Hi friends. How is your summer going? I’ll be in Draganesti-Olt, Romania this month with my entire squad. That is about 50 people. We are all staying in a mission house. It feels like a hippie commune, minus the kale growing in the backyard. I am learning what it means to be in a community. It is uncomfortable and wonderful all at once.
Last week a group of 8 women and I left the hippie commune to travel to Craiova, Romania. We were accompanied by 2 of our Romanian friends from Hope Church we traveled to the city of Craiova. Hope Church Ministries is working on an outreach to college students in Craiova.
Our group focused on meeting students and praying for the ministry in Craiova. Let me share a typical example of a day last week. We would wake up and spend about an hour in prayer for the students and people involved in the ministry. After prayer time, we helped our Romanian friends send emails in English to people in the U.S. asking for support. In the evenings we spent our time walking around a local park in effort to meet students, or really anyone who we could talk to and spark conversation. We had one particular encounter that I want to share with you.
We were walking in the park and saw what appeared to be a man in his seventies, sitting alone on a bench. He looked quite content, but we bothered him anyway. Sitting next to him was what looked like an abandoned pair of women’s sandals. The other ladies and I sat down, with our translator Ellie to ask him about growing up in Romania. Then an elderly woman started walking toward our group, a puzzled look on her face. She approached the bench where we were siting, barefoot, and started to speaking to her husband in Romanian. It didn’t take a translator to figure out that she was saying: “What are you doing with all these women!?”
We all laughed and continued with the conversation. Through the translator we asked the couple, whom we learned were named Demitri and Dejetta (no idea how to spell it) about their story. It turns out they have been married 35 years and had 2 children. They shared about growing up under communism. They also shared how they met and that the secret to a good marriage is understanding one another. We laughed about that. We also cried with them as they shared that they lost their son when he was 11 years old. My eyes filled with tears as they shared about the pain of losing a son.
Although losing a child is totally different than any other type of grief, I remembered my own grief for my father. After they shared their story we offered to pray for them. We prayed in English and Ellie translated our prayer into Romanian. We also gave them each a Romanian bible. Equally important, we made a connection. It wasn’t anything grand by some standards, but I left that park bench feeling full of God’s love. Sometimes it is as simple as asking someone about their story. Everyone has a story to share and our stories are worth sharing. That couple blessed me more than I ever could have blessed them.
This week we are back in Draganesti at the commune. We’ll be here for 2 weeks and doing various things with the ministry. Today we are picking up trash in the community. Tomorrow may look different. I’m learning to go day by day and I am seeing the value in hearing the stories we share, not just the things that we do.
