Tomorrow morning at some hour that I thought only existed in Greek Mythology, I’ll be on my way to Heathrow airport to get on a plane bound for Bucharest, Romania.

Assuming the technology does what it’s supposed to, I will be twittering while I’m there, so if you are interested in hearing what I’m up to you have a couple of options: Follow me @ http://robpannell.com/twitter or at http://twitter.com/robpannell. Some of my updates will automatically become statuses on facebook, but please bear in mind I will, in all likelihood, not be able to read or reply to any comments or replies etc.

Six weeks ago the thought of such a trip wouldn’t have even formed in my brain. Four weeks ago I could barely move out of sheer terror of the needles that were imminent, and now the day has come when I’m actually going! It seems crazy to me, I never thought I would be doing something like this.

The point of the trip is to visit the many projects of the Cleaford trust, who support some of  the less fortunate communities in Romania in many ways. Of particular interest to me is the Better Homes Project, which replaces slums made of wood, cardboard etc, with small brick housing. The youth group I help lead at my church is raising money to help with this project and so I’m going to see exactly how we are helping.

We land in Bucharest tomorrow afternoon & drive North to Sacele near Brasov through these mountains:

(I cannot wait for that drive!). We will stay in that area til Monday, visiting Brasov Hungarian speaking Baptist church & Brasov children’s hospital.

On Monday after lunch we head a few hours North to Targu Mures to visit the Baptist church & various church plants in Mures county.

On Thursday we’ll return to Sacele & visit the surrounding villages & projects through to next Saturday when we will fly home.

So, please throw up a few prayers for us, and I hope to have some good stories when I return!

What is it within me (and a lot of other people seemingly) that makes me sentimentally keep hold of some things, and simply discard others?

Let me give you the background first:

Last week I had to get the bus to work one morning & planned to buy a ticket in the newsagent before getting on the bus, saving me £1.80. I had just enough time to buy the ticket & get back out to the stop before the bus arrived.

I stepped up to the counter and asked for the ticket, at which point my wallet decided to attempt to safeguard my financial future by welding the two halves of the zip together, sealing my cash away.

As the seconds slipped away and the bus neared, I got slightly more aggressive each time I tugged at it, resulting in a catastrophic rip as the zip came clean away from the wallet spilling the coins everywhere.

So I got a new wallet this morning, having had enough of my change jingling around in my pocket, and whilst it’s a very nice wallet, I’m still left thinking how much I liked the other one. If it hadn’t broken I’d have kept using it for years and it saddens me that I have to let it go.

Chatting to a colleague about it this morning, he mentioned a keyring that he’s had for years, really loves & wouldn’t think about replacing it. If we were talking about an iPod or a mobile phone then neither of us would give a second thought to upgrading to the latest model.

Why does my wallet that cost £4.00 hold so much personal value to me, when my phone, which cost considerably more remains emotionally detached from me?

Yes, I did make the bus.