This is a picture of the name tags that the volunteers and the teens made during our first meetings, two weeks ago.
The completion of this past week marks the completion of the first full week of our program being completed!
This week brought many ups and downs, challenges and joys. This whole experience has been such a learning experience in so many ways.
Two weeks ago we first began meeting with the teens. We met with two on Monday, two on Tuesday and finally two on Thursday. We did not want to meet with them all at once because we felt this would be to overwhelming for them.
This past week was the first week that we had all of the participants meet together for three days. Our program meets three days a week for two hours each time plus two days of therapy (equestrian and aquatic). During this time we try to have the teens participate in different social settings, physical activities and cognitive exercises.
There have been different hurdles to jump over to finally arrive at the place we are at now. With working with such a diverse group of disabilities it has been challenging but rewarding to try and plan out what the week will look like for the program.
A typical day in the program might look something like this. The day would begin with some reality orientation, which would include asking the teens what day of the week it is, what the date is, what the weather is like outside and so on. We would then move on to the letter that we were going to work on for that day. We are working through the Romanian alphabet (Little tid bit of knowledge the English alphabet has names for our letters and sounds, the Romanian alphabet just has sounds). During the letter exercise we may split the group up because the participants are not all at the same writing level.
So Angie would take a couple of the participants and work on tracing the letter to get a feel for how to write the letter correctly. I have the other group and on the first day we did the letter A. And we tried to come up with as many Romanian words that began with the letter A. This did not exclude me :) Then we tried to make up a store with those words, it was quite a funny story.
We usually do some stretches, starting at the head and working our way all the way down the body.
We might play a variety of games, one of their favorites is beat master.
Around 11 o' clock we do snack and during this time we work on table manners and serving others. For one of the days this past week we allowed the teens to make the snack. We made pudding. And it was so great to see the teens being independent and doing different tasks on their own.
We try to end everyday with asking the teens what was one thing they felt they did well today (so we all leave on a positive note).
We are trying to do equestrian therapy on Wednesdays and on Fridays (starting next Friday we will do some aquatic therapy/swimming lessons)!!!
The fact that we will be starting aquatic therapy next Friday is a blessing in it's self. The story below will explain.
So since the beginning of the summer we had the thought to do aquatic therapy. We were not sure where this might happen but we knew it needed to happen. There are a few pools in Sigh. a couple public pools and a couple hotels have them. Angie and I wanted to have an hour or so by our selfs with the volunteers in the pool with no one else. Dorothy seemed to think this was possible, we just needed to find the pool that was going to allow this to happen. The first pool that came to mind was at Hotel Corona. We mentioned this idea to one of the locals and they did not feel like it would be possible to use their pool because it is a very fancy hotel and they probally would not be interested in helping out a special needs club.
When we mentioned the idea to Petra she thought we were crazy as well but she also said 'why not, your participants should have just as much right to use the pool as anyone else'. She wanted to see if he would let us use the pool for free and to be ready with a price if he said no. We had a couple other pools in mind if this one did not work out. So Angie, Petra and I went to the Hotel on Thursday to talk with the owner. Angie and I allowed Petra to do all of the talking and much to our surprise the owner was not only very, very agreeable but he said we could use the pool for FREE for one hour in the morning on Friday. At first he said we could not use it on the weekend and then by the end of the conversation he even mentioned that we could use it on weekends!!! It was truely and answer to prayer and my hope it that even after Angie and I leave Veritas will still be able to keep this agreement going. Petra could not believe it herself. So we will begin on Friday with some aquatic therapy and see how it goes.
Some other events that have taken place:
This past Monday Angie and I lead staff devotions. We talk about the book of Ruth and the difference between Ruth and Noami's Character and how we can choose to be like one or the other when having to make a decision. It is always amazing how God gives you things in your own life that you can apply to a message you need to present to others. There were a few decisions that I needed to make this week and I thought about our devotion and who I would react like. My hope is that we have now fulfilled our devotions duties for the summer until the end of the summer when we will present what we have done as far as our program went.
Sighisara had their second annual film festival last week and Angie and I were able to attend two of the movies. It was definitely a cultural experience because the Romanians would laugh at a part and Angie and I could not understand what might of been funny. There were English subtitles for all of the movies. The last few days were rained out. The locals say it is very unusual how much rain Sigh. has been getting this summer. One person recalled how last summer was so hot with very little rain and then this summer has been nothing but rain and a few very hot sunny days.
It is hard to believe that Angie and myself will only be here for one more month exactly today. And it seems like there is so much that needs/could be done. Please pray for wisdom, guidance, strength, compassion and energy.
Time will really fly by from here on out because next week there will be a huge craft show which both Angie and I are looking forward to and hoping to get most of our gifts bought during this time :)
And then the week after that Veritas has their camp for the summer, which Angie and I have been helping to plan. And then after that there will only be two more weeks of the summer left.
Not enough time at all!!!
Happy 4th of July weekend!
Thank you for taking the time to read.
