust falls. We were able to join in with the groups and experience team-building with them. HollyAnn and I joined "Grupa Doua" which we named "Happy Shortykiwzouy!" We spent two days working on the low ropes courses, a day on high ropes, half a day rock climbing and then the other half orienteering. We spent the final day learning about taking care of the environment and then hiking up to the top of Straja peak. From there we could see from all sides of the peak - basically AMAZING!!! The last morning we got together in groups and said what we were thankful for about each person and received a braclet made out of hiking rope. This was very emotional. I realized that while I thought I was going to be the one encouraging, these kids were the ones pushing and encouraging me. 1 Timothy 4:12 seems to come to mind. We said some tearful goodbyes and road down the chair lift to the city of Lupeni. We stepped into the next chapter of our experience in Romania.