I don’t like to admit this but I
didn’t want to go to Moldova at all. I don’t think I would have
heard of it at all if it I hadn’t read a book a while back that
considered it one of the saddest countries in the world. I’d have
been perfectly happy to skip it and head to Africa a month early.
Once in Moldova we had a country briefing and it was reaffirmed that
Moldova has pretty bleak outlook. I also learned that we’d be going
to three different ministry sites during the month. Great. Extra
packing, extra traveling, and extra building relationships from the
ground up than I felt up for. Doesn’t really sound like me, does it?
It had been three months into the Race at that point and I needed a
break from living in community 24/7. I just wanted some “me� time
and the lack of it had made me pretty grumpy.
At our hostel in ChiÅŸinau,
Moldova’s capital, we met our translator and set off for our first
site.
It was a long ride into the middle of nowhere, but it was during that
ride that I started to look at the country and see that it was
beautiful. Green fields, pastures, vineyards, villages, and more
untouched countryside than I’ve seen in a long time. Looking back, I
feel like God was saying, “Loretta
, I love this place too and I’ve been preparing them for you. Change
your heart.�
My heart attitude did change, and now I
want to tell you why I love Moldova. Imagine you’ve arrived at
your destination after traveling in a bumpy bus for hours, carrying a
40 lb bag on your back, another smaller one on your front. You’re not
simply tired, you’re weary! You get off the bus and begin attempting
to put your bag back on, but a man with the kindest face in the world
offers to carry it for you. After that, a kid runs up, gets your
other bag and follows the kind faced man into a church where everyone
is waiting to greet you. I suppose a person can be given food to eat
and a place to sleep without experiencing any sort of warmth or
connection to where they’re staying, but in Moldova, we were welcomed
into three homes as honored guests. I was aware that they were always inconveniencing themselves, spending long hours preparing food for a
single meal, bunking up with their kids, and eating last. I
wanted to tell them to stop working so hard for us!, that we came to
serve them!, but it was no use.
Moldova
has a history and potential future that causes many of its citizens
to want to leave. It didn’t help that I didn’t feel like being there
either. But what was revealed to me was that God has Moldova on
his heart and IS working there, big time. There’s a generation of
young adults that are busy discipling each other and actively
spreading the gospel of grace. Hearts of children, grannies and
grandpas, administrators, single moms, and SO many more people had
been prepared before we got there. We just came, did what they asked
us to do, and we would hear about the ripple effect it had in
the community the very next day. When I decided that I wanted God to
use me, he didn’t waste any time. We led a children’s program, turned
soil in a garden, played soccer, made house visits, painted fences,
clean trash from ditches, gave endless testimonies, taught English,
sang in broken Romanian. We cleaned up a church, helped a single mom
of 3 move into a new home, met and had fellowship with Christians,
played basketball with the school kids, helped with an Easter camp,
and bonded despite a language barrier.
Never
in my life have I seen so much fruit in one place. Never in my
life have I felt the touch of the Holy Spirit prompting me to
speak and giving me the words to say as I have in Moldova. Never
in my life has it been so easy to love people I just met. All I
had to do was be willing. Thank you, God, for
sending changing our route and sending us to Moldova, because I
wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.
