After a 13 hour train ride from Romania to Moldova (yes, it is an entirely different country), we hopped on another train for 5 hours to finally arrive here at the village of Ocnita. It is quite the contrast of being in Dublin. We are out in the country of rolling hills, cows and chickens, a plethora of grapes, and daily trips to the market place to buy fresh bread and cheese.
Our contacts here are Andre and Larissa, a young married couple who has a 3 year old son Erik. They have amazing faith and have been praying for another team to come since they last hosted another World Race team in April. So here we are! They have opened up their home for 13 of us girls to stay at, while the 2 boys are at the grandparents’ house. We love them very much and feel so blessed by their hospitality. We also love their sister-in-law, Ira, who is our translator. It is so nice to not ALWAYS be doing charades in order to communicate with people!
Andre and Larissa planted a church about a year ago in the village. We’ve been helping with the church services and have even found some English worship songs that they know in Russian. In the evenings we run the children’s program at the church for about 25 kids. They like to teach us Russian and practice their English. They now all know how to say John 3:16 in English.
A few of the girls I’ve connected with, keepin’ it real.
There is also a rehabilitation center for men that Andre started a few months ago for alcoholics and drug addicts. It is a 6-month program and there are 5 men currently there. Andre led us on a backpacking trip to the center, which was about a 9 mile hike into the mountains and very close to the border of Ukraine. He told us he had been praying for a year for someone to hike that with him. It is somewhat primitive living there, but it was cool to see the house that the previous World Race team had been working on. Andre dreams to have a rehab center for women too, but is in need of a female program leader. Please lift this up in prayer. Alcoholism is a big problem here, and a lot of the kids we serve have alcoholic parents.
On our hike to the rehab center
This is our last week here in Moldova. We head back to Romania next week for the Awakening conference for 4 days and THEN…I have exciting news about what follows. We are no longer going to Egypt but instead have an ATL month, where we Ask The Lord where He would have us go to serve. It is going to be in eastern Europe somewhere, but that’s all we know at this point. Every team is praying for the Lord’s direction, and I will keep you posted as the Lord answers!
We woud greatly appreciate you joining us in prayer as we seek what the Lord is speaking to our team about this for the next week. Thanks and much love from Moldova!
