2012 Team Romania

One final day together started early and ended late! Sandwiches and Gheorghe's tomatoes for breakfast in the van for our first 3 hour stint on the bus to Brasov! Suitcases loaded in the back by Niku - our driver for the entire trip -- he raced us across Romania to Brasov - a lovely city with tons of history, with many buildings dating to the 1400s (including the Black church – one of the few of German Lutheran decent). We spent a couple hours taking a walking tour (lots of hills) and did some shopping before lunch -- one last chance for pizza (and cabbage rolls for a couple of us). After lunch, we grabbed some cash at the local ING Bank and headed for Bran and the every famous Dracula’s castle! As we approached Bran ... read more

Going into a Saturday workday is often tricky....it's not the same...the 6th day of the week....second hand market on the corner....feelings of T-H-E L-A-S-T D-A-Y. There was no painting, mostly flooring, some shoveling, but the mood was one of completion. How can we finish what we started; how can we clean up the site for the next group; how can we say goodbye to our families, our Romanian co-workers, our passion for volunteering. The team rallied in the afternoon to shape up the site and prepared for the next Habitat team to arrive in just over a week. The Romania team was tired, the Thrivent team was tired, but we wanted to make it right, get us where we needed to be. The team felt the need to finish…’hurry up, we only have a half hour ... read more

We started today with the unique opportunity to meet with the communication specialist at the Mayor’s office in Moinesti, the location we are actually building in (Comanesti is where we are staying). We learned a number of things about the community, their vision for the future and how they are working to inspire the youth in their community. We were recognized by the community and received our own certificate as official friends of Moinesti! Then we headed back for a full day at the work site...the normal painting, flooring, and trim, oh my! Dantes and Vasile did their best to get us going through out 4 work places (houses). We have earned their trust and teams were free to use the few power tools they have. The first day we had flooring issues with the floor ... read more

The day started with a plan for a half day of work at the site as we had afternoon plans for touring. We went in with enthusiasm to hit it hard and fast and get as much done as we could. We divided quickly into flooring (most of us) and painting. We soon were reminded that we are dependent upon the Romania counterparts and today the electric company showed up to set up the 4 unit apartment complex. We peeked in the power box and for the 4 unit complex and saw 8 circuits of 220 power. With the U.S. at 110 power, it isn’t an apples to apples comparison, but most U.S. single family homes have 15-20 circuits. We finished what we could and headed back to our place to eat lunch and shower up. ... read more

We were asked to spend our day today at the Habitat for Humanity Comanesti warehouse as opposed to painting - which half of us were fine with the change of pace. Little did we know that 7000+ boxes of flooring in 30 different shades waited for us. So, as you can imagine as we unstacked and restacked box after box we all heard someone say - No, that one is different! Before we got too far into it, we also got to move some furniture out of the way and three team members spent a good part of the day organizing hundreds of paint cans. Think of cleaning your garage and then the garage of all of your neighbors! One of the highlights of the day was sharing the volunteer experience with 6 kids from a ... read more

"Karin, you missed a spot!" -- Yes, we spent most of they day painting - or 'var' as they refer to it in Romania. The problem is, it wasn't the wall that was missing paint, just her left knee! The 'white wash' paint wasn't as thick as we were used too, so most of us painters today took a bath in white. Others enjoyed putting down flooring with a cork looking design. Our co-workers for the day included Radu, Dante, Cipriah, and Viarsales as well as our Habitat contact Christina. The weather was beautiful, sunny in the low 80s. We realized our spot as we sat and enjoyed our freshly made chicken schnitzel and fries and tomato -- while the workers walked away to enjoy their bread with salt. Poverty exists even with those lucky enough ... read more

Here is our quote from the team lead(s) and attached is our team picture from Comanesti Romania. Names left to right Bottom Row: Karin Vukich, Becky Teschke, Deb Countney, Carrie Herrmann, Wende Arnoldussen, Ray Sorenson, Noreen Hannemann Back Row: Mike Martin, Paul Johnston, Pam Wilda, Dennis DeBoth, Heather Hesse,Don Stingle,Britt Lindley Quote from team leads... It's incredible to work for an organization that gives employees the opportunity to demonstrate to those in need, not only generosity, but also how to serve others. We are able to put to action both our values of faith and that of Thrivent Financial through our Thrivent Way mission and values. Our team is passionate about the need to demonstrate the values of volunteerism to those that have both personal need as well as the will to change the problem of ... read more

The entire team rolled into Romania from various parts of the US and a few from Brussels (early travelers)! We enjoyed each other's company last night at Carul cu Bere which seemed to be the most popular place in town. The waitor put together a spread of appetizers including traditional mix of tomatoes, cucumbers, red peppers, eggplant, various cheese (sheep, head, cream) and meats (liverwurst, sausage, raw bacon). Paul found it challenging to try everything while others grimaced. Once to the main courses, we saw a mix of stuffed squash, cabbage leaves, and wine leaves with mincemeat, while others select various sausages or chicken dishes. Compliments included 'baked potato', beans, or palenta. Most of us tried the local beer as well as 'Carlsburg' -- a beer from Denmark. Don and Britt were pressured into dancing ... read more

The distance to Romania!... read more