Month 6 is underway! We are in Draganesti-Olt, Romania where the weather is drastically different from Africa where I have been the past 3 months.
A common site to see on our street.
It has been an adventure the moment we arrived in Romania. We had to take a train to get to our final destination. Our leader was told that we have 60 seconds to get off of the train until it will start moving again. So the plan of attack was to split up into groups to exit from different doors. Each of us were carrying our 45+lb packs on our backs and a 20lb backpack on our frontsides. When the train came to a stop, my team leader Kristen struggled with opening the door. But she got it opened and the next thing I saw was her jumping off the train into 3 feet of snow, with no platform to be found. I hestitated for a moment thinking, there has to be a better way to get off this train. Then I hear squadmates yelling, “jump off! We don’t have all day!” with that I leaped off and looked over to see teammates who had fallen into the snow. Tiffany jumped off behind me and within seconds the train started off again. An excellent start to our month.
Walking from the train with all of our stuff.
I am not sure if it is the climate change or continent change but I am very excited to be in Romania working with Hope Church ministries. The church currently has 19 full-time missionaries working in the Draganesti area. The world race teams are doing various jobs this month such as kids club ministries, shoveling snow, cleaning the church, working in the church office and evangelism. Our contacts explained to us how each of these tasks really do benefit the ministry here to expand the kingdom.
Pastor Raul, who pastors Hope Church, gave us a debriefing of Romania our first night here. He described how this part of Romania is very different from the northern part of the country. It is very dark with less than 0.2% of the population being Christian. Though there is a language barrier, our job this month will be to bring joy and love to this disheartened community.
One of the kids' ministries on Saturday morning
Bea and I cleaning in the church 🙂
