So this month has brought a TREMENDOUS amount of change….I’ll have a blog up detailing all of the changes that have taken place soon, but I did want to share the first piece of news. For those who don’t already know, we have decided to stay in Romania for an additional month instead of traveling to Ukraine. Yes, we are spending the remainder of September in Bucharest. The entire squad is here and staying at Casa Shalom, the ministry site that my team was at last month. Our squad leaders felt that there was a lot of disunity in the squad and that we would benefit as a community to spend the month doing ministry together.
So for the past 2 weeks we’ve been running kids camps for gypsy village kids. Last week about 25 kids and a few of their mothers arrived and stayed the week here. This was an opportunity for our squad to step up in areas of our gifting to lead ministry activities. It is amazing to see us in action when we are able to work in the area of our gifting! That is clearly why the Apostle Paul writes to let each one serve where he or she is gifted!
We started the day with morning exercise, had prayer & song time, games, arts & crafts, bible stories, skits and then an end of the day message. I loved every minute of the camp and i had so much joy in sharing the love of Christ through my assigned activities. God is definitely planting seeds in me for future ministry work with children!
I loved leading the kids in morning exercise! Running, squats, jumping jacks…you name it, we did it!
teaching kids fun worship songs!
This week we are also leading kids camps, but in a different setting–some kids arrived for a day camp and then yesterday instead of the kids coming here, we went to their community so that we would be able to also minister to others who lived there.
talking to the village kids about Jesus!
Warren from the former Team Fuego (now Team In.Tent.City) has a great blog about yesterday:
“SALVATION IS HERE” Blog from Warren:
So much has been happening over the past ten days. Words can’t really express the wave of emotions that have flooded through our squad. Many changes have taken place. Some great. Some painful. Yet God has stayed faithful through all of this and His peace has been a constant covering through all of it. I will try to post a few blogs over the next few days to catch you all up and where we are, what ministry looks like this month, what changes have taken place, and what is to come.
But something amazing happen today that is vastly more important than anything else. Yesterday we hosted a children’s camp here at Casa Shalom. It went so well. The children had a great time and we had many chances to share Jesus with them. We were not sure at the end of the day where God was going to lead us next in our desires to love on these children. We could bring the children back for another day of camp. But it seemed like an even better idea to just take the camp to them. So we all piled into the van and drove to the small village where all these children are from. We had a great day loving on these kids again yet this time, we had an audience.
Many of the teenagers from the community were there. Some were smoking. Some were cussing. Some were mocking us. It started off as a hard crowd to break into. Thank God for Soccer. Kaleb and I started playing some of the teenagers head on. We lost but everyone had such a good time that they wanted to keep playing. After two games, the bridge had been established. We asked them if we could share our faith with them and they agreed. I began to tell them about Solomon and his quest for happiness and pleasure in life from Ecclesiastes and how truly trying to find life in anything under the sun is worthless. Yet there is infinite life in the One who is beyond the sun. Kaleb and I both shared our stories of brokenness and God’s redeeming work in our lives. Some of the teens wanted nothing to do with Jesus. Others played along but it was clear they did have any understanding of their need for a Savior. The group was praying so much for the Holy Spirit to move and then He did.
There was one guy there named Jorge. We had a blast playing Soccer with him and it was obvious God was stirring something in his heart. After sharing the Gospel with him and our stories of redemption, we asked him if he understood all of this. He said that it made sense to him. Our next question was, “do you want to ask Jesus to save you today?” With a true sincerity in his eyes, he answered
YES
But something amazing happen today that is vastly more important than anything else. Yesterday we hosted a children’s camp here at Casa Shalom. It went so well. The children had a great time and we had many chances to share Jesus with them. We were not sure at the end of the day where God was going to lead us next in our desires to love on these children. We could bring the children back for another day of camp. But it seemed like an even better idea to just take the camp to them. So we all piled into the van and drove to the small village where all these children are from. We had a great day loving on these kids again yet this time, we had an audience.
Many of the teenagers from the community were there. Some were smoking. Some were cussing. Some were mocking us. It started off as a hard crowd to break into. Thank God for Soccer. Kaleb and I started playing some of the teenagers head on. We lost but everyone had such a good time that they wanted to keep playing. After two games, the bridge had been established. We asked them if we could share our faith with them and they agreed. I began to tell them about Solomon and his quest for happiness and pleasure in life from Ecclesiastes and how truly trying to find life in anything under the sun is worthless. Yet there is infinite life in the One who is beyond the sun. Kaleb and I both shared our stories of brokenness and God’s redeeming work in our lives. Some of the teens wanted nothing to do with Jesus. Others played along but it was clear they did have any understanding of their need for a Savior. The group was praying so much for the Holy Spirit to move and then He did.
There was one guy there named Jorge. We had a blast playing Soccer with him and it was obvious God was stirring something in his heart. After sharing the Gospel with him and our stories of redemption, we asked him if he understood all of this. He said that it made sense to him. Our next question was, “do you want to ask Jesus to save you today?” With a true sincerity in his eyes, he answered
YES
We had a chance to pray with him, give him a Bible, and talk with him some about growing as a follower of Jesus. It was absolutely amazing.
All peoples
All nations
All over the world.
Jesus Christ is still Mighty to Save.
