Math Camp July 2015

For the past two weeks, I (Jessica) had the amazing opportunity to help with a "Math Camp" in Poiana Sibiului, Romania.  Our friends Rich and Sue have hosted this camp for 8 years, with some math teachers from New York state.  Last spring, when we visited Rich & Sue in Sibiu, Sue told me about this camp and offered to let me help out with it, since I was a high school math teacher for 5 years before we came to Romania.  I've been looking forward to it ever since!

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:

Running the Bucharest Half Marathon...again

It is generally considered helpful to reflect on a race you've recently run, and since several people are interested in what it is like to run a half marathon in Bucharest, I (Cameron) thought I would say a few words about today's race. This was my second year running the Bucharest Half Marathon, and so below are three changes I made from last year's Half.

First, a half marathon is 13.1 miles/21 km. There are many training plans that are fairly easy to find on the Internet, which is what I did, and they tend to last anywhere from 12-15 weeks (mine was 13, which I found quite fitting for a 13 mile race). The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to find a plan where you run three or four days during the week and the weekend long runs don't jump too quickly from week to week. Then find a race you want to run and count back 12-15 weeks from the race date to see when you should start the plan. Although training plans usually peak at a 10-mile long run, I picked a plan this year that peaked at 12 miles. It is true what they say that if you can run 10 miles, then your adrenaline will push you the rest of the way, but last year I was not a pretty sight crossing that finish line and I knew I needed more. I felt way better physically at the end of this year's Half.

Second, I changed my strategy going into the Bucharest Half this year. I realized that there is actually no shame in walking 30 seconds or a minute when you get tired, and so I began incorporating short walk breaks into my long runs every couple of miles. I don't know why, but last year I had bought into the purist belief that any walking I did on the course was somehow failure. There are lots of well-known running coaches who advocate incorporating walking, and I honestly found that it makes my 10+ mile runs much stronger and even a bit faster. Luckily, the water/gatorade stations were situated at roughly 5 km/3 miles apart, and so I decided to walk while drinking/eating (one station also had apple slices).

Third, I knew what to expect for race day. I remembered from last year that no one really cares (like they do in bigger races) if you line up according to your bib number or not. I remembered that, like it or not, some non-runners will dart through the course because it is quicker than walking to a designated crosswalk. But best of all was that I remembered the different turns and segments of the course.

Jessica said that when I passed where she was standing (somewhere between the 14 and 15 km marks, I think), I was actually on pace to finish around 2:10. Unfortunately, I had to walk a few more times and hit the port-a-potty, so that slowed me down near the end. Nevertheless, I still pushed to a sprint at the end and, as I said above, felt so much better physically than I did at the end of last year's race. My final time was 2:18 (two hours and 18 min), meaning that I beat my time from last year by five minutes!

Standing in front of the enormous Parliament Palace (the main government building in Romania)

From the finish line

Glad to be done

Thankful for my beautiful wife, who waited for me from start to finish

A short video we made of the parks that we run in and from the half-marathon today!

Romanian Orthodox Monasteries - Days 3 & 4

On the third day of our trip, we spent the morning and afternoon at Putna Monastery.  We were able to talk to a monk there for a long time (about 3 hours!) about what it means to be a Christian and church history.  He even invited us to have lunch at the monastery.  We ate fish soup, fried fish, mashed potatoes, salad, and bread, all homemade from ingredients from the monastery grounds.  It was really cool to see where and what the monks eat.  After leaving Putna, we visited Arbore Monastery, but the church was locked and there was no one around, so we were only able to see the outside.  Jessica drove from Arbore to the city of Suceava - her first time ever driving in Romania!  That evening, we ate dinner at and toured the Suceava Citadel.

On the fourth day, we visited Dragomirna Monastery.  Dragomirna has the tallest church building of all the monasteries and is incredibly quiet and peaceful.

 

Welcome to Putna

The entrance to Putna Monastery

Inside Putna Monastery

A statue of Mircea Eliade, a famous Romanian poet, who called Putna the "Jerusalem of the Romanian people"

An image of people being cast into hell

A similar image to other monasteries, but this scale under the Holy Spirit has "Faptele Bune" (Good Works) on one side and "Faptele Rele" (Bad Works) on the other side.  This was really interesting, because the monk we talked to told us that salvation is not by works, but by grace through faith.  Then he added that we also need tradition and the saints.

An image of Noah and his family sacrificing to God after the flood

A really cool image of Eve being taken out of Adam's rib (bottom right hand corner). If you click on the image, you should be able to see it better.

The tomb of Stefan cel Mare is inside the church at Putna

An image next to Stefan cel Mare's tomb of him offering the church to Jesus

Another view of the church at Putna

From behind the monastery, you can see written "Stefan" on the hillside.  Legend says that Stefan cel Mare shot an arrow from the top of this hill to determine where the altar of the church would be built.

A close-up

We saw a lot of storks along the road.

Arbore Monastery

Cameron looking at the church at Arbore

The side away from the road at Arbore is better preserved.

Another really cool image of Eve being created out of Adam's rib

Jessica at the entrance to Arbore

The cemetery across from Arbore.  You can also see the style of gates in the Bucovina region.

Jessica driving for the first time in Romania!  She drove for about 45 minutes, through several villages and into the city of Suceava.

A view of Suceava from our hotel

We had dinner (mici) at the Suceava Citadel.

Suceava Citadel

Cameron inside the Suceava Citadel

It was so beautiful to watch the sunset from the citadel.

 

 Day 4: Dragomirna

Dragomirna Monastery

The entrance to Dragomirna

The courtyard - it was so peaceful.

  

The entrance to the church.  It was really interesting that the first two rooms inside the church were not painted (the walls were white), but the third room with the altar was painted.

Beautiful flowers in the courtyard

Dragomirna has the tallest church of the monasteries.