Day 4: Thursday                                        7/21/16 

Where do I even begin? This past week has been the best of my summer thus far. These kid's hearts continually amaze me. Their intelligence of the bible stories, watching them worship, and listening to their answers during lessons is such a blessing. Seeing the difference in some of the campers from last year to this year is crazy. These kids are on fire for God and it has been such an inspiration to me. These kids have something different about them and I can't wait to continue to see them grow in their faith and see where it takes them. Not only are the kids a blessing, but Dan and Maria are so amazing to be around. I have learned so much from them in just one week. They are the perfect example of what living by faith looks like. Seeing the impact that they have had on Sebis and Laz is incredible. They minister to so many people, everywhere you walk someone shouts, "ceau Maria" because they know everyone. Kids will come to their house gate and call their name and wait because they need something for their family. They do so much for the city. Listening to their stories about how far their faith has taken them is my favorite part of the day. I'm excited to have another week and a half here! 

Today we had a pretty chill morning. Dan and Maria had to run into Sebis so our team spent the morning with the kids. Tuesday, Kenzie, B and Katie got to ride into the city for the big farmer's market they have on Thursdays. It's a really fun thing to experience! All the streets are filled with fresh produce, shoes and clothes stands. They got back mid morning so from there we had worship and bible study with the kids. Bible study was one of the best times for me, I loved to get to know the kids individually and learn where they are in their faith. Their answers to the questions are so amazing, they know so much at such a young age. After lunch we decided we would do sport clinics for the kids. We gave the option of soccer or volleyball since most of our team plays one of those two sports. Girls in Romania aren't allowed to play soccer so we made it that the boys had to go learn volleyball so the girls could have a chance to learn soccer. We decided that we would play a boys versus girls soccer game after we taught the girls and the girls were so excited. It made me so happy to see the smiles of these kids. I'm sad to say that the boys ended up winning the game, but they were so sweet about it. They high fived all the girls and told them they did really well for just learning. The girls were happy that they kept up with the boys in the game. Their happiness from giving them the opportunity to play made my heart so happy. Later that evening we went to chapel and started with worship and then Dan spoke about hearing the voice of God. He read out of 1 Samuel 3:1-10 and told the story of Samuel hearing the voice of God so clearly that he thought it was his servant, Eli calling him. Dan spoke about this topic to challenge the kids in their faith, but it was so good for us to hear too. I got so much out of it and I know that other people from our team did too. In my opinion, it was the best chapel of the week. After chapel we decided to enter into a time of worship and pray over each camper individually. The Holy Spirit was so evidently present during this time. It was such an amazing experience that is indescribable, but I'll try my best. We started with a couple of songs to prepare our hearts for a time of worship and almost instantly half the kids were in tears because of the healing that was taking place in their lives. As they went up to pray you could see be difference in the kids before and after. You could see the healing and hope that took place while Dan, Maria and our team prayed over the kids. The kids would come out of the prayer circle as a difference person. Before they were prayed over they would be in tears and after they would be focused and in a sincere time of worship. One of the campers, Norby completely focused on praising God for 3 hours straight. He was actually the first person to be prayed over, but it was amazing that he stayed focused on giving glory to God for that long. It was obvious that the Holy Spirit was present because all of our prayers lined up. The visions were consistent with most of the kids. Specifically, we prayed over a boy named Timo and I was blown away because the vision that Dan, Brittany and I had for him was so similar. As I listened to them pray it was like they were taking the words straight out of my mouth. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had especially since we just listened to a Dan speak about hearing the voice of God.  I have never experienced anything like that before and I am so thankful that I was a part of that night. We actually were really behind on our schedule that day so we almost decided to skip out of praying for the kids because it takes so long, but we were all so thankful that we decided to do it anyway. It was evident that we chose the right decision to stay up late rather than not pray at all for the sake of rest. It makes me so happy to love on these kids who how have pretty rough life stories and just remind them that they are loved. Seeing their smiles makes all the work worth it. They bring me so much joy and one thing I have learned is that smiles really are contagious.

Abigail Caulfield