This month, in Romania, we are spending our time at The 7th Spring, a summer camp for local (and international) kids/teens/families/churches, located near Arad, Romania. And we are blessed beyond belief. (side note, we're learning that Z-Squad is a squad blessed with abundance and an "easy" race, relatively speaking). We all have our own beds, a washer & dryer, hot water, amazing water pressure, a large house, internet access (just a 5 minute walk away & it's free), the ability to cook for ourselves, an abundance of wall sockets that we can plug our electronics into, a stove to bake in, a food budget ($3/day) to eat on & food that is pretty cheap to buy, electricity, a waffle maker, a couch and chairs, and some winter clothing that was provided for us. It is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I don't know how to relay that information well enough. I don't know what I expected Romania to be like, but I know this was not it. Hahaha.
Since it's only our 3rd day, we haven't done a ton. And, in the snow, it's hard to do a lot of things at the camp. But, we'll be starting ministry soon – aside from doing some work at the camp, like painting, general labor, and a very small bit of outdoors work, we'll hopefully get to help with a 3-day conference next week and do house ministry in the village.
The 7th Spring is a camp, as I've already said. Romy, our contact, is a pastor at a baptist church in Arad, Romania. This camp came out of a partnership with Global Outreach, based out of Alabama. I have heard of them before – they are a rather large NPO in the states. Anyway, the camp is overseen by Mi Hai, a 26 year old Romanian man. I haven't learned all of his story yet, but he is wonderful – he's funny and has spent a lot of time with us so far. I'm hoping he'll eat most meals with us so that I can get to know him more. He speaks 4 languages well – Romanian, English, italian & French. I don't know about you, but I find that incredible! It's amazing to me how much more versed in languages people in countries outside of the United States (typically) are.
Currently, the amount of snow here is ridiculous. Romy & Mi Hai say they haven't seen a snow fall like this in many, many years. It's shutting so much of the country down. It's the cause of a lot of deaths in this and surrounding countries. But, I love it!
Pray for this country, specifically for the death toll. Pray God's blessing on this camp, that he would grow it and bring more people to it – allow it to draw people in from around the country so that the camp can stay running and growing. Pray that this would be a place where interdenominational healing would happen – that denominations across the board would come together and learn how to support one another instead of fighting against one another. Pray for Mi Hai, that he would find someone to come along side him and help him run this camp and keep it running at full capacity.
