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This blog is about the start of Month 2 in Transnistria (internet problems) Better late than never
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 “Hey, did you know that your teams location has changed?”
 
This was a question thrown my way in a hotel lobby after a long couple of travel days. Forty plus people moved around me, trying to move massive bags (were only on Month two and still carrying lots of baggage literal and figurative) and snagging room keys.

My response was a simple headshake, “no” and I was instructed to talk to Fanel this months super contact in Moldova.

I walked into month two, with natural hesitations about leading in this new way [our team was to be on our own for first time and none of us have ever done this race thing before]. Combined with literally no expectations for the month [I never heard back from our contact to have any idea what the month would look like thus no possible way to have expectations], I was ready to roll with the punches and trust that God knew more information than what I needed at the time.

I moved through the lobby to talk to Fanel. I introduced myself and was then given an apology for the short notice.

“Your team will not be in Grigoriopol. You will be with the other girls teams in Tiraspol.”

How do you pronounce the name? I replied.

With the repeat of the city name, my conversation with Fanel was over.

And like that I watched as news traveled fast and half of my team was aware of the change up sooner than I could have said, Carly Brown said there would be days like this. I rallied the rest of my team and shared the information. Like me, it did not seem to matter where we were heading, because Tiraspol was just as much a mystery as Grigoriopol was.
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But what did change?

Remember how I said I had no expectations for the month. I may have lied to myself about this one. Perhaps my one and only expectation for the month at this point my team would be alone. We would finally have ministry all together and have some time to really focus on our team as a whole.

Now, our month in Tiraspol was already challenging me.

We pulled into the training center location the next morning. While some girls gasped at the sight of the large concrete structure looming in the background of dirt piles and construction pit, I had to grin. Dj vu played out in my mind. I was reminded of my time in the Congo. And was struck with the insane similarity between the place that keeps part of my heart hostage and the place that I have been privileged to call home this past month.

In the Congo, I was ready to go home at the end of six weeks. I was tired of some of the team dynamics. And did not feel as though there was an outlet that let us voice our opinions openly to work through certain issues that threatened to tear us apart.
a time of prayer during Triple Team Time

And at the beginning of this August, I pulled into a site that would house 21 women in one concrete room. With several of those women not happy already at this knowledge before my team of seven was added to the mix. Fourteen women was bad enough to some. Twenty-one, a potential deathbed.

But God had other plans. And we were poised to listen.
 
Part 2 to follow.