This month my team, The Last Battle, is doing Unsung Heroes month, which means that we go out looking for new ministry contacts that World Race teams can partner with or we find people doing awesome things for the kingdom for the least of us. Stay tuned this month to read some of those stories.
Hopping off the cable bus and walking down the winding path to the middle of nowhere, I wondered what we were walking into.
After a few minutes of walking, we rounded the corner to this artistically broken building and we went to open the door, but we were locked out.
My team leader, Erik, called our contact and soon enough with a shining smile, John appeared and let us into what we learned was a school building.
As we walked up to the third floor, I was trying to envision what it would be like to live here like some kids do.
***
You see, here in Moldova, there are kids that have to live in schools or placement centers, not because they are orphans, but because their parents are too poor or too unstable for them to stay at home.
That’s where organizations like Word Made Flesh come in. I didn’t know it at the time, but it’s an international ministry and one of their branches is in Moldova. They are advocates for disadvantaged kids. They fight for the poor, for the abused, for the forgotten. WMF literally enters their schools and their lives and build relationships with these kids in hopes of giving them a better life.
Most of the staff in the room weren’t even from Moldova; they were from America, Ukraine and Romania. God had brought them from all over to look after his beloved sons and daughters of Moldova.
After chatting with the staff for a little bit, I learned that these are the kinds of organizations that help children stay out of trafficking. Trafficking is a large spread problem in Eastern Europe, and largest in Moldova. Children are sold by their parents, their teachers, their older siblings. It is uncommon for children are snatched off the street, instead they are betrayed and forsaken by their family members.
***
On the surface, Word Made Flesh is an after-school program and advocacy group, but more than that it is a coalition of adults fighting for the lives of young boys and girls who don’t know what it’s like to be fought for.
Word Made Flesh is exactly what its title says—it is the gospel.
And so in the staff room, we sat around over tea and cookies and learned about John and his wife, Rachel’s lives and prayed for them and the staff and encouraged these kingdom workers because this is not an easy job and this is often a thankless job. But I personally thank God for this organization and want to praise Him for these people who are Jesus with skin on to these Moldovan children.
