So who would have guessed that I, the
long-winded-won’t-shut-up Christian, would be bad at keeping a blog
updated? Hahah I think that life
is just much busier than I could have thought it would be before leaving. I
want to do better at keeping all of you up to date on my life though because
there is so much amazing stuff going on over here and I want you to be able to
be a part of it!!
I just finished eating 4 hard-boiled eggs in bed. I’m just going to be completely honest
about that. Hard boiled eggs have
become my favorite food as of late.
I don’t know how the heck I never discovered that I loved them before
now but I am INTO them.
Most of our food that we are served here is starch. Lots of bread, pasta, potatoes, and
rice. After a couple days of being
here in Moldova (oh yeah, that’s where I am!), the guys realized that we needed
to get some protein somehow so we started looking around. Turns out we can buy 30 eggs for a
couple bucks and we can also find walnuts under just about every tree. So our guy times consist of heading
down to the farmland (I will tell you about the farm land in a minute), boiling
some eggs, and cracking open some walnuts. Legit. I’ll
tell you a bit more about guy time and how I feel about that in a minute too,
don’t worry.
So there are 19 of us here in Cornesti (cor-nesht),
Moldova. You may have never heard
of this country before but trust me, it exists. I’m here and I wouldn’t lie to you about something as
important as the existence of an entire country…I mean I guess I wouldn’t lie
to you about something small either…but still. It’s here.
There are 13 girls here and 6 GUYS!! I’m really excited to have 5 other
dudes here with us this month.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my sisters in Christ, especially the ones on
my team and on leadership with me.
However, there’s just something about time spent with MEN that
rejuvenates me.
The guys are split up with 3 of us living in the flat of the
Pastor that we are working with.
Then the other 3 guys are living on what we call “the farmland”. The farmland is legit. It is basically 1.5 acres of land
filled with gardens and pens for the various animals. Then, on the front side of it, there is a small
cement-walled house. The house is
very simply made with just two rooms.
There’s not really a kitchen, no running water, no bathroom other than a
STANKY outhouse, and then there are some mattresses thrown down on the
floor. So three of the guys are
living there this month. In one
corner of the bigger room, there is a wood-burning stove built into the wall
which is what we use to boil our eggs.
To get a good picture in your head of what the farmhouse is,
take whatever picture you have in your mind from my above description and then
make the house in your mind 40 years old and semi run-down. That will probably get you
close. But hey, it’s WARM and it’s
a place to sleep so we actually are pretty blessed to have it.
I have not been blessed with getting to live in the farm
house. I am living with Kyle
Markel (one of the other team leaders) and Brandon Ellis in the pastor’s
house. It has been really great so
far. We have been able to get some
really good pillow talk going in the room and it’s filling me up in such a good
way. Good pillow talk just puts my
heart in such a good place and satisfies my soul.
The ministry we are working with is really really really
really awesome. Sometime I am
going to post a blog that really goes into depth about this ministry (if you
can’t wait, I’m sure someone else on the my team or the teams that I am with
(Anchors of Hope and Perisuo) has posted one by now. Check em out!
Basically though, we’re working with a church called Sinai
30 in a town of about 5,000 people.
This country is STRONGLY Orthodox Christian. This isn’t Christianity so much as it is just religion. Sounds very similar to the Catholic
church of old with the Church having a very large influence on society and
government.
This church that we are working with is on fire for
Jesus. WE have only gotten to go
to one service as of now but it was SOOO awesome to see how intensely these
people are seeking after the lord.
When someone in the church begins to pray up front, the entire
congregation erupts into loud and fervent prayer for a good 5 minutes
straight. It was awesome.
The pastor that we are working with is named Vitalie…my
friend! I love this guy so
much. He is 28 years old, has a
very gracious wife and 3 adorable children. This guy has so much vision for this ministry. God has blessed him with an abundance
of vision for the growth of the gospel in this land.
The main ministry of Vitalie and his church is something
called the Shelter. Currently the
church has 4 girls and 9 boys that are a part of this program. These children are orphans who have
been rescued from sex trafficking which is a huge issue in Moldova (number 1 in
human trafficking in Europe in terms of % of population trafficked). These children are given beds, food,
and the love of Jesus. They are encouraged to study hard, grow in the Lord, and
are raised up to become true men and women of God.
