I am full. I am full of joy, hope, compassion, and the love of God. I am able to share that with others because it was first given to me. I know that God is there, and He shows it to me in ways that I would never expect sometimes.
I’m going to be completely honest and tell you that I have been struggling immensely in the last two weeks. I have felt empty, alone, and disconnected from God. I have wanted to go home and I didn’t know why I was here. I didn’t want to talk to anyone (which is really hard when you’re in all squad month) and I just wanted to give up. I had been praying nonstop for God to help me and fix me, to talk to me and let me know that He’s there, and I wasn’t getting anything. I was honestly angry with Him. I saw all of these other people on my squad having these amazing “God moments”. You know, the moments that you think of when you think of The World Race. The moments that people write blogs about, the moments that you know God designed exactly for you. I wanted that, I wanted it so badly.
I will tell you that I never doubted that I was supposed to be here. I knew that God called me here, but I was confused as to why and I didn’t want to deal with exactly how hard this is, because let me tell you, IT’S HARD. The World Race is hard. Much harder than I anticipated. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think it was going to be a cake walk, but I didn’t think it was going to be so hard that I would want to go home in month 2. I didn’t think that I would be sitting in Greece, yes, GREECE, saying that I just wanted to go home. Yes, ministry can be tiring, but that’s not what’s hard. It’s everything else that is. God redeemed it all for me the other day though through one little girl.
Yesterday we were told that we would be doing sports ministry. We were given a bunch of slips of paper and told to go out and just invite people. As we walked around the streets of Dragonesti in the beating sun handing out invitations, I didn’t expect to see God in the way that I did. We came up to a house with a bunch of kids sitting in front. We handed them the invitations and their eyes lit up. We may not speak the same language but I knew that they were beyond excited! As we went to continue on, we looked back to see that they were following us. No shoes, and one didn’t even have a shirt on but they were ready to go! We had our translator explain that it wasn’t for another hour, but they said that they wanted to walk with us and show us where the other kids were to invite. As we walked down to the spring where the kids were playing, one of the little girls from the house came up to me and put her thumb in my face. She had cut it and was bleeding on the invitation. Now it wasn’t a giant gash or anything, but it was more than a paper cut. In that moment I felt needed. Truly needed. It may have only been to bandage a cut, but I knew that I could do something, finally! We washed it off and one of my squad mates but a bandaid on it. From there on out the little girl was attached to my hip.
Her name was Andrea Maria. There was something about her that brought me so much joy I almost couldn’t handle it. I could literally feel the life coming back into me and the feeling of emptiness begin to disappear. I laughed with her. A true, genuine, from the belly laugh. We danced and sang as we went down the street. We acted like complete goofballs. (Yes, I said goofballs because that’s exactly how we were acting!) She had the spirit of a free child, and that began to rub off on me. In those moments, the darkness that had been over me began to lift. Along the way we met up with another little girl named Lenitsa. She had the same spirit and Joy within her that Andrea did and it showed. They tried to teach us how to count in Romanian, and we tried to teach them English. We went to one of the wells and they got to play in the water from the bucket we pulled up and they made sure to splash us as well. J As we got closer to the church, we parted ways and they said they would meet us at the stadium.
When we finally got there, I looked all over for Andrea, but didn’t see her. My heart was broken. The stadium was filled with kids, which was AWESOME, but where was she? I kept looking, and just as one of my squad mates moved, I saw her. I called her name, and immediately she and Lenitsa turned around, screamed “Maria!!” with giant smiles on their faces, and ran into my arms. THAT was my moment. The moment that God designed exactly for me. The moment that I would write a whole blog about. The truth is, I set out that day to change someone else’s life. To give hope back to some children and show them the love of God, but they’re the ones who changed mine. God used those two girls, and all of the other children there that day to show me His love. To show me that there absolutely is a reason that I’m on this race, and that He has been here the whole time.
You want to know the best part though? I know that I made a difference that day as well. Every person on my squad did. We shined God’s light so bright, and brought so much joy to those kids and their parents. I think that’s pretty awesome.
The ministries that we have done so far have been absolutely amazing and God is using each of them for His glory. Last week we picked up the trash off of the streets, drove to another village and handed out New Testaments to every single house, did the sports night (which was obviously my favorite), and I also got to work on the garden out in front of the church. We have gotten the opportunity to do so many ministries here and I love seeing how God is working through them all. Today we’re going to be doing gardening again, but in a different way. We are helping with a project that helps teach sustainability. The unemployment rate here in Dragonesti is 50%, so this project helps to teach the locals how to support themselves and feed their families through gardening! Tomorrow we will begin evangelism in a city called Craiova. God hasn’t let me down so far, and I can’t wait to see what else He has in store for the rest of this month!
