My Trip to Moldova & Romania Part 1

At the end of May, I had a wonderful opportunity to go on a Sponsor Trip to Moldova (a country in eastern Europe next to the Ukraine and Romania) that was organized through CERI (Children's Emergency Relief International) which my father-in-law is the director.  They provide all types of services for children who are an orphan all over the world.  If you would like to learn more about them, you can click here.  The purpose of the trip was to allow those of us who sponsor orphans in Moldova to spend time with our sponsor child for a WHOLE WEEK!  They had different activities planned for us to do that many have never experienced before such as bowling, going to an amusement park (which is similar to our carnivals here in the US), and much more.  It was fantastic!!! *Warning! There are a lot of pictures to show!

So, meet my sponsor child, Alina... Well, really she's not a child anymore.  She just turned 16. ;)  Isn't she just precious?!

I actually met Alina last year so I was SUPER excited about getting to see her again.  I will never forget the look on her face when we met again.  As sooooooon as I saw her, I called her name out. She turned around and those eye's of her immediately got HUGE along with a big smile and she said, "Jen!" and ran to give me a big hug.  Ummmm can we say tissue please!?  Melt. my. heart. :)

Next, meet my interpreter, Anna.  She is such a sweeeet girl and I am very thankful for her assistance in communicating with Alina.

Here are some more pics of the fun stuff we did...

 We went to a carpet factory so the kids could learn how carpet is made from start to finish.

Then we went bowling.  It was Alina's first time ever!

I got to see where Alina lives in her orphanage. She shares a room with 4 other girls.

Another view down the hallway of her orphanage.

I love the look of pure excitement on her face! :)

Here we are on a boat ride.

 We got to go eat at an authentic Moldovan restaurant. Yummy!

Here is the last day right before we went shopping.  She wanted a new outfit for your graduation ceremony from 9th grade.  We got her the cutest dress but I wasn't able to get a pic!

After our week in Moldova, my in-law's and I took a few days to go to the next country over to Romania.  Here, we did some sightseeing and man.oh.man did we have an ADVENTURE!  That story is for my next post, My Trip to Moldova & Romania Part 2.  You won't want to miss out on some of those pics! :)