Three BCC girls, Sam, Olivia and Jelena recently returned from a 10 day visit working with Metro Ministries in northern Romania.  They joined a very small team of three people working full time in the town of Sighişoarafull, to present the 'Sidewalk Sunday' programme and visit the families of children involved from nearby villages.  "It was like entering a world so remote from our own life that you had to experience it to really understand. To see families living in squalor where the kids are dirty and used as bait to make money for families on the streets was tough.  It was in the words of Pastor Bill, a wake up call folks!" said Sam.The team also joined forces with a local YWAM group and visited families living in appalling conditions and in desperate need, living in groups with as many as seven sharing two rooms, with no ventilation and rising damp. Or worse ‒ families with babies living in mud huts with stoves blasting out heat so unbearable you couldn’t breathe. They visited one family in an abandoned building not fit for a dog to live in.While politicians in the UK chase the wind over issues like expenses, when you visit a country like Romania you learn what real problems are.There are broadly three groups of people in the country, Romanians, Hungarians and Gypsies. The latter being the poorest.  Begging is a way of surviving for many, so much so that parents send their kids to beg on the streets to bring in money for the family or much worse promote them into prostitution.Anyone interested in going to Romania to be challenged and to support the work of the Metro team can contact the local team leader directly (verena_rom@yahoo.co.uk) for more information.  More photos of the trip will be available soon.