Day 3: OSCEB English/Adventrue Camp 2011

Even with very hot temperatures in Bucuresti and the lack of a beautiful mountain setting we have been encouraged with participation of students in our "city" camp so far this week!!

Tuesday

We met for a night of fun and games. Because of the fact that we live in Romania and things here don't always work out the way we plan it was no big deal when the electricity stopped exactly when we needed to use our electric frying pan to see who had made the best American style pancakes. It was par for the course, so the bakers went to our teammates house (5 minute walk), made the pancakes, and returned for the tasters to announce the winners. Other than a few strange looks by passersby the night was enjoyed by all.

In round two three teams competed to make "American Pancakes" without a recipe and just the ingredients laid out before them. 

Wednesday

We transformed our living room into a cinema with pillows and bean bags as well as snacks for a movie night.  We chose the movie Les Miserable because the themes of grace, redemption, and law are beautifully woven into it. The discussion afterwards was thought provoking as students grappled with the ideas of unmerited grace and how that can change one's life like Jean Valjean from the story. Mike concluded the evening by showing how the grace of God in Christ can change our lives when we turn to Him for forgiveness.

Summer Camp 2011 In Bucuresti

In the spring the Bucharest leadership team began planning English/Adventure Camp 2011.  We had noticed a progressive decline in the number of students coming to camp in the past years, especially after Romania joined the European Union.  The students of today are looking to get a job or an internship in the summer and not too many have the time or financial resources to go to camp in mid-July.  This year it really showed when we had only a hand full of students and their friends registered for camp, and then just days before we were to leave most of those invited by the Christian students had to cancel for one reason or another.  So we were left to just hold a camp with a few Christian students.  Since this was not our goal, the Lord gave us some creative ideas to try here in Bucharest each evening this week.

We started out on Monday night with a Progressive Dinner.  We had the main course at our apartment and we squeezed 20 students into the living room for a Lasagna, salad and garlic bread dinner.  The students had a great time and we ate well.  Most said it was the "best camp food they ever ate!"

 

For the appetizer we enjoyed "mushroom pie" a true Romanian treat!  It's not a sweet pie, but so delicious!

Then it was on to our house for the main course.  It had been a hot day and then packing in over 20 students made it like a sauna in our living room!

 Lastly we arrived for dessert of Carrot cake, apple cake and ice cream!

Spring in Review

 This spring there were many activities in our lives both at school and in OSCEB.

Alice In Wonderland

Rebekah was chosen as one of the narrators for the play this spring.  All the students worked hard memorizing lines and making all the sets (Hannah helped with the painting!)  They were able to perform the show for one night only and it was wonderful!

 

BCA Basketball

 This spring there was the re-appearance of the BCA basketball team.  Andrew had his first taste at really playing a team sport and the discipline of weekly practice.  We had 12 guys come out to play!  Mike got to help out as an assistant coach.  In May we had a mini-basketball camp to see if there was enough interest for a team for next year.  The interest is high so we will see how they do when the season starts!

Parks

Hannah loves to go to the parks and be in nature.  She works hard in school and loves to relax in the park during the weekend with friends!!  They enjoy renting bikes or boats and spending time together.

OSCEB

The Bucharest students returned to the dorms as the weather got warmer offering free Bibles and other Christian books to students.  We would go and set up the table in a public area near the dorms and then engage students in a discussion when they stopped to look at what we were giving away.  Each year fewer students stop to talk, but every now and then we do get into good conversation with students.  But it seems fewer students want to  continue discussing the Bible in some form of a study.  One day we had the table by a busy road and a bus driver stopped when he saw the table, got out of his bus and asked for a Bible.  As he returned to the bus an older women knocked on the window because she wanted a Bible as well!

OSCER Spring Leaders Meeting April 2011

7-10 April, 25 student leaders and staff met for 3 days of meetings in Azuga up in the mountains.  We had some wonderful discussions hearing from some of our board members as they shared stories from the beginnings of OSCER.  Gelu, our board chairman, shared from his days as a student during communism of how students risked to meet together and reach out to others with the Gospel during those difficult days.

