Sports

A Friday Note from Mia

 in Art / Bucharest / God / Mia's Children / Orphans / Recreation / Romania / Sports  tagged art exhibit / business / Children's Day / Iraq / soccer / You Can Make a Difference by

**Wonderful news this week from Mia. We’ll probably provide more details on some of this later. For now, parentheses ( ) have been added for clarification.**

Dear Family,

We had a blessed time where the Lord showed again His glory! We praise his Holy Name, His love and care for all what He is doing every day!

The art exhibit was in Iraq a successful! There were auctioned about 47 art work and we need to receive in our account 8200 of $!

Thursday we’ll have another great moment: The art exhibit and the movie (“You Can Make a Difference”) will be showed first time in Romania and the concert will be  performed by some important Romanian artist(s). The event was worked totally – other than the art part  and the movie – by Ioana Mantulescu and her husband.

Saturday and Sunday, Gabriela, Mihaela, Rivaldo were involved in a soccer national competition. And our team gained the first place at the age between 7-9 years old! We are part from winner team!!!

We went to the park in the county No. 4 where a group of big hearts women from The Business Women made a special day for orphan children, trying to bring them some joy around Children Day. They gave us a tent for garden, so we can have some shade and some other stuff, fruits, school items…

Seems that people started to be more  interest in what’s going on with our work.

Well, I let you (go) for right now. I’m tired and still need to work for something. Miss you a lot.

Blessings,

Mia and all your(s)

What is Oina?

 in Bucharest / Mia's Children / Recreation / Romania / Sports  tagged baseball / football / Moldova / oina / P.E. / tee ball by

In our last post, we spoke about Ion (John), one of the boys at Mia’s Children involved in sports. Ion plays, among other things, the game oina.

Oina is like a mix between baseball and monkey in the middle, but it is much older than either sport. Invented in the 1300s, it has become the national sport of Romania because of its ties to the country and its long tradition there. In fact, there are only two oina federations in the world: one in Bucharest and one in Moldova.

Oina is similar to baseball. There are two teams: a team at bat and a team at catch. The weight of the ball for both games is nearly the same, and the bats are similar.

But while a play in both games begins with a pitch and a swing, in Oina the pitcher and batter play on the same team. The pitch is simple and close up, like in tee ball. And once the batter hits the ball, regardless of whether the opposing team catches it, the team at bat runs from one part of the field to another along lanes on the field (called advance and return corridors).

The opposing team waits in the outfield and tries to hit the runners with the ball. The runners can deflect the ball with their hands, but can’t catch it. If it hits their bodies, the opposing team scores and the player leaves the field.

The game only takes 30 minutes and thus is a popular P.E. activity in Romanian schools.

Sound complicated? Well, it is. But try explaining American football!

This video shows a partial game of oina:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTgScqdcU4&feature=player_embedded#!ref=0]

Soccer, Oina, and Good Grades, Oh My!

 in Family / Orphanage / Recreation / Sports  tagged baseball / Concordia / games / grades / oina / siblings / soccer / tournament by
In Mia’s last letter, she spoke of the sports that some of the kids were playing.

James, 13, is on his school’s best soccer team. It is a competitive team and he travels around the country with his teammates for tournaments. He received a Certificate of Excellence from his school. James also plays “Oina,” an old Romanian game that preceded the American game of baseball. He plays in a league also. All this as well as getting good grades in school.

James for a while lived in an orphanage with his sister, Nina, because his parents could not feed their family. Now he has been at Mia’s several years with his 6 siblings.

Belu, 6, Matei, 7, and Nicu, 8, all play soccer on the Concordia team. They go to the soccer field almost every afternoon to practice and on Saturdays they have their games. Concordia also provides other sports where they can develop their athletic skills.

Belu and Matei have been at Mia’s about 3 years along with their 2 sisters and their mother, who helps Mia with the cleaning and care of the house.