Romania…what a beautiful country and people! I love Europe, but that love affair began many years ago when I studied abroad in Italy. The pace of life is slow here, but the people are hard diligent workers. And that’s not something that is actually true in many places we have visited this year. The town we are in is actually quite small, numbering maybe 1000 – 1500 people within its boundaries. And this month, this tiny village, Viile Tecci, is no doubt seeing more Americans than they have ever seen in their lifetime! Probably around 80 Racers have descended into this place for these past few weeks and another week to follow. Our whole squad is within a block of one another, which is new for us, and many teams from two other young squads are also serving here with us. Teams go out with translators to specific families that were chosen prior to our arrival so these Racers can love on them and serve them however they are needed. They wash clothes, dishes, rugs, move lumber, build walls, dig up potatoes, pick apples…anything needed.
My team’s ministry is a little different though…fittingly so. There are 5 teams from our squad staying where we live…around 40 people including our host family. So our job this month as a team is to minister to those 
people here. We help prepare and cook their meals, serve them, clean the dishes, find ways to encourage…and even entertain at times. The main word there being SERVE.
The end of last month, as we were at our debrief in Africa preparing for our transition into Europe, we had a night of directed prayer. There were stations around the room where you could write a letter to anyone on your heart, pray about leaving Africa, pray about going into Europe, wash each other’s feet, all sorts of things. When I sat down to write a letter to someone, I started writing to God. We are getting near to the end of our 11 month journey, so naturally there’s some reflection that comes from that realization. I thought about what my prayer was in coming onto the Race – the specific things He had put on my heart to ask for. “To be a strong, broken, gentle, servant leader.” I thought about ways that I felt like God had grown and changed me this year. For many on this squad, those changes within individuals have been drastic. For me, it has seemed more subtle, and honestly, this was really the first time I had sat down and thought about it. Although there is probably a lot I still don’t even recognize, I began to see that in answer to that prayer from the beginning of the year, God has taught me a lot about leadership and gentleness in that. All the ways and situations I’ve had the opportunity to lead in, have given me a growing comfort level in leadership that was never there before. You are faced with so many personalities to communicate with, so many “plans” that never go as planned, so many unexpected developments in everything, and decisions have to be made on the fly. It’s not an easy job for team leaders and squad leaders on the field…but it’s a pressure cooker and God does so much in mere months.
So I praised Him for the things I saw that He had already been working on in me, and started my prayer for the end of the year. I still want more brokenness, and I want to be a better servant. For some, serving comes so naturally, but for me…while I do many things well, serving is not one of those things. So that became my prayer during that night at 
debrief. “Lord teach me to lovingly serve, and break my heart for the things that break Yours.” So it’s not too surprising that my ministry this month is to SERVE…and I’ll bet it leads directly to brokenness.
It’s been tough initially…it pulls at everything selfish in me to serve others first, to prefer them in everything, to do tasks that I don’t enjoy at all, to work when others visit, to not be able to get to know those villagers others are befriending. BUT, I get to encourage those who do go out and share the Gospel, I get to bless them by doing something small and fairly insignificant for them that I will not likely be noticed for. And that’s a very good thing I’m learning. If I can learn to step out of the spot light looking for the recognition and praise of my peers for the things I do, I will have reached a place where I can be given more from the Lord to do on His behalf. If I can do these small things joyfully, it prepares me for bigger things down the road. I don’t know why the idea that it’s not all about me is such a hard lesson to learn…but I come back to it all the time it seems. I want to learn in every possible way to live my life only for the praise of my Father in Heaven…and if delivering a bowl of grits, or scrubbing a pot, or chopping some onions helps me learn to do that better and more naturally, then I will gladly serve…even if that gladness in serving takes a little while to appear 🙂
