I spent my last two weeks of ministry in Cornesti, Moldova, partnering with Vitalii and his family. He pastors at the only church in town and runs two transition homes for orphans and street kids (their stories are coming soon). Our time was spent attending Bible studies with the youth, doing outreach in the forest, putting on kids programs, giving testimonies at church, and lots and lots of manual labor.
Vitalii recently started to rent a plot of land for the transition home. The house has been sitting empty for over a month and the land hasn’t been tended in quite some time. Vitalii’s vision was to clean out and repaint the house as well as clear the grounds and begin planting all sorts of crops… grapes, cucumbers, watermelon, etc. I admit I was a little weary of the house ever being livable or the fields ever being usable, but after two weeks the land was cleared, the crops planted, and two of the older boys from the transition home had moved into the little house with the task of overseeing the crops.
Towards the end of our time I got the chance to help out in the field, but for the most part, I was paired with Amy and given the task of making the crumbling house into a livable home… here’s the transformation…
The House
(It was small, but had potential.)
The Mess
(There was still food in the pots on the stove, YUCK!)
The Yuckiness
The Progress
(Notice the wall that is bulging out and about ready to collapse.)
The Work
(Yes, I’m painting the floor. It went against all my artistic and practical instincts to paint over a continually dirty floor, but I will admit it looked much better painted than not.)
The Finished Product
(We were asked to paint over the bulging/collapsing wall. It supposed to be fixed sometime soon, but for the time being, they wanted it to look not so crumbly and crack-filled.)
The Home
