Watch the video first maybe?
Ok, now that you’ve watched my riveting video, I need to
know how you feel about it? If you
know me, you know I love writing and I definitely don’t ever want to stop
writing. However, it is soooo much
easier for me to just sit down in front of a camera and talk for a bit or maybe
take a video while we’re out doing something to tell you all what’s been going
on. So if you’re ok with me
throwing some video’s in sometimes to cut back on the writing, I am thinking
that I might look into perfecting some of my video blogging skills and using
that a lot more. (I realize that
the video I posted this time doesn’t really provide you with that much
info…they’ll get better in that aspect).
But yes, the trip here was insane. In the end, we traveled 58 hours from Atlanta to Targu
Mures, Romania. Additionally, when
we left Atlanta, I had already been awake for 18 hours. It was super weird
because I probably only slept like 5-7 hours throughout the whole trip…meaning
that I slept at the most, 7 hours out of 76. Think about that.
I’ve never done that before. And it was so weird how not tired I actually was by the end
of it. For some reason, I was just
super awake throughout most of the trip.
I think that I got a little bit tired that first day but very quickly
switched to just being crazy. I
have never had as little control over my laughing as I did on our last train
ride. Twas awesome.
It is so hard to sit down and tell you all of the details of
a travel experience that lasted for more than 2 full days…because there are a
lot of details. But it was awesome
to see all the crap that the d-ville tried to throw at us throughout the
journey. I’m going to do my best
to give a super condensed version of what all happened:
– Christian boards a bus at 3:45 AM on Friday morning
– Christian sings the Romanian national anthem on said
bus…having no idea what the actual Romanian national anthem is. Ended up being gibberish mostly
– Christian continues to be annoyingly excited on the bus
ride and tram ride to ATL airport
– ATL airport tries to charge us a baggage fee which we
should not have had to pay
– ATL airport succeeds and WR teams pay annoying baggage
fee. WR teams maintain joyful
spirit though.
– ATL airport succeeds in being annoying about other travel
(refuses to let us go to Romania unless we can prove that we are leaving
Romania within 3 months…it’s not easy to prove sometimes…but we got it)
– Christian sits beside Jessica Robbins and Daniela Romo on
the plane…laughs his butt off.
– 6 hour layover in JFK before flight to Warsaw, Poland
– Flight delayed 3 more hours…we’re going to miss our
connecting flight to Romania.
– Start hanging out with a guitar and Jesus gives us some
sick worship time in the middle of the JFK airport
– checking in to the Warsaw flight is a pain
– WR team reacts with some more prayer and worship…sick out.
– Awesome last meal in America at some pub in the airport
– long flight to Warsaw…horrible in flight movie. It was some cartoon in Polish. Are you kidding me? I needed X-Men or something.
– Stephanie looked hilarious while sleeping on the plane
– Arrived in Poland.
Found out we were now going to Munich and THEN to Romania.
– Enjoyed the long layover in Poland (6 hours?)
– Flight to Munich got delayed a while. We were worried about missing our
connection. Got our prayer on in
the airport and literally right as we finished praying, the plane showed up
earlier than expected. Boom.
– Flew to Munich
– Literally were on the ground in Munich less than 30 minutes. Our plane touched down, we were driven
to the airport, RUSHED through customs, and then were told to RUN RUN RUN
through the airport to our gate.
We literally went from one side of the airport to the other. Then we were put in another car and
driven to our new plane to Romania.
On this drive to our new plane, we literally drove within 30 yards of
where our other plane was sitting.
Loved the irony. But we
were off the ground again within 30 min of landing. Sick. I’ve
never been in a country for so short a time.
– Wine is free on whatever airline we took from Munich to
Bucharest. Had a glass and it was
wonderful.
– Got to Bucharest at like 1:30 AM local time.
– Had some “fun” with getting SIM cards for our phones (another story)
– Slept in the airport (slash didn’t sleep at all but jammed
on guitars for a while)
– decided that I ABSOLUTELY should have brought my guitar
with me
– decided to buy one ASAP
– took a bus at 5:20 AM to THE SKETCHIEST TRAIN STATION
EVER. Like seriously, it was kind
of terrifying. We got out of the bus in the pitch black and
walked up this big deserted hill where there was just a couple street lights
and a railroad track…and we were in the middle of a very poor, sketchy part of
Bucharest. Mildly terrifying but
we remembered that we don’t walk in fear…so we didn’t. And we were fine.
– Took a fittingly sketchy train to the main train
station. Arrived at 6:45.
– went to buy train tickets and found out that our train
left at 7:10…we bought the tickets at 7…we ran.
– Took the train that I am on in the video…
– Switched trains in Brasov
– Experienced what I hope is the sweatiest sleep of my
entire life but what I fear is actually nothing close the sweatiest sleep of my
life. Either way, it was the
grossest that I have had thus far
– had some awesome awesome team time on the train
– and finally arrived in Targu Mures at 9:30 PM.
We were worn out. The Pastor that we are working with (Zsombor Horvath)
picked us up at the airport and took us to the place we are staying where we
each took VERY MUCH NEEDED SHOWERS and then went to sleep. I’ll make a video here soon of the
place that we are living. It’s
crazy and we have been so blessed this month.
OK, I’m going to cut this off. I know that I didn’t really keep that “super condensed” but
hey, it’s me right? We knew that
wouldn’t happen.
I am going to just add my prayer requests on here every once
in a while so that you guys know the things that I’m praying into and that I
would really appreciate you joining me in:
– Pray against any kind of doubt that is coming against my
team. We want to know with all of our hearts that we are Children of God who
walk in light in this dark place.
We need to know that light PENETRATES darkness. We need to know that God’s timing is
different from our timing and that even if we never see anything happen in
front of our eyes, that our prayers are still effective at bringing the kingdom
and bringing life to this place.
– Pray for the woman that I love that God has placed in
Tulsa, OK for this period of time.
Pray that she would be comforted by the Lord as we go through the
hardships of being away from each other.
Pray that Jesus would work in her heart and just really draw her closer
and closer to Himself during this year.
And pray for me as well as I struggle with the same hardships of being
away from someone I care so deeply about.
– Pray for continued growth of unity in my team. We have been blessed with just an
amazing sibling dynamic so far and I can’t even believe how much I love these
people already. Just be praying
for us that we would never be satisfied with the gift of community and unity
that we have been given but that we would always press deeper into each other
and into growing in community.
I believe that prayer is powerful. I believe that you praying into these
things will legitimately make a difference and would love it if you wouldn’t
mind taking some time to just lift them up.
Thanks duders, love you guys.
