The camp was Mon-Fri from 10AM-12PM for two weeks. The first 15 minutes were singing and working on the theme Bible verse (Proverbs 18:10). Class instruction was from 10:15-11:45, then we came back together for more songs and closing. After camp, we had lunch cooked by a local Romanian woman then went back to Rich & Sue's to plan for the next day. In the evenings, we had dinner at Rich & Sue's and just relaxed and hung out. On the first Tuesday evening, the girls came over and made barrettes with ribbons, and on the second Tuesday, the boys came over and made rubber band guns. Of course, an epic rubber band battle ensued.
The students were primarily Baiesi, but there were also some Romanian and Roma students as well. The first 3 days, I helped with the class for grades 2-4. After that, I helped with the class for grades 6-8, because they had more students. I had been worried about if the kids would understand me, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they didn't have any trouble at all! I was able to work with the kids in Romanian, with just occasional help from one of the translators.
On Saturday, we traveled into Sibiu and visited the Village Museum. It was really beautiful and lovely to walk around in. I bought some painted eggs from one of the vendors. We had lunch with some other missionaries in Romania, which was nice. Sunday we went to church in a neighboring village named Jina, where a Romanian man was ordained to be their new pastor. It was such a blessing to see how this man that had lived in America with his family for 24 years felt called back to his home country to be a pastor, and even a pastor of a Baisi church.
The team from New York was really great, and it was so fun getting to know them. I especially enjoyed walking around the village exploring with them. Two of them had been doing the camp for several years, so they showed us all around the village, including where some of the kids live.
I was amazed at how natural it felt to help the kids with math, even in Romanian. Once, I was checking a student's math problem, and I caught myself doing the problem in Romanian in my head! We covered a lot of topics on all grade levels, and since there were between 15-25 kids on any given day, we were able to provide a lot of individualized instruction. I helped teach simple addition/subtraction, double & triple-digit addition/subtraction with carrying/borrowing, algebraic expressions & equations, plotting points on the coordinate plane, midpoint formula, and more. We did a lot of worksheets. We played flashcard game competitions, competitions for time, beachball subtraction, used math cubes, played the "dot game," and more. The kids had a great time and learned a lot about math and about Jesus.
On the last day, two brothers from the older class gave me, the translator, and the American teacher each a chocolate candy bar to say thank you for helping them. It was so amazing to me that these kids weren't just looking to receive, but also to give to us to say thanks. Please pray for Craciunel as he goes to high school in Sibiu this year, after 8 years of coming to the math camp. He is an incredibly sweet and hard working young man.
And now for pictures:
