If I was asked to describe in one word my favorite part of Romania for our first month of the World Race, it would be GOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!! I spent much of my time in Romania playing soccer, whether it was with a random group of kids who showed up at the field to play, or if it was with the Romanians from the church we were working with. There was even a really nice soccer turf field that a few of us from the World Race team would go to with the Romanians from the church. Here, the Americans would usually always be put on their own team to face the older and much more experienced Romanian teams; a lot of the time it didn't end well for the Americans.
(One of the guys I would play soccer with)
When I wasn't playing soccer for ministry, I was usually working with Daniel, the pastor of the church of about nine, whom I talked about in my blog “Measuring of Success”. With him, I did different things, such as cleaning, manual labor, driving to and attending his church, and a puppet show for kids one day.
(Me, one of my squad leaders, and Daniel on the right)
The cleaning and manual labor was anywhere from organizing wood to mopping up the most disgusting water in the world (the pipes in the kitchen had gotten clogged, and my job was mopping up the overflow as they were cleaning out the pipes of this food, which had turned solid, that they estimated to have been building up there for a year). But I mopped up that water with a willing heart, knowing that I was doing a job that not many would ever wish to do themselves.
One day I even got to minister to some bees! This is Alexe, the brother of our head ministry contact in Romania. He owns a large bee farm, and a few of us helped him harvest the honey.
(Getting ready to pick up garbage from around the city!)
Another thing I spent a lot of time doing in Romania was logistical things. It was definitely a growing experience for Lauren and I, the two logistics coordinators for the squad of fifty, as we worked through many obstacles. For me personally, I was struggling with the fact that while others were out there evangelizing on the streets, I was spending a lot of time in an office trying to negotiate a lower price for a hostel in Kiev, Ukraine. It was hard for me to remember sometimes that what I was doing for logistics was a ministry, just as much as evangelizing on the streets is. The squad needs places to stay and ways to get there, so someone devoting their time to doing that allows the rest of the squad to pour their energy into other things. Lauren and I were happy to accept this responsibility when asked to do so throughout the next eleven months, knowing that we would be serving the squad by doing so, and I grew to understand that it is a legitimate ministry.
(Hammock City! Where a large number of us would sleep)
Our first month of the World Race was a scoring success, and I miss playing soccer with everyone there already! Our entire squad was together in Romania, and we had to grow as a community under one roof; but next month, just my team of eight were together in Moldova (the country that our second month had been switched to) where we were given a ministry that we were all ecstatic for!
Coming Soon: Month Two overview in Moldova!
