Drew Gray is a high school senior from Fourth Presbyterian Church who served in July 2019 at RCE’s Summer Camp which benefits children and families from RCE’s Poverty Prevention Program.
This past summer I had the exciting opportunity to go on a Missions Trip to Romania with RCE. It was a wonderful experience, and if you are reading this thinking about going on the trip-- you should totally do it. We arrived in the morning after a red-eye flight and drove two and a half hours from Budapest, Hungary to Arad, Romania. I don’t remember anything from the drive since I was asleep the whole time. We arrived at Sunshine School around lunchtime and ate lunch with Ovi.
On Sunday we went to Ovi’s church and worshiped with them. Since none of us understood Romanian we couldn’t make out what the sermon was about, but it was still a good day. Monday we split into two groups-- one group helping build a house for a family while my group went to Pecica and Sorin’s House where we helped with the kids and did some simple tasks. Later that day we drove to the camp, where we stayed for 4 days.
During the camp week we interacted with the kids by playing games and serving food, and sleeping in teepees alongside the kids. Even though there was a language barrier we were still able to communicate with the kids, which was important. Each day had the exact same schedule which was helpful in figuring out when and where you needed to be. It was an overall fantastic time with the kids, but my favorite event at the camp was the USA vs. Romania soccer game, because if you watched the Romanian kids there would be a few cheering for USA and a lot cheering for Romania. Another fun thing that we did was explore an old castle from the 1400s on one of the afternoons.
Going to Romania taught me many things, but the most important thing that I learned is that there are kids being neglected all over the world and it doesn’t take that much time or effort to help them. We were able to help out for a week and still have an impact on the kids lives for the better.