I seriously cannot believe that I am in month 8 of the race, and that this is my final month in Eastern Europe as my squad and I head to Africa on June 2nd. That is crazy to think about along with the fact that I’ll be back stateside in 97 days!
I knew that doing into this month was going to be hard as to be blunt, I am ready to tap out, and add in the fact that its PVT time just adds to my desire to give up as all this month I have been struggling hardcore with extreme homesickness, and the fact that my parents aren’t coming to see me due to circumstances that they can’t control. They told us that month 8 is usually the hardest month for all racers as we are so close to the end, and I can now speak from experience that is true.
But in the end I made a commitment, and I’m gonna gut it out as I cannot abandon my friends as in the end not running this race til the end will hurt me even more as they are my family, and I don’t wanna quit on them.
So with that being said, what have I been doing this month ministry wise? My team and I along with another team have been living at and serving with a local church called Living Hope in Pitesti, Romania, which is located about 2 hours outside of Burchrest. I like to call us the caretakers of the church as we live there 24/7 (We are sleeping on the floor upstairs where some of the gals even have their tents setup, and I’m sleeping on one of the couches & cooking our own meals in the church’s kitchen) and take part in Sunday Services. We have also served in the church’s homeless & Ghetto ministries with the ghetto ministry being the one that we have served with the most this month.
Living Hope Church has built a relationship with 2 ghetto neighborhoods here in Pitesti, the Razboieni & Coremi ghettos. Pretty much we all go, and spend a few hours each day just hanging out and playing with the kids, and showing them love, and let them know that there is hope for a better future in they just believe in God, and we are examples of that. We have played all the normal playground type games with them, we have played ping pong with them or kicked around a soccer ball. I even took my football one time, and they seemed to have gotten the concept you throw it instead of kicking it, and they seemed to have fun throwing it around, and playing catch with it (If I was a college recruiter I’d keep my eye on some of those guys as they displayed some pretty decent skills). We had one of the groups over to the church for a night of worship/bible lesson/games/craft/snacks VBS style. Some other forms of ministry that we have done are prayer walks, sharing our testimonies during services, had a BBQ at our host’s home, had our cultural experience where we visited the Pitesti prison museum, which is a Cold War era prison known for the testing of the “Pitesti experiment” (go google it if you wanna know more as its pretty messed up). For those of us who get to experience RVT we get to chaperone the kids to their weekend camp and spend the time with them there as well, which is during our last weekend here before debrief, so that will be interesting.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the blog, after PVT/RVT is month 8 debrief where our squad mentor & ex squad leader are flying to Romania to spend a week with us, and getting us spiritually filled up & rested before we head to Africa for the final 3 months of our race.
Africa also means big changes ahead for P squad as it will be all squad month 3.0 in Ethiopia where we are split up into 3 ministry teams for month 9 then at mini debrief at the end of the month, we will find out our new teams of 5-6 for the final 2 months in Rwanda & Uganda.
The other piece of BIG news is that after final debrief (August 24th) in Uganda, P Squad will be flying back stateside via Dubai to BOSTON, and arrive there on August 25th (!!!!!!!), where we will sadly say goodbye to each other before heading our separate ways. I can even begin to explain just how EXCITED I am about flying into Boston, and I’ll be back home in Michigan on August 29th after spending some personal time exploring Boston.
Til next time your fellow sister in Christ,
Bonnie
Team SC
P Squad
Psalms 18:2
YOLO
