(Borumlaca Day 1 - Through Jon's eyes)

Hello. You're about to read from the what VBS in a Romanian Gypsy Village is like from the eyes of a Chicagoan. I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Chicago when I was 7. I also studied abroad in Barcelona for 4 months. As you can see, I'm accustomed to large metropolitan cities.



As we drove into the village in the morning, we went through several towns on an extremely rugged road. When we arrived, we were greeted by several Gypsy kids with their parents. A woman and a man who attend the village church made us feel comfortable and told us they'd get the kids down to where we were hosting the VBS. Within minutes, a waterfall of kids, parents and even their dogs came down the hill to see the strangers than arrived in the white van. At first, I was a bit surprised at how many kids were attending; Ages ranging from newborn to teenager. Kelsey introduced the idea of Jesus and what he did for us. We had the kids repeat a "JESUS!" chant after us. The theme of today was "The Breast Plate of Righteousness." In order to fight for Jesus - the one who saved us by dying and rising from the dead - Christians need to be equipped with the Armor of Christ (from Ephesians). The kids seemed to have responded well to our lesson and acknowledged the fact that Jesus is the one who saved us and we should fight for him!



When it came to snack time, we were all overwhelmed when we realized how many kids there actually were; 110 was the estimate. Luckily, the man who greeted us helped organize the kids in lines of two and we were able to hand out snacks a bit more efficient than we could have done on our own. This reminded me of the very lesson Paul taught us in Ephesians 4:4 - "There is one body, and one Spirit." If we are one in Christ and work together as a body we will succeed whether we are feeding fish to 5,000 people or tortilla chips to 110 kids.

On a side note, driving in Romania was a riot.