About an hour south of the City of Oradea in Romania, a little camp (Camp Horizon) is nestled in the Codru mountains, in the midst of several small Romanian villages. That is where Melanie Derr and a team from her church found themselves when they traveled there from May 13-26.  Pastor Mihai Balint and his two assistant pastors share the responsibilities of pastoring churches in ten of those villages. Working on a rotating schedule, they each go to 3, sometimes 4 churches every Sunday and preach.  They also have a team of 10 young people who have stepped up to help them in ministering to the children in these villages.

It was these ten children’s workers that Melanie had an opportunity to train. It was a joyto be able to provide them with flannelgraph sets they could use in their ministries.   They were thrilled and couldn’t wait to start using their new materials with the kids!

It was fun to be able to visit several of the churches and participate in their Sunday School classes.  The buildings themselves are very small and the classrooms are no bigger than a small pantry or closet, but the kids did not mind. It was obvious they loved their teachers and looked forward to coming to class each week.

The team also got to hold two Saturday Kid’s Clubs, one in the village of Petid and the other with the gypsy children in Soimi (pronounced “Shoim”).  We were able to share the gospel message with around 60 kids in all through these clubs. It was encouraging to see several of these kids days later, still wearing their gospel bracelets and showing everyone they passed!

Many of their stories are pretty sad, and life in the villages can be very hard. Please pray for these kids, their families and the faithful workers who minister to them each week!

Melanie Derr
Outreach Coordinator
Kids Around the World