Eighteen students, faculty and staff members traveled to Romania May 7-22 as part of the second Charleston Southern University sociology mission team in the past four years.
Emily Kuppens, of Mount Pleasant, a Charleston Southern senior majoring in sociology, shares a meal with children in the Scoala 16 orphanage in Campulung, Romania.The mission trips grew out of a working relationship that a relative of sociology professor David Naylor had with a missionary working in Campulung, Romania. Several Charleston-area churches support this Romanian orphan ministry in Campulung as well. The ministry, Fundatia Seceris, translated as Harvest Foundation, is an American/Romanian ministry founded by Seceris US, a non-profit Christian organization based in Charleston.
According to the Seceris Web site, Romania has been faced with thousands of orphans housed in institutions for many years. Many of the orphans are physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped, and do not receive the special care that is needed.
“These children need all the love we can give them,” said Naylor.
The group from Charleston Southern spent much of their time in Campulung with the children at the state-run orphanage, Scoala 16. The group prepared meals for the children, assisted in feeding them, and ministered to the children at the orphanage in the form of Sunday school, playing games, and giving them lots of love.
The CSU group also conducted Vacation Bible School for the Campulung community. Families participating in VBS enjoyed music ministry, crafts, and learning the gospel.
“I learned from the trip how vital relationships and community are. For a while now I’ve just been living life, but something happened on the trip and I suddenly felt alive in life, and I realized that the relationships I made there I want to keep forever. I want every relationship I have to be active and genuine. I want to be ‘alive’ in my own life,” said Danielle Alexander of Fayetteville, Ga., a CSU junior majoring in psychology.
In addition to ministering to the children of Scoala 16 and the community of Campulung, the group met with the president, faculty members and students of Titu Majorescu University in Bucharest to open a dialogue with them about the possibility of an inter-campus relationship. Also during their trip to Romania, the Charleston Southern students conducted research and completed projects related to their majors. For example, students researched and reported on topics such as the impact of corruption, changes in architecture, human trafficking, changes in communication, and the mental disabilities of orphans, just to name a few.