*Attempting to play catch up with Internet connection. This blog was written in Moldova about a month ago. My squad is currently getting ready to head to Swaziland from Mozambique. More updates to come in the next few days!
Moldova: home of Easter bread, squatty potties, painted trees and tea (enjoyed approximately 5 times a day).
This has been the first stop for Team Oasis, and we have loved gallivanting around the city of Cahul with our contacts from Youth with a Mission (YWAM).
This month can be summed up with a few different words. Spontaneity. Variety. Flexibility. Our schedule fluctuates, and on any given day we could be performing a variety of tasks in a number of cities/villages.
For example, on day two of our month, Suzanne and I were shipped to another town to do street evangelism with a different contact. We had no phone and no idea where we were going (sorry, Mom). We only knew to get off at the second major stop and look for a guy named Eugene. Promising.
Our days in Leova with Eugene were a great adventure. We made Moldovan friends while learning about street evangelism and sharing the gospel effectively. This is also where I first tried Easter bread (see sprinkled goodness above). Delish.
Because of this, I was completely at ease when I found out that our team would be traveling to Hanaseni, a small village, to work with an American medical team from Global Health Outreach (medical people in my life… check out this organization!).
When we arrived, I couldn’t have been more pleased to hear some Southern accents! The leaders of the group were two men from Georgia and Alabama, and they made me feel right at home with sweet tea references and exclamations of “War Eagle!”
A friendly game of soccer in Hanaseni. American missionaries V. Moldovan youths. We were excited to just make contact with the ball.
The mission was to provide free medical care to the people of the small village. While the treatments are obviously valuable, the team sees the medicine as somewhat of a bribe to get the people of the community to come. Once they visit the clinic, the good stuff happens. Stories are told. Hearts are opened. The gospel is shared. Prayers are prayed. It’s a beautiful thing.
As a non-medical, weak-stomached American, I was given the task of house visits. No complaints here.
Over the next two days, I encountered several hard but beautiful scenes:
A family fighting the lie that God is punishing them through physical abnormalities.
Nicoletta, the woman with a broken leg that was delivered from an abusive husband.
With each new face and each new story, my heart would soften and I would ask for the words to say. We listened to life stories and shared our own. After praying for the families, we left bags filled with toilet paper, salt, sugar, tea, pasta, rice and cookies.
Nicoletta cried tears of thanks after we prayed for healing over her injured leg and handed her the bag; I loved knowing that we had been used in a small way to help fill both spiritual and physical needs.
Even after the Race is over, I don’t think that her face will ever leave me.