 We also spent one evening talking about the chain of discipleship relationships and how these helped the student work to grow around the country in the "early days".  It was extremely encouraging to hear how God worked in one city and helped a group to start up and then how that group saw they could then go to a new city and begin to invest there and see a student group get started.

 

 

 Saturday afternoon we took off to visit the old fortress at Rasnov.  It was a beautiful day and  a welcomed change as we had been sitting and meeting for a day and a half straight!

Our last night we had the traditional celebration of Slanina (pig fat), onions, bread and garlic!!  WOW pass the listerine!!

OSCEB Ski Camp Feb. 2011

 This year our ski camp was held at Azuga, just a few hours north of Bucuresti.  We spent four days on the slopes, but there was very little real snow.  I, Mike was in the intermediate class and here we are with our instructor Dan, in red.  Dan was a student in OSCEB a number of years ago!!

 One day we did get snow at the top of the mountain and it was pretty foggy!!  Here we are getting ready to head down the mountain.

 Loredana, staff in Bucharest, does well skiing.  Here she shows how she can slalom in-between  the others!

 Sara has just joined us from the US and will be working with OSCER for the next two years at least.  She has only be here for about 2 weeks and is doing great learning the language.  She was here on a summer team in 2008.

Here  the beginners spend their first day learning the basics of skiing!  By the end of the day they had mastered the snow plow to stop!!

Christmas Time is Here!

Each year there are many activities happening as Christmas approaches.  Here are a few that we have been involved with:

OSCEB Christmas Concert

Once again the students in Bucharest hosted a Christmas carol concert.  For 2 weeks before the concert the students went through many of the dorms doing a survey with students and inviting them to the concert.  They found students open and often had great in-depth talks with the students about the Gospel, but we find it very hard to motivate them to come to a meeting or study to discuss more about Christianity.  Please pray for us to have insight into how to reach this new generation of student in Romania.

We also passed out over 4000 invitations to the concert and were pleased that about 300 students came to listen to the Carols and a short message.

Other Student Groups 

This month Mike was asked to speak in Pitesti to the students, about the topic "Who is celebrated at Christmas?"  It was a good meeting with both university and high school students in the group.  The meeting was a week before their big outreach meeting that attracted many students.

We both traveled to the city of Craiova to visit the student group there.  They had a big outreach meeting with about 120 students in attendance.  One extremely encouraging thing was to see how the churches have come together to support the student group.  They had students from four different churches, which is a great step forward for the group.  Please pray for unity as the churches work together to reach students in their city!

BCA Christmas Program

 The students at BCA had a fun Christmas program as they presented an adaptation of the Christmas story with songs from the group 'ABBA,' changed to reflect the Christmas message of Christ's birth.  Rebekah played the part of the innkeeper's wife as well as one of the angels that appeared to the shepherds.  To see more pictures click here

Caroling in Romania

On Dec. 23 we went caroling with some friends to other friends of ours in the city.  We had a great time singing in the apartment building hallways, where there are beautiful echos.  We must have sounded pretty good as people we didn't even know handed us money and said we sounded good.  The tradition in Romania is that you carol people and they give you a treat or sometimes money!  We enjoyed mandarins, cookies and chocolates!! It was a fun evening.

OSCER National Conference 2010 ReImagine the Christian Student

Nov. 11-14, we had our first national conference in 5 years.  We inaugurated the "Imagine" conferences that we plan to hold every two years.  Our Conference theme this year was the Gospel, and the three main talks where "What is the Gospel?", "The Gospel and Me", and "The Gospel and Others".  Each talk was well presented and we had small groups after each talk to help the students process the information.

 Kris was asked to present "The Gospel and me" where she focused on our need to "preach the Gospel to ourselves daily and to battle with the sin in our life.

The conference took place in a beautiful location in the north-western part of Romania.  One highlight was our service time on Saturday afternoon.  We split up into teams and were given jobs to do around the conference center. It was a small way that we could serve.  Here are some pictures of the jobs we were involved in!

 Overall, we were very encouraged by the conference and look forward to how we can develop this conference and make it a much anticipated event every 2 years.

 We were greatly encouraged that many students from Bucharest were able to attend since we had to travel the furthest.

The first evening we had some games to get to know each other!

The times of worship were led by a Romania Christian group Decean.

Thank you for your prayers!