OH Romania… dear, dear Romania.
So here’s the thing about Romania. Romania was actually a dream of mine, and the fact that it was on this route was one of the reasons I picked it. I wanted every country we visited to be new for me, but I was willing to accept a route if there was only one country I’ve been to in the past, and Romania was on it. This one had only one country that I’ve ever visited in the past – Thailand – AND it had Romania, so… compromise. I would revisit Thailand, and get to go to Romania – a country that’s been on my heart for close to 10 years.
There are 2 reasons why I wanted to go to Romania, both of which relate to ministry.
1 – Gypsies (Roma) 2 – Orphans
I grew up with American Roma in the States, but there’s something about European Roma that has stood out to me for a long time. A culture that is extremely persecuted just for being born into a certain racial classification. This man-made divisional practice does nothing but separate us and keeps us from loving one another well. It creates unnecessary fears and is one of the biggest tools the enemy uses to prevent the Gospel from being spread. “They’re criminals. It would be dangerous for me to talk to them.” Stupid – to put it bluntly. That’s just man-made fear talking. And if we stopped calling people “them” maybe it would help us to see people as just that… people. I’ve definitely seen in full-force on The Race the beauty of people… simply people.
God loves Roma just as much as He loves anyone else in the world. I’m no better – trust me. A sinner, reborn into grace, but still a sinner who is trying to keep God’s commands (John 14:15) just as much as the Malaysian children’s home workers I talked to this morning.
Anyway, I went off on a tangent with that – but the point is I have wanted to visit the Roma for years. To have a chance to tell them about the love of Jesus that is freely available to all.
As for the orphans, a church I attended as a child had a lot of involvement with an orphanage in my town. Because of this, I got to spend a lot of time with orphans growing up. I’ve told my mom since I was like 4 years old that I would want to adopt one day, so orphans hold a piece of my heart.
With all of this being said, it shouldn’t surprise you that this is exactly what God allowed me to do in Romania – to hang with some gypsy peeps and churches, AND to spend some time hanging out with orphans.
We preached at several churches, got to help with some conferences that another team (couple) from the US put on, did construction work, etc. I even got to mow our ministry host’s grass on a riding lawn mower!
My favorite part about Romania, though, happened the last week we were there and had nothing to do with our official ministry site. We actually left our ministry host in Pestere, Caras-Severin County, and headed out to Draganesti-Olt where something special was going to happen – PVT, the parent vision trip. The parent vision trip is something that happens with every squad. It’s a time during the journey where we invite our parents to come out onto the field and experience living like we do. For 5 days, they live in host homes (or hostels, or guest houses, whatever is kind of similar to what field-life is like), and do ministry with us wherever we are. Naturally, not every parent is able to attend. And sometimes Racers opt out of inviting their parents. For me, both of mine were invited, but I knew neither of them would be able to come.
In most cases, during PVT the Racers whose parents do not attend are not allowed to be with the parent/racer teams. Does that make sense? So, if your parents come, you do separate ministry from those of us whose parents do not come, and our worlds are not allowed to collide – the PVT time is a time that is supposed to be just for the racers and their parents.
While I understood the reasoning behind this, for some reason I was just not happy with it. I felt like I needed to be there to be a part of whatever awesomeness God was going to do in the lives of the parents and the racers. So, I started to pray and ask the Lord to work out whatever would be needed to make that happen if it was His will. If it was not His will, I asked that He would change my heart.
So, He opened doors. He made it happen. The rest of the squad was invited to be a part of the PVT event as a serve-team because the hosting church did not have enough volunteers to manage such a big crowd. Each of us were given roles and specific jobs throughout that time, and that’s where God did another awesome thing for me. Like I said, my desire was to be a part of whatever awesomeness God was doing in the lives of those involved. I really wanted to get to know the parents, as well – the people who raised my friends. I wanted to be able to hear their stories of what happened while they were out doing ministry with their children! The job they gave me – yeah, it was a relationship builder. The actual job they gave me involved my spending time with the families during their free times and meal times, and to try to build relationships. Ha!
Just before coming to PVT, God was really pushing the whole preaching the Gospel thing inside of me. So, I also asked Him to open a door for me to be able to preach a message to the parents and possibly to lead some worship with them… again, if it was His will.
When I got there, that was the other thing they told me. They were going to want me to lead one night of worship with the parents and racers. The night they ended up giving me was the very last night they were in Draganesti (the next night was in Bucharest – preparing to leave). It was a blessing ceremony where the parents and racers were to spend time praying with one another and speaking live into each other. They took communion together. I was asked to be the worship leader for the most intimate service they had as a family on this adventure – no pressure, right. But it was going to be more than just a worship night. It was also the open door for a Gospel message to be preached, which was confirmed to me by 3 individuals over the course of 2 days. Three different people approached me and talked about how they felt like the gospel needed to be preached to the parents. It is a known fact that not all of the parents of my squad mates are believers.
This is another one of my favorite moments on the Race – that service. Everything about it was amazing. While no one ended up responding to an altar call for salvation, I firmly believe someone there needed to hear it. Seeds have been planted, and honestly their children are probably the best people to continue watering it.
