Casa Valentin

Casa Valentin is a facility in a town called Cataloi near the Romanian/Moldovan border.  It is named after a young boy who died of AIDS.  It is a vacation camp in the summer and an after school centre during the rest of the year. Only poor, handicapped or otherwise disadvantaged kids are invited - oh, and at no charge.

There is a garden and fruit trees where kids learn how to work and to produce food. The staff make jam and preserve the fruit and vegetables for the kids who come to Casa Valentin. The activities and games are planned and adapted to the physical and mental abilities of the kids who come.  They learn and they have fun.

The bunkrooms are cute and comfortable - each with a different color scheme.  Children with handicaps often bring a caregiver with them to vacation camp, so sleeping accommodation can get a little tight.

We met Adrian and Gabriela Popa in May 2011.  He is a Baptist minister who plays the violin, she is a trained nurse and a gifted organizer. But their passion is helping poor and needy kids.  We loved them right away and were so impressed with their vision and dedication to these young people.  Gabriela is the executive director at Casa Valentin and she gave us an idea of how we could be of help.

The windows at Casa Valentin are leaky and single paned.  Meaning that the building is hot in the summer and cold and drafty in winter.  After doing a little pricing and comparison shopping, we had our project! And a little extra surprise.

The Church organized a European Young Single Adult Conference for the last week of July. It would be the first time it was held in Romania.  The happy problem was that there were more kids registered than beds in the facility they had rented.  Humanitarian missionaries to the rescue!  By the time we got word, it was the height of summer camping season.  It took us several trips to find 30 air mattresses, 30 sleeping bags, and 3 air pumps, but as you can see, we did it. We literally emptied the shelves of 3 large stores in Bucharest. We got the pillows and pillowcases from Ikea.

On the day before the conference was to begin, we rented a Jeep Cherokee, packed it to the roof and drove to Oradea - near the Romanian/Hungarian border.  We were met at the facility by 3 young single adults who were part of the organizing committee.  They helped load all the stuff inside.  We wished them good luck and told them we would be back at the end of the week.

We returned on Friday evening in time for supper (we're no dummies). There were about 180 kids in attendance.

They were from 11 different countries and spoke 12 different languages.  So workshops, classes and firesides were conducted in English (the common denominator).

On the left are President and Sister Hill (our new mission president and his wife).  In the middle is Elder Schutze - an Area Authority Seventy who stayed and attended every day of the conference.  Home for him is Germany.  On the right is the mission president for Hungary and his wife.

We sat and ate with Elder and Sora Howells, the dedicated senior couple from England, whose assignment was to help the young people organize and pull this conference together.  A huge job!  Like us they are serving an 18 month mission in Romania.  They told us they don't know what they will do to keep busy after the conference is over. We are sure they will get involved in something wonderful. They invited us to stay for the fireside that night.

I caught a photo of the choir practicing before the meeting. They sang "Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?" in English...and very well.

After the meeting and before the last dance of the conference, kids from the various countries gathered to take group shots in front of the flags.  Bright and early the next morning, we were back to pick up the sleeping bags etc. and load them up again. Not hard to guess where we were taking them.

That's right.  Back to Casa Valentin to check out the newly installed double-glazed thermopane windows with screens provided by Humanitarian services and....

to donate the 30 sleeping bags, air mattresses and pillows! This little girl was much happier than she appeared when I snapped this photo.

Before we left we got to meet the new group who just arrived for their week at the vacation camp.  They were sweet, happy and excited for the adventure that lay ahead.  All because people like Adrian and Gabriela Popa love all God's children and work very hard to make a difference for them.  We were delighted to know that our projects were going to help all who come to Casa Valentin enjoy the experience even more.