Part One: Planning a road trip, how a sabbatical begins!

I am currently entering the fourth and final month of my sabbatical from our work in Romania and I have been reflecting on what I have been learning while feeling thankful for the time I have had to rest, see friends, family and UK life for awhile. With being on sabbatical, I have been looking back over the years of life and working in Romania and thought I'd share a bit of how I even ended up in Romania and how I started thinking and planning for sabbatical.

Where did it begin?

How can it be 16 years ago??! On 2nd October 2008 I flew from London Heathrow to Budapest, Hungary to start a 3 month visit to Caminul Felix in Oradea, Romania. Caminul Felix is an incredible charity providing homes for abandoned & orphaned children in Romania and now across the world.

I went on that trip in 2008, at a crossroads in my life and not knowing what my next steps were or what I’d be doing next. I definitely did not think that I would go and still be in Romania 16 years later! But on 6th October 2008 I was taken into the Roma community; it still simultaneously gives me goosebumps and breaks my heart remembering driving through that community for the first time and seeing all these children and teenagers in tattered & torn clothes with scars and scratches on their faces and they were just SO excited to have a moment being embraced & playing games with these total strangers from America (and one Brit!). One of the young boys I met flinched when I went over to say hi, and I was informed that this was because of the abuse he had been through and he was expecting to be hit by me...hearing that and the other stories I was told of abuse, trafficking & poverty broke my heart in a way it hadn't been broken before.

Photos from my first trip into the Roma community in 2008

I was then taken to the Izaiah Center, and met the incredible Rachel Ross (founder of Forget Me Not Ministries) and saw FMN’s programs working with the Roma; aiming to give them protection & intervention from those abuses and trafficking risks, and provide education and employment. Rachel was holding one of the Roma children sleeping in her arms while she showed me around, and I remember the stark contrast of what I had just seen in the Roma community and watching these children who were smiling, laughing and just being kids playing and cycling around and asking me to push them on the swings. I learned my first Romanian words 'Mai Tare! Mai Tare!'...Harder Harder!

Photos from my first trip to the Izaiah Center, meeting Rachel Ross & seeing the Forget Me Not programs for the first time

I got to spend the next few months working at both Caminul Felix and with FMN. I spent those months teaching piano and drum lessons at Caminul and getting to be part of FMN's daily programs at the Izaiah Center and in the Roma village. I loved learning about the Roma culture; I had no idea about their language, and how different it is from Romanian. They would teach me words from their language, which got a little confusing while trying to learn Romanian too. Their music and dancing are so unique and fun, whenever I go into the community to visit you can usually hear some music playing somewhere! There are many issues facing the Roma at times, like the risk of abuse and trafficking, or the fight for education and employment, but at the heart you find an amazing and passionate people who are loyal, hardworking and fun.

Meeting the Roma children and adults & immersing myself in FMNs work...it completely and utterly captured my heart and I knew that this was different, that this would be much longer than a 3 month trip.

Alongside visiting & helping FMN for that 3 months, I had an awesome time staying at Caminul Felix teaching piano & drum lessons. My time ended with Christmas and I was able to celebrate Christmas at Caminul Felix and with Rachel, staff & the children at the Izaiah Center.

I went back to England in January 2009 and shared with my friends & family telling them all about the things I had seen, and everyone gathered round and supported me in such an incredible way! It is really unbelievable and so encouraging to me, that I was last officially employed in 2008, since then some incredibly generous and faithful friends, family, FMN and my amazing church have sponsored me to be able to be a small part of FMN and Rachel's vision.

On 15th May 2009 some awesome friends and I started our road trip driving across Europe with vehicles filled with clothes, toys, medicines and other donations for the Roma/FMN. 3 days later on the 18th May we arrived in Romania, and the next 15 years of my life began! I will hopefully be sharing in more detail on here, different parts of the journey I have been on in that time. As I look back on the past 15-16 years of my life, I am so thankful for all the different moments I have experienced. How do I even begin to describe the fun, the excitement and pure joy at times? One of my favourite parts of working with the Roma, is when I get to be in our van driving them to or from our programs and talking & laughing all together. They are joyful, vibrant, passionate people and I am so thankful I know them.

Loading up donations of clothes, toys and medicines with my awesome friends Gareth, Grant & Simon! We then drove from England to Romania in 3 days and 2 vehicles

And how can I put into words the heartbreak of seeing other people's trauma close up or the fear & pain of those who have been or are being abused? How can I ever share what it feels like to walk into someone's home, who has barely anything materially/financially, and who has often been through unthinkable abuses of every kind, and yet seeing the warm smile they have as you sit in their home? The work FMN is involved in means I have seen face to face, or heard stories, and at times been part of helping intervene in heartbreaking situations of abuse, trafficking and prejudice/discrimination.

There have been so many different experiences over this 16 years, that have broken, moulded, shaped, grown and encouraged my heart. I hope to share some of them here on this blog...I feel very different from the person I was when I came to Romania in 2008.

it still simultaneously gives me goosebumps and breaks my heart remembering driving through that community for the first time

The First Sabbatical

So fast forward 15 years, and it was time for my first sabbatical. People had been telling me I should take a sabbatical and Rachel had been encouraging me for years to take one but it took a long time to be on board! I love and miss my friends and family in the UK so much, and was excited to see them. I was also aware I was longing for time to rest (mentally, spiritually as well as physically). I didn’t know how to ‘do’ a sabbatical (and I’m still learning), but I did know after all that time of doing life with the Roma and FMN, that I would need some time to adjust, to feel, to process while on my way to England to take a few months of disengaging from day to day life.

That was when the idea for visiting somewhere along the drive back to the UK began. I looked at my long bucket list (are they still called that?!), and decided to take a road trip through Ireland on my way to Kent, England.

Planning the road trip

I was diagnosed in November 2022 with ADHD (I will be sharing more on this too in future posts). I guessed I might have ADHD when I started to look at quizzes and self assessment tests online for it, and found that I could say yes to literally every single answer! One hallmark/symptom of Adult ADHD or part of the struggle of disruption to executive and cognitive function is leaving things to the last minute (turns out there are a lot of reasons for that, again something to share in the future), and it is one that definitely applies to me. I seem to find I feel at my most productive and motivated when the pressure is on! So 2 weeks before I left Romania I started to really plan out my itinerary trying to turn my pages of notes/research on places to visit in Ireland into a drivable route. I had quite a few places I knew already I wanted to see like the Cliffs of Moher and Killarney, but through reading and watching a LOT of YouTube videos I had a long list of sights I wanted to visit. I knew especially I wanted to drive around the Wild Atlantic Way, and as much as possible I wanted to use it to get to the locations I was driving to, even though were more direct roads I could take. I booked hotels and B&Bs along the way, mapping out my path through Ireland (with the help of some kind Redditors!).

Below is the map of my drive through Ireland. 5th-7th March I would need to drive from Tinca to Cherbourg in France and then take an 18 hour ferry trip to Rosslare port. Arriving 8th March I would then be driving around the southern coast of Ireland, mostly on the Wild Atlantic Way and ending up in Dublin.