Tuesday 30 August 2011

In about 3 hours I will be leaving the Shire for a few weeks.

I am heading down to Luton airport today because we have an early flight tomorrow morning.
While we're on the subject of Luton Airport, does anyone remember the Campari adverts?  You'll have to excuse the sound quality, it was the best version I could find.


Tomorrow morning we have to be up early and at the airport for 5:45am.  Flight leaves at 7:45am local time.  We will arrive in Romania at 12:35pm local time there.  3 hour flight with a two hour time difference.

I'll be back on Sunday 18th September, again very early.  In fact our morning flight FROM Romania is a 6am flight!!!!!! That means we have to be at the airport for 4am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Good grief.

You might be wondering why I am not afraid to mention online that I will be away.  You may be worried about security of the house and so on.  That's simple!  The rest of my family is staying at home.  This is a trip I am making without my husband and without my children.  I am going with a friend from church.

I don't know if Romania is considered much of a holiday (vacation) spot these days, although it's coastline certainly was in the past, because I went there with my family as a child.  THAT was a bit of an adventure, but those are stories for another day!


This trip is being made for other reasons than a holiday (vacation).  We are going to visit a family from Belgium who now live in Romania working with the poor Gypsy communities in a fairly rural area.  The ministry is called Talmid and is based in the heart of Transylvania, in the mountain village of Romosel.

They are involved in a lot of different projects with the gypsy community, one of which is a ladies sewing class.  Earlier this year I had been posting photos on Facebook of some of the sewing projects I had been undertaking, and was asked if I would come over and teach the ladies sewing class some projects that they could then sell at local markets.  So that is what we are doing.  My friend is going to be doing some silk painting with them and I am going to be doing some sewing and other fabric projects with them.  Hopefully we will be able to combine the two into some cushions or wall hangings.

I have put together some files of projects I have found from around the internet.  I have set them out with plenty of photos, and then the English instructions on one side of the page, with plenty of space for a translation into Romanian on the other side of the page.  There are far more projects that we can undertake in the time we have with the ladies, so this will leave them with a whole set of projects that they can then work on after we have come home.

We have raised funds for this trip through sponsorship from our church, Springfield Christian Fellowship, and through other fundraising events, such as cake sales and car boot sales, as well as sales through my Etsy shop, and donations from internet friends.  Those funds are paying for all travel expenses as well as for a whole load of craft materials which we have bought and are taking with us.  And I do mean a LOT!  There is not all that much room in my case for clothes, which is not all that bad, since the weather will be hot while we are there.  Not hot by the standards of some of my friends in America, but hot by our standards here in the UK.  Still, I am glad we avoided going in July or August, because that is exceptionally hot.  A forecast taken a couple of days ago, is below, but you should be able to see a more up to date forecast at the top of this blog, although I am not sure how accurate that forecast is.



There will also be time to take part in other ministries that the family are involved in, and amongst other things we definitely hope to do some baking!  I do hope I have enough time to take lots of photos, particularly of the ladies sewing class, but don't know if I will be too busy actually teaching and helping to remember to take the photos.

I'll write more when I get back, but in the meantime, if you want to read about typical Romanian party food, you should check out this blog that I discovered, just this week.

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