As most of you know, we are living on a very tight budget
these days. Our lodging in Romania
is absolutely incredible. And by
incredible I mean we have running water; hot water, a kitchen, beds,
toilets. Yeah. It’s pretty great. However, these accommodations aren’t
free and we are spending almost twice what we have allotted for lodging.
So, what does that mean? The budget must be cut somewhere. The most logical
place? Food. Our food budget for this month has been
cut in half. As the designated
team cook I was a little bit flustered about how this was going to work
out. There are not many options as
far as where to shop and there is only so much you can do on a $21 per day for
14 people. Obviously, the first
thing to be cut out is fresh fruits and vegetables. I figured we could eat a lot of pasta and potatoes but
salads and fruit were pretty much out of the question. So, Lauren and I were feeling pretty
bad about not being able to feed our teams healthily but we knew there was
nothing we could do about it.
We had our first day of ministry last week. We went to a gypsy village and prayed
for a woman who has been suffering from severe depression. After speaking with her we went to
another home to visit a new baby.
We prayed for the baby and sang songs for the neighbors. This family was so inviting. They fed us crackers and juice as we
were praying for their new little miracle. After leaving this family we went to another village to play
with some gyspy kids and perform a drama for them.
It was about 9 o’clock at night by the time we finally
headed back to our house. We had
to make one last stop before going home.
By this point I was pretty exhausted and just wanted to get home so I
could eat some more potatoes. The
pastor got out of the van and went into the house. He came back shortly with the man whose baby we had
previously prayed for. They were
carrying a giant bag and two crates.
I couldn’t tell what was in them until they put them into the van.
Vegetables. Or
veggie-tables, as Pastor would say.
A ton of vegetables.
Eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, onions. More vegetables than we would ever know what to do
with. The Pastor explained to us
that this was the families tithe for the month and that they felt led to bless
us.
We sang songs of praise to the Lord the whole way home. Some of us cried out of gratitude and
pure amazement at the goodness of God.
It was a really great reminder that God is in control. He is not going to let us go and He is
going to continue to provide for us in miraculous ways. It was also a great reminder that He
loves to give good gifts to His children.
So, we’re getting creative with eggplant and peppers and enjoying
every minute of it. Yesterday the
Pastor came by with another man from the church who wanted to bring us a few
watermelon and two dozen eggs.
Thank you, Lord!