The church has many other ministries but all of them come
under the common purpose of supporting or furthering the Shelter ministry. Vitalie’s heart is to grow this
ministry so that the church can accept more and more children into the
shelter. As it is currently, the
church simply can’t afford to take care of any more children at this time.
Vitalie’s heart is that the ministry could be
self-supported. They have the
farmland which they use to raise pigs, chickens, and “beavers” (really muskrats
which are a HUGE delicacy in Moldova).
The land is also used to grow vegetables. All of these items can be sold in local markets for money
which can be used to purchase food.
Also, some of these animals can be used to feed the orphans in the
shelter as it is much cheaper to eat your own Beaver instead of eating one that
you must purchase.
There is also a sewing ministry where Vitalie’s wife sews
aprons and other clothes. These clothes are either given to families in need,
single mothers in the town, or are sold for support.
I could go on and on about the pieces of this ministry. There is a children’s program for the
street kids, there is an evangelism ministry, there is a ministry to just
provide help with building projects that are needed around the city, etc. The heart of all of it though goes back
to the Shelter. The other
ministries are either there to support the Shelter or are there to provide the
children in the shelter with places to minister.
It is really awesome and is cool to work with a ministry
that is so energetic and so energizing.
We have been doing some building projects, working on the
farm, working on newsletters for the ministry, working on media for the
ministry, working on sewing projects, working on the kids projects, etc. It has been cool to see how everyone’s
different gifts are really getting utilized this month!
Ok I’m going to go for now but I will probably come back
later and add even more to this post…
I’m back!! Only
for a few minutes though because it’s about to be time to head down to the
church for the Wednesday night service!
I actually did something super awesome between when I was typing earlier
and now. Can I just say that my
excitement for this ministry just grew by about 2000%. Seriously, God really does have some
awesome stuff for this place in the near future. I’m excited to see how it happens over the next couple years
and even as it begins to happen this month. I’ll tell you more about it later. Don’t have time at the moment.
OK what are the other things that you absolutely need to
know before I leave for now? Let’s
see:
1. I burned my
finger really badly last night because my excitement about the eggs was too
intense. I was trying to get the
eggs out of the boiling water with a spoon and accidentally stuck a part of my
glove in the water. It soaked up
the boiling water and dominated my finger in the split second that it took me
to get the glove off! It blistered
up like nobody’s business today!! Dangit I should have taken a nasty picture of
it. Don’t you worry though, it
will be fine. I’m keeping it clean
and it’s already getting better.
Still pretty nasty though.
2. It’s really
cold here. I had to buy gloves and
a really heavy coat for this place.
It’s down at or below freezing at night and the apartment that I happen
to be staying in doesn’t exactly have heat…so yeah, it’s pretty cold at
night. It’s ok though we have
plenty of blankets!! It’s just
hard to get out in the morning.
3. For our day
off this week, we went to the Sauna with our contact…I don’t really know what
you tell you about that other than just to say that it was INSANE and
LEGIT. I love Vitalie so
much. He’s legit.
4. I miss some
people. It has been really hard
not having as much contact lately with the screens fast and then just having
limited internet this month. Really
missing my siblings a lot.
Laura. Rebecca. Jeff. I love you guys intensely and miss you a lot. I want to
write each of you soon if I can find some time! My dudes; I miss you too. My parents; it feels like I haven’t talked to you in a while
and that is so weird! I don’t like
it and I’m going to try to email you guys soon too. Leah; don’t even know how to say how much I miss you
beautiful lady.
5. I am going
back to the capitol of Moldova this weekend for two nights to meet up with
U-Squad who has been on the field for 10 months and is about to head into their
11th and final!! We
will be there Saturday and Sunday night and then will head back out here to Cornesti. It’s only about an hour away and I
think it’s going to be really good for both my squad as well as U-Squad to be
able to pour into each other for a couple days on the field. I’m excited to worship with them! It’s
going to be awesome.
Ok, I must cut this off. It’s like forever long. Love love love.
P.S. This is a video of our day off that we had in Bucharest as well as our first few days here in Cornesti, Moldova!!
