Romania Mission Trip

Over Fall Break, I had the opportunity to go to Romania as a leader on the High School Mission Trip. Every year ICSV puts together a team of high schoolers and goes to River of Life Humanitarian Foundation located in Western Romania. It is a home for at-risk pregnant women and children, elderly care home, and abandoned children.

In the lead-up to the trip, there were three huge fundraisers that ICSV did to help raise money for River of Life (ROL) since the whole foundation runs on donations and does not, to my understanding, receive any government subsidies. Two of the fundraisers were to help raise money to buy wood for ROL. The whole facility is heated by wood stoves during the winter since electricity costs are very high. However, ROL had many unexpected expenses in the months leading up to our trip and thus was short on funds to buy wood. They needed 6 truckloads of wood and each truckload cost ~500 euros.

The first fundraiser we did was the Coin Fundraiser. This was done the week before the trip where each day was assigned a coin denomination (10 cents-2 euros) students could bring in and put in their assigned box. Each secondary grade was paired with an elementary class and throughout the week the amounts for each team was calculated in a race to see who could bring in the most coins. At the end of the week the totals were announced and the winning team got an ice cream party. The second fundraiser we did was a clothes donation collection where we gathered women and children clothing as well as sheets, towels, and pillows we would take with us to ROL. These donations help clothe the growing children as well as give the women new clothes since most of arrive at ROL with little to nothing. We collected so much that it was not all able to fit in the storage area under the bus on our way there and had to be put in any and every available space in the bus to get it all to River of Life!

The third and largest fundraiser was the Romania Talent Show. All of elementary and secondary had the opportunity to try out and then the best acts were chosen for the Talent Show. This event started with a Filipino meal you could buy that our Filipino staff and students made for the evening. Following the meal, the Talent Show started and all of the students performed their best! During the Talent Show, everyone had the chance to vote for their favorite act for the small price of 50 cents. You could vote as many times as you'd like and some of the parents really wanted their children to win. The third part of the Romania Talent Show was the raffle. Some of the parents who work at the U.N. were able to donate baskets of American goodies they were able to obtain at the Commissary. These baskets were very popular! All of the money from the evening went to ROL. When all was said and done, these fundraising events were able to raise the entire amount that we needed to buy the wood for ROL as well as some extra that we used to buy gym equipment for the kids living there.

The whole trip was from October 25-30 with the first and last day reserved for bus travel. There were 24 students and 6 leaders that went on the trip. We arrived at school early the morning of the 25th and left Vienna at 7:30. It took about eight driving hours to get to ROL but Austrian bus drivers have to take a mandatory 30-45 minute break every 4 hours. So in the end, between toilet breaks, mandatory breaks, and Border Control (Romania is not in the Schengen) it took all day. Our main project once we got there was cutting and stacking the wood that arrived at ROL the day before our arrival. Over the course of our three workdays, Friday, Saturday, and Monday, we were able to cut and stack all of the wood as well as work on other smaller and larger projects around ROL. It was so cool to have our group of 30 descend on ROL and the huge impact we had over the three day period! On top of the huge wood project, we were able to help with some landscaping, tree trimming, and creating a stone road from the front to the back of the property. The picture on the left shows what our workload looked like on Day 1 and that picture only shows 1/4 of the yard. The picture on the right shows what it looked like on Day 3 after we put in the stone road. There was also a children's program that happened in the afternoon where the high schoolers got to interact with the children who live there and show them God's love. Each evening we had whole group devotions as well before breaking out into small groups to discuss what we learned from the devotion and also debrief about how the day went. It was encouraging to see the teens grow and open up with each other throughout the trip.

This trip was a testament of how students with different beliefs can all come and work together to help others. Of the 24 students that went on the trip, only 7 of them are Christians, but everyone was there because they wanted to be at ROL and were willing to give up the first part of their Fall Break in order to go on this trip. When all was said and done, we were able to put in over 600 hours of work in 3 days. It would have taken the three man ROL staff months to complete everything we did. This trip was the sorest my muscles have been in a very long time, but it was worth it seeing the gratitude in the eyes of the women and workers at ROL.