After 113 hours of travel and only 15 ½ hours of sleep,
After exploring & longboarding around Warsaw and Bucharest,
After 3 flights, 20 hours in layovers, and 1 terrible train ride,
Team Shemah is finally on location near Lipova, Romania at Seventh Spring Camp.
…But let’s just talk about that train ride for a minute.
Looking back now, it should have been no surprise to me that things worked out the way that they did.
Chugging out of the station at 11:45 PM after a long day of exploring Bucharest, the only thing on my mind was a solid night’s sleep, or rather, the best sleep you can get while sitting upright and under the influence of allergy medication. We attempted to get comfortable despite the threat of our 50-pound bags falling from the shelves in the night. At this point, that was our only worry.
But then it suddenly became apparent that we would not remain alone for the night, nor would we even remain in the car that we had chosen for ourselves. It was only when 40 angry Romanian men showed up at our cabin that we realized we had a few miscommunications at the train station: the seats were in fact strictly assigned and the ones we were sitting in were not ours. It was now close to 2 AM, we were in the wrong car, and if we weren’t to move these angry Romanian men were more than ready to give us a couple shiners.
So we got up to move three cars ahead. That, in theory, does not seem entirely difficult, but the exodus from car 5 to car 8 was through a series of opening and closing chambers (which often closed on you) and involved bounding from one moving car to another while trying to pass by people in a hallway that may not have been more than 2 feet wide, no exaggeration. In this time, I distinctly remember looking back at Elizabeth and saying, “well, this is the World Race.”
We ended up in a car with two women named Camilla & Diana, colleagues who were traveling home from vacation in Turkey. They were more gracious than they probably should have been at that hour. Our new cabin ended up being one of the most cramped & uncomfortable situations and at this point sleep was truly impossible. But in these two women, we got to see the two all too common standpoints people all over the world:
1) being content with life, seeing no need for God, and
2) searching for meaning and peace, but never finding true hope despite a spiritual quest through religion
Sometimes showing God’s love means you have to get really physically uncomfortable. Sometimes it means living sacrificially, giving up your comforts for your teammates in plain sight of others. Sometimes it means moving from one train car to another at 2 AM and staying awake til 5 AM after many sleepless days & nights so someone can hear some Good News. It makes me wonder about all the ways that God has already gone to great extents to show His love to us, and how he may call us to go to even further extents to show His love for all people.
So we arrived at Seventh Spring, pulled our zombie selves together for a tour around the camp, made a glorious lunch, and then all took naps…. which actually turned into each of us sleeping for 8 hours until 9 PM. It’s all a part of the recovery process. We also have already begun the pinnacle of our work for this month: restoring a log cabin type home that is used to house long-term missionaries. This means using a heaping dose of elbow grease and the occasional power-sander to refine the weathered wood to a condition where we can re-seal & re-paint. After trying my hand at power-sanding today, I finished to find myself caked in sawdust. I can’t wait to see the outcome of our work.
We have also settled into our home as a family and as time goes on I have begun to see more and more that we are already practicing true Biblical community without even realizing it. As my teammate Jack joked, sometimes we read passages in like Ephesians 5 and think “HA! That doesn’t work!” but it’s for sure happening.
“Be very careful then, how you live – not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Ephesians 5:15-21
