Gypsy villages, Jubilee, construction, sermons, and so much MORE…

BOONA! (“Hi� in Romanian)

So sorry about the delayed response… it seems like there’s always something to do around
here besides blogging. But I’ve been having a great time in Bucharest and feeling truly blessed to be here.

There’s so much that’s been
happening! I’ll try to give you a brief update on all of it (we’ll see how well
that goes though!)

The first week here we did some ministry
at different gypsy villages. The first village we went to we simply tried
to connect with the local children –
we played soccer, jump roped, played duck duck goose and tag, sang some
children’s worship songs, and had a mini Bible story and lesson. We also tried
to love on them as much as
possible and prayed for people in need. It was a sweet time. 

(pictures shown of us playing some circle games, jump roping, and singing “This Little LIGHT of Mine, I’m Gonna Let it SHINE” with the kids)

I met a young boy named Elia there who really
touched my heart – I found out his mother had just died that morning and he
was from a broken home. His father didn’t have any work, he only had one other
brother, and he had trouble with his eyesight. I was in constant prayer that day for him and his family and just tried
to show him the LOVE of Jesus as much as possible. I prayed for healing for his eyes and for NEW LIFE for him and his family. He seemed more joyful after I prayed, which was an awesome testament of Christ at work in his life;
he continues to be on my heart so I ask that you keep him and his family in prayer as well – he is a precious son of God. 🙂

(pictures of Elia with a horse he was quite fond of and another one of us playing together)

The next day we went to another gypsy church and helped run the service; we found out that one of
our teammates, Tyler, has an amazing
gift of leading worship, mad guitar skills, and a beautiful voice. SWEET! Carin and I sang up front with him and
helped lead worship – it was my first time ever doing that
but it was a ton of fun. I’ve done it a few times since then as well
and I can’t wait for more! I’ve recently been discovering a deeper
love of music (I’ve always truly appreciated it but never really
stepped into doing it myself), so I’ve been trying to learn how to play
the piano, guitar, ukulele, and sing all at once. I can’t get enough of it! 🙂

Throughout the week we were forced to become very FLUID (not flexible… because even if you’re flexible things can
still “breakâ€�) with our time and continue to drop our expectations – we often didn’t know what we were doing
until the day of or even a few hours before. Plans change constantly and things often run way behind “schedule�…
but it’s been a good exercise
in faith and trust for the whole team. This is what we’re going to come
in contact with the whole year so it’s
nice to get more experience with it now. I am continually impressed by all the
optimism and positive attitudes around me… I am working with some rockstars of faith and I could not
be more blessed by my
team. YAY JUBILEE!! 🙂

(pictures of the beautiful girls on my team! left: all of us piled up in the back seat of a car (we love each other) and right: enjoying some late night bread and NUTELLA along with some hardcore talking in our attic room! Good times indeed.)

On the weekends we travel to different churches to minister and worship with the Romanian people; we
generally lead worship, give testimonies, and preach sermons at each of the
churches we visit. It’s been neat to continue stepping out of our
comfort zones and adopting a mindset of complete openness,
willingness, and surrender for however
the Lord wants to use us. I am a firm believer that without challenges there would be no growth, so I’m grateful that God is pushing and stretching us in
various ways to mold us more into His likeness.

[Tyler happened to have a friend from home (Jesse) in Bucharest who was helping out with a Christian conference called Fascinate (because Jesus’ LOVE is truly fascinating) while we were here. We had the opportunity to visit this church and worship with them for a night – which was simply INCREDIBLE to say the least. The Spirit of God was thick in that room and I experienced His presence deeper than I have in a long time – maybe ever. There was such freedom and surrender there. It was utterly refreshing and redeeming to be in that place and the whole experience was simply a blessing. So this picture was taken as we were leaving the church after an intimate three or four hours of pure connection with the Lord. We were all pretty stoked about it. 🙂 Shown in the back is: Brittany, Aly, Jesse (Tyler’s friend), Tyler, Claudus (a Romanian pastor and a man ON FIRE for Jesus!), and then in the front is: me, Carin, and Tracy. Justin couldn’t come because he was preparing for a sermon the next day, but he was with us in spirit. So yea, this was a sweet sweet time with Jesus.]

(This is another picture of us in the metro on the way home from the worship service – I LOVE my TEAM!! p.s. I took this with my outstretched arm… it’s pretty centered, eh?! Haha… I’m starting to speak like Carin, my Canadian teammate. She rocks!)

This past week we started working with JUBLIEE (same
name as us – yay!). This is a ministry that houses about 30 girls in their mid
to late 20’s and early 30’s who have been victims of neglect, abuse,
abandonment, and some sort of handicap. They are loved and cared for in a Christian home
and we have the opportunity of being a part of that this month. We’ve just been
trying to build relationships
with them and show them love. This has consisted of a variety of
different activities such as playing hand games, making bracelets, painting
their nails, playing soccer and volleyball, holding hands, taking walks, trying to talk to them and hear their
stories (there’s definitely a language barrier but we’re attempting to bridge
the gap… translators help 🙂), teaching them
English and in turn learning some Romanian, playing the guitar and ukulele,
singing worship songs, telling/ reading Bible stories and
asking them questions about it, etc. We’re just trying
to be present with them and show them the LOVE and HOPE and
FREEDOM of Jesus as much as possible. We bought some sidewalk chalk
and markers so I think we’re gonna break those out tomorrow and see what
happens… it should be a good time. 🙂

(pictures shown of 1. Maria (a girl who has been adopted and lives at Casa Shalom with us – she’s AWESOME) translating for me as I read Bible stories to the girls, 2. all of us around a table at Jubilee playing hand games and 3. Aly and Getta (one of the girls at Jubilee) playing with a kitten – precious!)

