The sun shone bright on a warm Romanian morning at the start of June. Excitement was in the air as teams where leaving for their new homes for the month, and starting new ministries. Yet for Overflow something was different. There we were, in Bucharest Romanian, out in the “cold”. No contact. No ministry. No place to live. We were on our own…well sort of.
This month my team has had a different ministry called ATL (As The Lord) and Unsung Heroes. Our mission: to ask the lord what He wanted us to do each day, where we should go, who we should meet, & find unknown ministry contacts for AIM to possibly partner with in the future. Thankfully the hostel that some of the squad stayed at during our first in Romania let our team more or less live there for the month and even gave a lower price after awhile. Thank you Hostel Peaches! We also quickly gained lots of names and contacts of people that AIM may want to partner with in the future. We had our work cut out for us!
One day we met up with some missionary teachers who taught at a private school where local missionaries send their kids. When we met up with them the school year was already out so they asked us if we could help them with their building because they had just moved into it. When we got there one of the first things that they said was “We have some rocks…” At that point we started laughing and thanking God that we were only here for one day. But thankfully what they meant by rocks was just gravel. Daniel and I helped level the road in front of the school with the gravel, while others were spreading gravel around some shrubs or pulling weeds. The day was filled with fun, good food, hard work, and great conversations. It was definitely a joy to meet them.
Another person we met works with kids at an orphanage. These kids many not actually be orphans but maybe their parents couldn’t take care of them or left them in Romania while they went to find work in another country. So the day that we worked with the kids, we took them to a local park, rented bikes, and then spent a few hours riding around the park and a lake with them. They didn’t speak English (or maybe a few phrases if they did) but the joy that was on their face was amazing! They were just so happy to be out of the orphanage for a few hours and to have a group of people dote on them for awhile.
Then it happened – we had so many contacts that we had to split up. Brent, Karilyn, and I went to a town called Medgidia were we worked at a community center. Here we helped with a feeding program that fed gypsy kids breakfast and lunch, helped them with their homework (if they went to school), if they didn’t go to school and wanted to learn then we helped teach them, did crafts with them, and told them Bible stories. The stories that the kids have will more than break your heart. They all have stories ranging from being sold into prostitution, to seeing friends and families killed in front of them, to have to take care of their brothers and sisters because their parents left to find work in another country – and many of the kids that I saw weren’t even teenagers yet (a few were but not most). Our time there was humbling to say the least and it touched our lives forever. My teammate Karilyn wrote an awesome blog about it. Click here to read it.
These are just a few stories of the many people that we've met and worked with. God has been doing amazing things this month and we are learning so much! I’m excited to see what else He has for us before we leave for Africa in a few days!
