14 days ago I landed in Romania and started MONTH 10 of the race! Wild right?! I came into it excited, ready to hit the ground running, to give 110%, and to pour out my heart here. (You might think I’m embellishing, but NO! These all were direct quotes from N squad at orientation).
Our days began taking shape with us coming together in the morning for a few hours. Praying together over missionaries, this city, the day’s ministry, and each other…
After that we head back to the house for lunch. Did I mention it’s all squad month again?! As sweet as it is to be together, I must admit the bitter as well. It’s definitely draining living in community 24/7. I mean have you tried sharing a bedroom with 7 people and 2 bathrooms with 24+ humans? I’m just sayin. Anyways we rotate making lunch for everyone. After that we have team time. The missionaries here say it is literally too hot to be outside that time of day, so we meet up again at four for the second part of our day.
This is where things get challenging for me. We split up doing different things. Some people are preaching in Roma communities while others are doing street evangelism or administrative things in the office and one girl even had her LIFE SAVED! ( read Court’s blog about it: https://courtyerkes.theworldrace.org/post/that-one-time-romania-saved-my-life)
I’m put on street evangelism. A couple of days into it, and I’m not gonna lie I wasn’t feeling great. Feeling defeated from getting rejected over and over trying to hand out church pamphlets or even just trying to make conversation. Feeling unfulfilled with putting pamphlets in mailboxes void of human interaction. It all kind of added up until I broke down a bit one night (benefit of living with the squad – so many open shoulders and hearts to help bear your burdens. But again the bathroom thing). Anyway I open up about how there is NO WAY I can get through a month like this. Sweet Sara dropped a bombshell. It was like how you’re watching a predictable movie and the plot twist happens. You’re like I knew this was gonna happen from the very beginning, WHY am I even surprised?! She said “Remember in Ecuador when we all took the spiritual gifts test? You got evangelism.” I started laughing, albeit a little hysterically with tears in my eyes. I was SHOOK.
With that reminder I prayed for clarity, renewed sense of purpose, and reminders of why I started. The following days I went back to the same part of the city and got to have in depth conversations with a variety of people, from teenagers to a father of three. We talked about life in Romania vs. America, politics, government, South America, family, God, church, etc. I was thriving!
One chat stuck with me that I had with a group of retired friends I made.
We were sharing about what we all do or did for a living, and they told me about where their children live and work around the world! Places like Portugal, Costa Rica, England, Argentina… and I talked about how I had been to some of those places for missions/volunteer work. They told me that because I’ve done these “good” things and am such a sweet person, that I’m going to heaven. I asked why they think that and one of the men sternly told me “That’s what God does. He comes to judge us in the end. He weighs our good against our bad and where there is more is where you’ll go.” I asked how do you know for sure if you’re bound for heaven? They told me you can’t. That there’s no way to know for sure. I said no no no I couldn’t believe in a God that did that. There’s no hope in that for me. The God I know, that I have a relationship with loves me and forgives me. He paid the price for my sins at the cross and I choose to live for him. Scared I made them angry, I waited for another stern finger waving reprimand. Vicki smiled sweetly at me and spoke soft words in Romanian. Our translator Anna said she says that I am beautiful when I talk about my faith. That it shines out of my face. Shoot dang, I’d found it! The type of ministry-life-evangelism that makes me come alive!
Connecting with people, building relationships, striking up conversations that organically flow into faith. Genuine conversations that leave imprints on hearts.
I had found again the reason why I started.
