day #8 visit to the public school

Monday morning was a very cold, wet day. By this day, Chris and Larry had both been sick, I began feeling a scratch in the back of my throat and up my dosage of Emergen-C and Zycam.

We had a pretty good drive to a local town to visit a public school. When we arrived there were very few children at school. Estera said most of the children do not have rain boots, so when it rains they are unable to walk to school. When you entered the school there was a foyer with children's school work displayed as well as bulletin boards with samples of leaves, nuts, and other fall memorablia. To the immediate right was the principal's office and an empty classroom. To the left was another classroom for children 1- 5th. Towards the back of the foyer was another classroom for the kindergarten students, what we would consider pre-k and kinder.

As we were waiting to begin our projects, a man in a leather jacket walks in and begins to speak Romanian to the principal. Estera is translating that he is the mayor of the town. At first we were a little worried that a bunch of Americans were in the school talking about Jesus, but he soon invited us to join him at the city hall when we were finished with the school.

The children were so adorable. Estera taught them about Noah and the ark b/c we were making the rainbows and cloud windsocks again. Then, we taught them the first verse of our thanksgiving song and Mel taught them his "Hello" song. We were also able to pass out the Book of Hope (in Romanian) to the students. When it was time to leave Diane discovered the outhouse that the children and teachers used.

After we made the craft, we loaded up and Danni "drove" us to city hall. We were all speculating about what the mayor could possibly want. When we arrived he got in the car and took us to a much newer, larger school. His wife was a teacher in this school. He offered us apples (which were amazing) and a warm drink served with peppercorns to help with congestion. We soon found out we were the first American visitors to his town. It was a very beautiful town and the school was really nice, but true to the spirit of Estera she wanted to keep working with the students in the smaller school with less resources.