Lard eating, law breaking

Since many are asking about lard eating, law breaking, we will clarify. Janice ate lard for dinner with our Romanian pizza one night - that's what the Romanians put on their pizza along with ketchup and cheese. :) Fat and pizza...it was good. We also broke the Romanian law with Raelene's approval of putting a few more women in the back of the van than we really should have. :)

We are sorry that we didn't get a post up yesterday. We had some technical difficulties with internet, but they are now fully resolved!!! We will post tonight about today, so this is about yesterday (Monday).

We began our day with presentations. We are eating our breakfasts in the cafeteria on campus where we are the only ones in the mornings. It is always very good food complete with homemade bread every morning. We had four presentations yesterday and each got better as they went. We are getting more and more comfortable with our small group of staff and they are getting more comfortable with us. Many of them speak some English, but many do not. Translation has been a challenge, but with each presentation it's getting easier.

This group is made up of hospice staff, pediatric oncologists, a psychologist, and some social workers. To our surprise, they are actually have a great foundation and are already incorporating, without even knowing it, some basic child life techniques. They are very interested in learning more of our practical skills and applications. Because of the health care system here, they have voiced that many of our ideas can be difficult to put into practice here in Romania i.e. time with families, parental presence for procedures, etc. However, they are open minded and appear to have the passion for children to advocate for some of these changes.

Jan, Audra, and Laura got to visit a local pre-school where Karis and Tori (Raelene and Elijah's daughters) attend school. They enjoyed celebrating Mother's Day here in Romania with all of the children and their moms and seeing special programs that the children put on throughout their day. They made homemade pizzas in the classroom and desserts. They had a wonderful time. Jan will spend time today and tomorrow working with Raelene to help come up with a "blueprint" of what school services would look like for the hospice and hospital children here in Romania. Laura will be helping Raelene with establishing a blueprint for Emanuel Hospice to recruit volunteers and grow their program.

This is Tori Soritau

This is a flower dance that the girls were doing for their moms. :)

Yesterday afternoon we visited Emanuel Hospice. We toured it and visited the offices. We learned how their program came began and has grown. It continues to grow, and we were amazed at some of the programs they have in place currently i.e. summer camps, art therapies, and support groups. Like Raelene, Marinela, the director of hospice, has an incredible passion and is full of vision for Romania and this hospice. We will be visiting children in their homes this afternoon (Tuesday).