Romanian memories...

Yesterday afternoon, I was able to go into downtown Constanța with the PCYM leaders, Paul and Stephanie, and their two year old son, Arran. (Yes, he's named after the island on the west coast of Scotland.) We strolled around the old town, seeing some of the old church, mosque and museum buildings, as well as the casino and lighthouse down by the Black Sea, before going to a restaurant to have dinner together. Back in the 1990s, when Paul was just eighteen years old, he was a student on a PCYM that I led in Paisley, and he took part in a King's Kids outreach that went to Austria and Italy. Stephanie was one of the young people in our Firestarters year-round discipleship and outreach ministry. So it was an encouragement and a privilege, fifteen years later, to chat with them about their own experiences as first-time PCYM leaders here in Romania.

Today I borrowed Arran's "first words" book and tried to teach myself some more Romanian words. The easiest ones are the words that sound slightly like French or Spanish ones, even though the spelling is very different.

Tomorrow will be my last day of teaching in the PCYM. We'll be wrapping up the topics of pre-teen strategies and programme development, and the students will be doing some practical application of this material in class time.