We’ve been in Cornesti, Moldova for 2 weeks now, it’s a small town that’s full of history and customs. It’s not out of the norm to walk out on market day and be overwhelmed with the number of people selling chickens, ducks, vegetables, and horse drawn wagons full of building materials. Cornesti is a town that’s population has drastically declined over the past few years, it has gone from 12,000 to only 3,000 due to sex trafficking and immigration to more thriving countries like Romania and Russia. The whole town feels really desolate and deserted.
Over the past few weeks we have been spending the mornings working in a garden that the Church here owns. They are trying to grow enough food to sustain their own people and their future missionaries. We spent hours hoeing the ground where they will build a green house in the next few weeks. It’s amazing how much we take for granted back home, the amount of work we have done over these weeks would have only taken a few short hours with the right equipment.
The Church we are staying at is preparing all of our meals for the month, we have had a pretty consistent diet of mush that doesn’t need to be chewed. Everyday we start with some kind of cream of wheat, or noodles in milk, fresh bread and coffee. Lunch is usually “salad” which is basically cucumbers and tomatoes cut up and noodles with goat cheese on them and soup on the side. Dinner has been a lot of rice or corn meal with sauce and bread. I am thankful that we don’t have to prepare our own food this month but I would kill for some solid meat right about now!
We’ve met some incredible people over the past few weeks, one of my favorites is a kid named Oleg, he is a rippled little fellow who can do pushups on just his thumbs. He is one of the orphans that lived at the Church’s shelter here and now lives at the garden. I’m thinking about bringing him home with me to Canada after the race! Haha! Another guy I met is the greek orthodox priest of this town, his name is Gregory. He is a massive giant of a man who showed up absolutely drunk on our first night to beat up pastor Vitale. Pastor Vitale brought him in to talk and drink tea and while we were all talking Gregory invited us to come with him somewhere, so we went. We ended up at his Church, where he called his family and told them to come meet us. We spent an hour hanging out and Garrett, our squad leader, preached the Gospel in the Greek Orthodox Church. Gregory has been pretty consistent in our lives since then. We have spent some time working at his church helping with some clean up in hopes of building a better relationship and to show him the love or Christ. He also showed up to Church the other Sunday completely trashed but sat through the whole service and afterwards invited us guys to go camping with him. I am excited about hanging out and ministering to him over these last 2 weeks here. Another one of my favorite people here in Moldova is this cross-eyed kid named Valentine, he’s insane, high energy, and mostly annoying but I think he’s hysterical. Every afternoon we do a kid’s program where we play games, do a skit, and share a word with them.
We’ve also been spending a lot of time recently handing out invites to the people of Cornesti for various evangelism events in the area and at most of these events or church services a few of us on the team end up preaching or sharing our testimonies. I think I have shared something every few days, Vitale has a way of picking me out to share but I’ve really enjoyed it. God has definitely given me the exact words I needed right when I needed them!
I feel like I have been learning so much in these past few weeks, God has been wrecking my life in so many ways. I am constantly finding myself overwhelmed with the greatness of God, He has been teaching me what it really means to live for him and by him and through him. I’m learning how to trust him with my leadership decisions and life decisions as well, and my heart is burning with a fire for his word in my life. I am learning what it means to be a NEW creation, to live a life that matters and to see beyond the mistakes I have made to the person I can be. I’m excited to see what changes in these next 10 months of my life.
Keep praying for my team and I, that we would be led by the Spirit in all that we do, that we would be unified in our ministries and we would learn to love each other so much more than we do already.
God Bless,
Cody