(More pictures! Us playing VOLLEYBALL with the girls and a boy at Jubilee (the cook’s son) learning how to play guitar – he was fascinated with it and Tyler was teaching him some skills)

We’ve also been doing some construction work
on a house that will be used to host teams of people who come to work with Jubilee in the future. This
has been a multi-faceted project and has definitely taken
some good ole manual labor,
but I’ve been enjoying it. It’s nice to have a change of pace and actually see some physical progress at the end of the day. 🙂 We basically cut down a jungle in the front yard (with weeds and trees that were
about 4 feet high), moved huge stones, cleared out piles of rubbish, chipped
away at plastered floors, swept, mopped, and scrubbed down rooms, painted, used
steel wool on more surfaces than I thought possible, and pretty much did anything
else they asked us to do. It’s been GOOD TIMES indeed. 🙂

(Picture above of me hacking away at a stubborn tree/ root with a small ax… I was going to town on that thing! Picture to the right of me scraping away plaster on the floors. 🙂 )

During feedback a few nights ago our team decided that we
want MORE. More depth,
intimacy, and dependence on GOD first and foremost, and also on each other. So
after doing about two hours of “ATL� (ask the Lord) in listening prayer, we
came back together and shared what we had heard from Him. We all got a lot of
different things (PRAISE GOD for
SPEAKING TO US!! I am SO grateful for that!!) and He confirmed a lot in us as a team. Basically, we’re in the
midst of seeking greater depth and intimacy right now; we want to
grow and mature in our spiritual gifts
and receive all the Lord has for us, so please keep us in your prayers.
(I’ve been practicing praying for healing and have been getting a lot of
visions recently, which is super exciting… Praise
GOD! But I continue to long for more.) We decided to do a two-day
fast together in order to grow our dependence on and faith in the Lord…
and that just ended tonight. It was an amazing way to come together as a team
and grow in Him… when I felt weak, God made me strong and allowed me to
literally stand in HIM (my team
helped with that too as I almost fell down on the train a few times. No worries…
I have food in my system now and it’s all good.) It was a powerful experience and I’m truly excited
about what the Lord has in store for all of us.

(This was taken by the lovely Carin after church one day as we waited for the bus; I was getting super excited about some recent Bible findings, Aly was deeply engrossed in a book, Tracy was making her “not another picture” face, and Brittany was joyfully looking off into the distance. Yea… this pretty much sums us up.)

We went to a different church today and I had the opportunity to preach the sermon – yay! I didn’t know I’d be doing it until yesterday so I didn’t have much time
to prepare, but it’s all good… as a true
procrastinator that’s how I generally function best. 🙂 I stayed up pretty
late last night trying to get ready for it and woke up early this morning as
well (I know you’re not surprised, haha),
but it ended up going really well. I talked about having faith in the
hard times… even when we have big questions about God or when things
happen that we don’t understand (like pastors dying of cancer, etc.) It was
nice to have a translator because it
gave me time to look at my notes and figure out what I was going to say next; I felt a lot of peace  the whole day and was deeply
grateful for that.

My team totally lifted
me up in prayer before, during, and after the sermon – I love them! One of them stayed up with
me last night and helped me organize and practice the sermon with her – I told
her she should go to bed but she refused. Instead she simply said, “No, I want to stay up with you… we’re
in this together.â€� 🙂
What a beautiful and sacrificial gift!
Another one of my teammates gave me the verse Psalm 81:10, which says,

“I am the
LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.�

 It was comforting to
be reminded that God is the one
doing the work… we are simply being obedient to follow His call.
I merely needed to open my mouth wide and God filled it with HIS
Spirit, His, words, His wisdom, and His truth… which are all way better than my own. So I rejoiced in that. 🙂 The pastor was
grateful for having us there and said he could tell we were the “people of God� by the Spirit on us…
that was really cool to hear. Praise the
Lord! 🙂 I
want to be an ambassador of HIM to
the nations and it’s so encouraging when people can
recognize that in us. All the glory goes
to GOD for that though… it is HIM
who is at work in us and shining HIS
LIGHT through us. YAY for being tools for JESUS to do this work!!

This coming week is our LAST week here (I can’t
even believe how fast the
time went by… it’s insane), so we’ll be doing a combination of work at the Jubilee home and construction at the
other house. This weekend the rest of
our squad will be meeting us here (at Casa Shalom) to have a brief
check-in  before we start our second month of ministry. All the other
teams are in Ukraine right now and will be staying in Romania next, and we will
most likely be traveling to Ukraine as the lone
team once more (we’re not sure on
our actual assignment yet… so stay posted on that!) Also, there has been
some flooding
in Romania and Ukraine in the past week, which is making it difficult for some
teams to find transportation here. Please
continue to pray for all of them – that they would make
it here safely and that we would all
enjoy a time of rest and rejuvenation with one another
before heading off for more ministry.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has made this trip a REALITY and for your continued love, support, and PRAYERS! I love
hearing from you guys so please keep in
touch!! Thanks again! 🙂

 

SS Some more FUN FACTS!!

     – 
I’m teaching Tyler the Rubik’s cube right now
and will probably teach the rest of my team by the end of the trip! (Dad, I
know you’d be proud)

– 
Brittany wrote a song and SANG it to me as her
feedback tonight – it was incredible. We took a video of it so hopefully we can
upload it soon!

Soooo…. TE OOBESCK everyone!!

(There’s so much LOVE here!)