Casa Elim Retreat

The beautiful retreat center in the mountains near Bran

Spent a lot of quality time on this swing :]

Learning about Noah & making paper arks

Racing our arks down the creek

Hanging out at the playground with the dogs

Corina is so precious!

Emily was the master flower crown maker

Volleyball, Basketball & Soccer courts

Our little picnic

Churning the homemade ice cream

The line for ice cream!

Watching Kit on a tiny ipod screen while we babysitters take a much needed nap!

Real american graham crackers & marshmellow!! You know what that means...

Makin s'mores :]

Our room!  Great talks & laughs with those girls :]

Juliana with baby Alex

The whole gang!

Juliana rocking one of the wigs the ladies bought in Bran

Our blue bus & uhaul to take us back to Bucharest

      Jenn Lipp emailed me soon after I arrived in Romania asking if I would be willing to help out with childcare at their misson's retreat in April.  I said probably, just remind me to clear that weekend when it gets closer... but she forgot, and thus I totally forgot all about this retreat.  So on Thursday after school, Jenn asked for my email address to send me details about the weekend and told me the bus was leaving from the school at noon tomorrow, and of course I was completely confused.  But thankfully I didn't have anything important going on this weekend, so I cancelled my language lessons for Friday & Monday, and packed my bookbag for the weekend!  (Another example of why flexibility is key on the mission field!)


      Along with Daniela Popa and Rebekah York, I helped take care of the kids of the missionaries that were there for the retreat.  We had Ben (12) and Lizzy (10) from the Millhouse family, and Madeline (8), Collin (7), Juliana (5), Corina (3), and baby Alex (2 months) from the Droll family.  We had a blast playing on the playground, riding bikes, having a picnic, playing games, paying ping pong, coloring, doing Chineze jump rope, and whatever else the kids could come up with!  I really don't know how they had so much energy or how Mrs. Droll does it!  Saturday evening we made homemade icecream & Sunday night we made American s'mores, and of course were eating way too much in between there too.  It was also great getting to play volleyball and ultimate frisbee with a big group!


      I loved getting to know some BCA people better, and especially our group of girls.  Daniela, Rebekah & I pretty much spent the entire time together playing with the kids, and I'm so glad I know them better than just a "Hi" in the hallway now!  The older girls that stayed in our room were Emily Smith (yay another friend about my age!), Emma Cox, Christy Reynard (whose family is on home assignment but her dad came to speak at the retreat), Rebekah York, & Daniela Popa.  We stayed up until like 1am talking and giggling and rolling in our beds laughing the last night.  They're such a great group of girls & I hope to get to continue to know them better & have more girls' nights with them! :]


      But I'm so glad I could go on this adventure to the mountains with the Cox's, Smith's, Millhouses, Reynard's, Droll's, Jenn Lipp, Laura Westrum, and all the teens & kids!  It was a great weekend of relaxation & teaching for the adults, and a tiring but fun weekend for us & the kids!  Once again I'm so glad that my schedule is flexible enough here that I can be used in many different ways to help and support many missionaries here in Romania! :]