Riverside terrace!

Yesterday we had a busy day (when don't we?) ... I was at the Secret Garden (our day centre for for poor and homeless people ... or SG1 as my husband fondly refers to it!) with more than 20 young people from our church here (Metanoia Church Arad) and a visiting youth group. They wanted to visit and have some time with our street children and young people. Before the street people arrived I talked to the group about our work on the streets and what we hope to offer at the drop-in centre. Some of them expressed an interest in volunteering with us ... we certainly could do with the help, especially Romanians, as they would be able to help with basic education as well as spending time talking with young people on a one to one basis.

It was a great time, the church young people brought food and tea with them and made mountains of tasty sandwiches. 'Our' street people feasted, laughed and joked and generally enjoyed all the attention. One of the guys from church had brought his guitar, so they sang together and I think a good time was had by all! meanwhile Kenneth stayed home to get on with admin work, Amy went to an American family's house to spend some time with their daughter and a few other young folk. Johanna studied for exams - she's much better than she was though still quite rough at times. Kenny was in Timisoara probably sleeping most of the day away as it was his friend's birthday party last night.

Late afternoon we decided to all go into town and have a coffee and a cake for a treat. We went first to a sports club terrace by the river. There is a section actually on the river but it was being prepared for a small wedding party so we went on one of the other terraces. As you can see from the photos it's a delightful place and we had a relaxingng couple of hours there, watching the river go by and the occasional fish jump out of the water and listening to the birdsong.

Rosanna and Yasmina had a great time too. Rosie found it fascinating just to sit looking out at the river and to watch the occasional fisherman and one brave young man having a swim. Yasmina wanted to wander and kept trying to get nearer to the water so we had to keep a careful eye on her, the river Mures is quite fast flowing even though the terrain is so flat in Arad and has dangerous currents.

From the riverside we went to a lovely 'cofetaria' for coffee and cakes ... ahh, such indulgence! We often think that it's quite a shame we're so busy all the time ... Arad has some truly lovely places to go and we rarely take advantage of them! We joke about giving up the work with street children so that we can have more time to enjoy ourselves - but it is just a joke ... honest!