September 12, 2009
Since having a few days to acclimate to our new home, we’ve been able to brainstorm with Team Triumph about our work here. Our host ”mom,” Gaby is away 12-16 hours a day working at a milk factory, which doesn’t allow very much time for us to spend with her. Gaby has a vision for a new church in this village, Arcalia, but is alone in her efforts. Helping her plant this new church will be part of our work here. Unfortunately, because of her work schedule, we’ve not been able to have very much direction from her. One night, our team stayed up late talking to her and when we asked her about the new church and what we could do, she only replied, ”pray.”
Gaby and the team on pizza night
So our two teams decided to invest our time and energy into praying. Every morning, two of my teammates, Hope and Michelle, and I hike up a mountain to spend time in prayer. This has become one of my all time favorite morning rituals. After finding our spot on the mountain, we settle into some alone time and pray over the city. When we are finished, we treat ourselves to some fruit from wild trees (I will write more later about the most amazing fruit we discovered called ”prunas”).
When we return from our 4 mile hike, we join our other team members for breakfast. We each get ready to go and then head down the street to the house Team Triumph is living in. We have some team prayer time and generate a game plan for the day.
After prayer, our teams separate for lunch and then by 2:00, we meet together to play with the neighborhood kids. This is another huge part of the work we are doing here. It is hard to describe how many children there are in this village. We are constantly seeing new faces we don’t recognize from the day before. They are very demanding of our attention and are extremely lovable. We are already feeling smothered by all the kids and sometimes need an extra dose of patience that we don’t have.
The parents of these children aren’t present so they are being raised by older siblings. It is common for parents to be away in other European countries to work and send money home. It is a hard life here and the people work very hard for very little. We sense that many of these children have been molested or taken advantage of. It has been especially emotionally draining for me and I have spent nights crying and feeling the pain of these little girls.
When we’re not playing football with the kids, we’ve been helping Neilu, our host ”dad.” A few of the chores we share in have been, picking ”faso-le” (beans), ”go-go-shard” (peppers), and ”vi-net-eh” (eggplant) from the family garden. Washing dishes, helping with laundry, and preparing meals have also been a few of our responsibilities. Neilu will occasionally go into the forest to work for the forest man. We’re not sure what that means, but Colin has joined him once. This week, we helped Neilu in the fields potato picking.
A big part of our ministry here is relational and a lot our time is spent with people. Several of my teammates spend their afternoons with members of the community who are sick or shut-in. The language barrier is a challenge, but has worked out surprisingly well without a translator. We are learning to communicate without words, which will be a valuable skill this year. We are enjoying our time in Romania and it has been a great opportunity to live with and love the locals.
Please keep Arcalia in your prayers!
