This summer, Cindy Ernst wanted to do something meaningful for her vacation.
    Instead of the usual leisure trips that comprised the rural Cresco resident’s vacations in years past – trips to the Caribbean or somewhere else equally warm and relaxing – Ernst started looking into “volunteer vacations.”
    The new trend in vacationing focuses on traveling to a destination with the goal of  volunteering for a charitable cause. Volunteers pay their own way, and accept no payment for their work.
    “Every time I’d go on a vacation, I’d think ‘this is fun, but there’s got to be something more out there,’” Cindy said.
    While scouring the Web for opportunities, the first one that caught her eye was a service trip to Romania through Iowa Voyagers, a travel service offered through the University of Iowa Alumni Association.
    Volunteers in the program can either teach English or work in a clinic for “failure-to-thrive” orphans throughout their two-week stay.
    Cindy has always loved babies and caring for children, so she decided to sign herself up, along with her daughter, Emily Ernst.
    Emily, 18, graduated from Crestwood High School just 10 days before she and her mom would leave for Romania on May 31. Not sure of what she wanted to do after high school, Emily had expressed an interest in mission work, so she was excited when her mom mentioned the Romania volunteer trip.
    The minute she got off the bus, a volunteer organizer told Cindy, “this is your baby,” and her volunteer work had already begun. 
    Cindy spent the two-week service vacation caring for 9-month-old Danielle, who she quickly grew to love as if he was her own.
    Cindy learned that Danielle was severely malnourished when he arrived at the clinic.
    The children ranged in age from 5 weeks old to 8-year-olds, most of whom have physical or mental developmental problems. Most are brought to the Tutova Clinic because their families can’t support them.
    The children typically stay until they are 3 years old or until they can either return to their families, be adopted or move on to another facility.
    Emily cared for an autistic toddler when she first arrived. She later looked after a toddler with brain function problems.
    The Ernsts, along with the other 20 volunteers from throughout the country and Canada who served on their team, spent their days feeding, bathing, teaching, changing diapers, rocking and playing with the 25 infants and toddlers at the clinic.
    Loving, kissing and hugging the kids took up most of the day, Cindy said.
    Cindy’s personal goal was that she teach Danielle to crawl by the time she left. She spent time each day encouraging him to crawl.
    “We mainly just held them and had fun,” she said.
    The clinic, located in Tutova, Romania, has only one or two permanent staff members for about 25 young children, so they are in constant need of volunteers.
    Romania is the poorest country in Eastern Europe, according to Cindy. She was a bit apprehensive to take a trip there at first because of this.
    But when she arrived at the clinic to the sights of roses, lilies and honeysuckles all around, she was pleasantly surprised.
    While some of the surrounding areas  were drab and run-down, Cindy said the clinic, located in a rural area, seemed to stand alone as its “own little village.” It is a self-sustaining clinic with its own water and electrical systems and a vegetable garden outside, from which clinic staff prepare meals for themselves and the children.

    The Iowa Voyagers volunteer service trip was organized through the nonprofit organization Global Volunteers.
    Global Volunteers is a private nonprofit, nonsectarian international local development organization based in St. Paul. It was founded as a means to establish peace between people of different cultures through short-term volunteering efforts.
    Each year, Global Volunteers coordinates up to 200 teams of volunteers who contribute to long-term human and economic development projects in countries throughout the world.
    Volunteers contribute their time and skills, paying all program-related costs.
    The Ernst duo had free time each night, which they spent making lifelong friends with other volunteers in the program, and getting a feel for the Romanian culture.
    Cindy’s volunteer experience allowed her to become immersed in the local community’s language, culture and traditions, daily activities and living conditions. With a typical leisure vacation, she felt she would not have had the same experience.
    “You really get in there and see what their daily life is really like,” she said.
    When the two weeks had passed, Cindy said it was heartbreaking to leave Danielle.   
   “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about that little guy,” she said. “It was like he was my own child.”
   She even looked into adoption before she left, but Romania does not allow children to be adopted out of the country.
    On the very last day of her trip, much to the delight of Cindy, Danielle crawled for the first time. The baby had achieved the goal Cindy set out for him the first day they met.
    Cindy said she plans to go on more volunteer vacations in the future.
    “It was the most rewarding experience of my life, after the birth of my daughters,” Cindy said.