1 Thessalonians 5: 18 – “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
As I sit here writing this, I have less than one week left in our mission house. The place that has been home for almost three months now will soon be left. The place that represents my first step out as an adult, the start of a new life, the first step into a faith of my own, and so much growth. In this short amount of time since we arrived here, I’ve grown more, learned more, laughed more, cried more, and experienced more than I thought I would when we got off the airplane. It is definitely a lot to process, and it will also be hard to put into words on this blog post. I’m praying that God gives me the words to write and gives you understanding of my experiences here. Craiova, Romania you will be missed.
This is me with a missionary here, Lucian, and we were in the market this day. We handed out bibles and had some amazing conversations with people selling fruits!
Romania is a little different than other countries that people travel to on the World Race. Here there is no ministry that we are necessarily joining. By this I simply mean that we aren’t in a structured environment, like kids ministry. Instead, we are joining alongside our hosts and are planting a church. When we first arrived, Raul told us his vision. In order to grow a church community here, we each needed to find a group of Romanian friends and slowly overtime enter the gospel into their lives. By the end, we would narrow down our “followers” and hopefully have one stand out that would begin attending his church. When we began our ministry days, we immediately jumped into evangelism. For the months we spent here, we did many different forms of ministry within this vague word. Occasionally we would go down streets and hand out pamphlets and flyers for the small church gathering we attend. Other days we would hand out bibles and clothes in markets with notes of encouragement inside. A few times we went to neighboring countries to do village evangelism. We would also meet up with our followers and hang out with them, as well as invite them into conversations about God. We also started youth group events on Saturday and Sunday evenings. They would be a place of fun, worship, and relationship building, with a focus on teaching the book of John. We would also sometimes clean our ministry office and serve our hosts. I’m probably missing some stuff we did, but overall our time serving has been jumbled.
At the beginning of my time here, this was definitely a source of jealousy and ingratitude when comparing our experiences to other squads. They seemed to have it all together: spacious housing, amazing weather, planned afternoons, organized ministry, and so on. I caught myself wishing for that experience and not staying present where my feet were. The fantasy picture that I had in my head of what the gap year would be like wasn’t how it started. There was no kids ministry and no plans. But the more I took these thoughts to God and placed them at His feet, the more I realized that what I am experiencing is one of God’s areas of expertise. He took what I thought was best for me and for this year and completely flipped it around. He opened my eyes to a new form of ministry, out of my comfort zone, and made himself prevalent to a desolate region of the world. I won’t lie, this country has been spiritually exhausting and it hasn’t been easy. The level of spiritual warfare we have faced is high and it can’t be ignored. We have interceded and prayed for hours on end for the people to have awakenings in their hearts and desires to become intimate with God. We have truly been His hands and feet. For me particularly, I died to what desires my heart had for ministry and fully submitted to what our hosts, and God through them, decided that we needed. Sure, this wasn’t a glamorous and easy time, but I have seen and felt so much growth and movement of the Lord working here that I wouldn’t trade it for a structured schedule. I think it’s so cool that God knows what’s needed WAY more than I do. It’s been a fact that has been known, but here it was applied. God’s will outweighs mine everytime. On another note, we haven’t had a ministry that’s been easy to photograph. Street evangelism and meetings with people isn’t really something you can take pictures of, especially when you’re trying to create a comfortable and real setting. Our youth events were photographed, and those will be below! We’ve definitely dabbled in a little bit of everything here, and it has been a valuable lesson. Basically, throw out your plans! Be flexible! Let God lead and work through you! It’ll be your best decision ever made! Okay, that’s all on that note.
This is a girl I met at one of our youth events named Bianca. She is seven years old, and she is the sweetest kid ever! Despite our language barrier, we were still able to make each other drawings and paintings. It was a very pure night.
This was our art worship night one Sunday evening. We created cards, pictures, or listening prayers for one another and our Romanian friends.
These are my squad mates, Valerie and Abi, leading worship one Sunday night. God has blessed them both with beautiful voices, and I just love hearing them sing.
We are leaving this house, as previously mentioned, on December 2nd, and we will go to Bucharest for 3 days before our final departure on December 5th. This will be a little debrief of our time in Romania, and it will also prepare us for what’s to come in Guatemala. Funny situation for our last few nights in Craiova! The house we are staying in is basically filled to the brim with us, as well as our host family who lives here. There are 2 bathrooms for us to use, one on the second floor and one on the third. The Friday after Thanksgiving, we are being joined by a group of around 30 people coming to live here temporarily. It will be a very full house to say the least, and our squad is practically having one big sleepover together for a couple of nights. It’ll be a fun and hectic send off from our time in Romania for sure.
A group of us went to Bulgaria for ministry. This is Valentin, a man who everyone in the town knows and loves. He showed us around town, bought our lunch, and told us amazing stories from his life. He even took us to his garden and let us pick apples and walnuts. This was one of my absolute favorite days of ministry.
I just want to thank everyone who is actively reading my blogs. I will definitely work on posting more in the coming months to better keep you all in the loop. Every comment has made me feel like I’m still at home, and they are so refreshing to hear from the people I love. God is SO good for this opportunity and all that I am learning from it, and I can’t believe it’s been only three months. Thank you for all of your prayers, and for continuing to pour into me as if I am still there. I truly love y’all!! P.S. You have no idea how many times Romanians have commented on me saying “y’all”. I am apparently a cowboy, as all Texans are cowboys. Yeehaw!
