October 2009

It’s been for several years now that an Evangelical congregation from a German town named Halle Westfalen started coming to Romania and organizing so called work camps there during the autumn school holiday. Our 45 member group consists of specialists and volunteer helpers, many of whom are adolescents. Our leader is Bernd Eimterbäumer who is the minister of the congregation. This year we came for the first time to Ozd to help around the Bonus Pastor’s Therapy Centre.

We first contacted each other one year ago. We had renovated the youth centre of the IKE (Christian Youth Movement) in Geoagiu-Bai and we finished most of the work there, so we were looking for a new mission. At that time we heard about the Therapy Centre and one of our specialists visited Ozd right away. Later on, during the year our minister and some of our specialists traveled to the place once again to plan our work camp and to get acquainted with the people there. Then in October our time came and we traveled to Ozd by a large bus and a minibus.

In order to have income for the Therapy Centre, there is a plan to transform the castle into a facility for a conference center. The work could be financed by European Union funds but this is a distant plan in the future. Until then, there are urgent restoration needs, which would stop the deterioration of the castle. Our team worked on this. We supplemented the gutters around the castle and put in more diverters so that the rain can flow away from the walls. We installed new electric cable to bring light into the darkness, installed new windows, changed the main entrance door and built new stairs inside the building. We dug a pit around the wet walls of the Therapy Centre, we re-isolated them and installed ground outflow pipes. In addition we built a water pump house and did some other minor work, too.

Besides the work we had several interesting meetings with local residents, among them the clients of course. On the third evening they visited us (in the Castle) and told us about their lives. On an other morning we met the clients again on the occasion of a friendly football match which was followed by having lunch together. On one of the evenings we recalled our nice memories about the work camps up to now by watching a slide show. We got acquainted with Brendon, who turned his back on his ten years of a successful banker career and moved to Ozd with his wife and five children to support the Therapy Centre with his volunteer work.

On one of the evenings the pastor of the Therapy Centre, Levente Horvath (the founder of the Foundation) visited us. He told us about a story when a former client once made a remark: there is only a one way road to Ozd, after Ozd there is no other road to go further. For him this symbolically meant that here lives took a 180° turn, radically changed, and this is the only way to get back home.

This is a beautiful simile – some things have changed in us too during the work camp. It was again a fantastic experience to be guests in Romania and we are already happy to plan seeing this place again next year. Because we would like with all of our heart to come back.