The eighth month of my race I spent in Romania. We arrived at its capital, Bucharest, on the 31st of March, staying only one night before taking a train due west to a small town called Draganesti-Olt (pronounced Dragon + esht Olt). Here we spent the entirety of the month for ministry. The town had about 12,000 people, with a high population of gypsies, and the roads were often filled with both cars and horse drawn wagons. We were informed by our contact that Draganesti-Olt was in one of the most depressed areas of Romania, crippled by extremely high unemployment.
Unlike other months, we lived with most of the squad; only two other teams were not with us. However, we each had our own ministry contact whom we partnered with. While part of my team worked with different contacts, Jacob, Alysa, Bethany, and I worked with a missionary couple named Marian and Andrea. With them we did a plethora of different things, such as home visits, manual labor, handing out food, and being steadfast in prayer.
Romania, for my team, the first month of full day scheduled ministry since Cambodia (4 months ago). Days started around 9:00 and ended around 5:00. Each day looked slightly different; in the morning, we would be together with Marian and Andrea for prayer and worship for the first hour; afterward, we would leave to begin ministry. For the most part, for me it included manual labor – Marian had just bought a house and enlisted our help in fixing it up. We helped fix a couple doors, mix mortar, clean up the yard, and compact rocks for the floor of rooms in the building. I spent time babysitting Marian’s children (not necessarily my strength in ministry), building rooms at a church in a nearby village, and playing with children in a kid’s club in the afternoons.
At the end of the month, U squad held our month 8 debrief in a city in Transylvania called Brasov. We were able to talk our time in Europe so far, have squad worship sessions, and have a dodgeball tournament. During one of the worship sessions, I had an awesome experience with God; it was so consuming that it took me a half hour to realize that apparently my nose was bleeding quite profusely. How cool is that? Also at debrief, teams got shaken up a bit! For the first time on the race, my team has changed. Myself and Bethany have remained on the same team, and my brand new teammates are Rebekah Burney, Kyle Hyche, Ryan Johnson, Emily Miller, and Libby Alcala! While I may miss the members of my old team, I am super excited to start this new chapter of growth with new family members! We are now called…Team Ohana (Hawaiian for family).
My new team and I are now in Dubno, Ukraine, where we have been helping a church with English lessons. Unfortunately, the evangelical church has a reputation of being a sectarian and close minded cult in Ukraine, instilled to the population when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. We teach at schools in Dubno and offer free english [practicing] classes that we teach each night to both teens and adults. For many, this is their time meeting Americans – and yeah, it’s kinda obvious ;). With Libby, I am helping adults practice conversational English, along with giving them daily vocabulary that they can add to their arsenal. The people of Ukraine are extremely kind, happy, and are interested in learning about us. Also, Ukranian food is amazing. So far, this has already been one of my favorite months (If not THE favorite).
At the end of this month, the squad will meet up in Warsaw, Poland, where we will be flying to Africa! There are only two and a half months left in this amazing journey before I return to American soil on August 1st in New York City!
