This month in Romania we are in a small town in the south of Romania called Dragenesti-Olt. A little background on this area of Romania: it is called the graveyard for missionaries and pastors and only 0.02% of people here are followers of Christ. It is a region dominated by Orthodox Christianity, so most people will say that they believe in God, but they don’t have a personal relationship with Him.
Today I got the chance to do kids ministry with 3 of my squad mates. When I think of kids ministry I think of planned structured activities in a church gym with air conditioning. This is definitely not what happened. We worked with 2 different groups of kids at opposite ends of the town of Draganesti-Olt. When we arrived at the first location, we only had two kids, so we decided to just talk with them, ask them questions about their lives and pray for them. Our meeting place was the side of the road, so we sat down in the dirt. I noticed the younger child, Alex, wouldn’t come over to sit with us. Through our translator, we asked him why he wasn’t coming to sit with us. He said that he was afraid of the people whose house we were sitting in front of because the man who lives there beat him up. This child is six years old. We moved to another house and we continued to talk to Alex and Darius, who is around 10 years old.
Many of these kids come from homes where they are verbally and sometimes physically abused. I could see and feel the difference between kids at this age that live in America and the kids that I was siting next to on the side of the road in Romania. My heart broke for these two kids. I wanted to share hope with them, I wanted them to know how much the God of the Universe loves and values them. I wanted them to know that God wants to hear their prayers, no matter how small they may seem. We got the chance to share the Gospel with these kids and read them stories from the bible. Before we left we got the chance to pray over them.
The rest of this month I will be working with the after school tutoring program which is one of the ministries of Hope Church. The after school program runs Tuesday through Friday from 1-3 p.m. The children are provided with a lunch, help with their homework, English classes, and are given the chance to hear the Gospel. Our first day was this past Friday. We got the chance to give each of the children a new backpack filled with school supplies. I am so excited to continue to work with these children and to show them the love of Christ for the rest of the month. More updates to come as I continue to work in this ministry! 
How you can help:
- Financial Support: I am still $3,160 short of my fundraising goal! Please spread the word and prayerfully consider donating so that I can stay on the race spreading the hope of Jesus to the nations! Click the link at the top of the page to donate.
- Pray for Hope Church here in Draganesti-Olt, Romania and their missionaries and projects (email me for more information at [email protected])
