*beep*… *Beep*… *BEEP*
It’s Sunday morning, 5:45AM, and time to get ready to go to church.
“This has to be a joke” I mutter under my breath as I slowly peel off the covers and hit my alarm clock that’s been blaring in my ears. I quickly bundle up in clothes to try to stay warm, slip on my tennis shoes, put on my headlamp and tiredly make my way through the brisk autumn air to the tiny old wooden shack labeled “WC” (aka squatty potty) that has a mere hole in the wooden floor. “You’ve got to be kidding me… how is this real life?” my thoughts race again.
My team and I began our walk down the cold, dark, muddy, rocky path at 6:15am. A single headlamp beams from behind me, guiding my every step. We finally make it to the bus stop at 6:59am, and sure enough not but a minute later, the bus makes its way around the corner and stops right in front of us. The six of us women plus our contact Art, along with 5 or 6 other people load into the already packed 12 person van that is now holding at least 25 people sitting and standing. With every stop more and more people pack on and the aroma of sardines and alcohol burn our nostrils as I look around wondering how many more people are going to pack into this clown car.
7:15 AM
We arrive into the town Ocnita and walk for another 15minutes through the brisk autumn air that seems to chill the depths of my bones with each gust of wind. We arrive at the beautifully carved church that stands out as new compared to the aged buildings surrounding it. My mind sighs with relief that we have finally made it.
7:40 AM
We receive the keys to get inside, where we sit with our ministry contact, Art. Fortunately the cement walls provides shelter from the brisk wind but it still trapscold air inside that chills us to the bones.
10:00 AM
People finally start arriving at church. All 6 of us women on the team have been huddled together for 2.5 hours, trying to stay warm.
1:30 PM
The heater in the church wouldn’t turn on, 3 separate sermons have been delivered, communion took place, 8 songs sung and 3 testimonies given—3.5 hours have pasted and church has now ended.
1:45 PM
We have arrived at the market, where we find a majority of the shops have closed down since we first arrived into town 6 hours ago. Since this is our only market and chance to shop for food for the week, we hastily make our way around the market to buy what we think can last us through the week. After that, we make our way to the bus stop where we waitan hour, thankfully inside where it is warm, to catch the last van heading back to Naslovcea (aka “the slouch”).
3:50 PM
We arrive at the same bus stop that we got picked up at earlier that morning and make the 40 minute trek back through the muddy path to the village; except this time we are fortunate enough to have sunlight to light the path and guide our steps!
Finally home at 4:30pm.
But this isn’t about how cold it was…or how long of a day it was (even though both of those are completely true). It’s not even about how much we had to wait that day. Rather, it is more about the realization of obedience. Every day, people make this trek from “the slouch” to go into town for the market to get food. Every Sunday, our ministry contact Art, wakes up before the world even stirs to make his way through the cold, muddy, path only to wait for 3 hours before church begins and afterwards, make the long trek back home. I can’t help but to wonder if this was my life every dayin America, if I would have the same obedience.
Heck, at home, I struggle to get out of bed 15minutes before church just to get into a car that’s already warm due to an automatic starter and arrive just on time (or late) to church. There’s times at church where I sit and wonder when it will be done and so I can go back home to eat or sleep or get on with my day.
But here, life is different.
Every day is an act of obedience, just to survive. If you want water, you have to walk to the well and draw it yourself, carry it back, then boil it to sterilize it to drink it and use it to cook. To cook, there is either a fire stove or a single electric plug-in heater. Either one takes time to build the fire or to allow the coils in the electric one to heat. If you want to go to the bathroom, you walk outside—no matter the weather conditions—and squat over a hole in the ground. To shower, you have to pull buckets upon buckets of water and boil and heat it little by little until you eventually have enough relatively warm water in a small aluminum tub.
Every day there’s work to be done—water to be drawn, wood to be chopped, a fire to be started, leaves to be raked, animals to be tended, food to be cooked, crops to be harvested, walnuts to be cracked, food to be sold—and most of the people that live here are well over the age of 55 or 60. Many of them are widowed and lonely. Their children have moved away to find a different life, their spouse has passed, and their relatives no longer around. They are left with the land and all the work to be done. The hard labor they’ve done throughout their life has caught up with them—their bones and bodies ache, and the wrinkles on their face and calluses on their hands reveal the stories of their lives.
This is our ministry.
I get the honor and privilege of serving alongside these men and women.
I get the honor and privilege of hearing their stories (although they speak in Russian, our contact can loosely translate through broken English to us).
I get the honor and privilege to pray with and over these men and women, and to share in their everyday life.
I get the honor and privilege of serving alongside of Art—our contact—who is a 27 year old missionary who said “yes” to God to move to a small village of elderly people to help them in their day-to-day tasks, share the Gospel with them every chance he gets, and to bring joy to their day, knowing that someone still cares about them.
