As I am sitting here in a hostel in Bucharest reflecting on this past month, so many thoughts and feelings are running through my mind. Last month was a month full of relationships, prayer, evangelizing, kids, administrative work, team building, and son icy more.
Our team was in Dragenesti-Olt. It is in southern Romania, two hours south of Bucharest. It was a beyond amazing month. We got to live and do ministry with another team, team Alka-lesh! The church we were working with is called Hope Church. Pastor Raul is the pastor there and there are about 30 other missionaries that are associated with the church that work and live in the surrounding villages. Raul is so, so organized. He has many different ministries.
One of their ministries is called the Fishing Rod Project. Instead of giving people the “fish,” they give them the “rod.” They focus on helping people find or create sustainable jobs so that they can support themselves throughout their life.
Another one of their ministries is 25/5, an after school program for local kids. Here children from the village come to the church to get tutoring or to learn math and English. Many of the children don’t go to school and don’t get an education. Because they are uneducated, they are a high target for sex traffickers. Sadly, sex trafficking is a major problem in Dragenesti. Sex traffics go door to door and ask parents to sell their children and horrifically many do because their children are not educated so they cannot support the family and many of the families are very poor so need the money. The after school program, however, is aiming to help stop this. By giving the children a free lunch and education, the families are less likely to sell their children because they now are educated and could eventually support their families.
Kid’s Club is a group of people that go out into the streets and find kids and then do a Sunday School on the streets in which they will play games, sing songs, pray, and learn a Bible story.
9,000 Souls is an evangelism ministry in which a group of guys go out onto the streets and talk with the local people and hand out Bibles, pray with people, invite people to church, make house visits, and pray over the city. This is the ministry that I was involved in this month. It was an absolutely amazing experience. We met so many people. We prayed with the elderly, bought diapers for a new mother, passed out invitations to come to church, hugged so many children, went to a hill that overlooks the city and prayed for the city.
This month I also got to be involved in the ordination of a member of the church and the baptism of 6 people, ages 14-88. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I have never experienced anything like that before. In Romania, once baptized, society disowns them and they are seen as outcasts in the country. God was working in some powerful ways that night and His presence was felt! Absolutely incredible.
This past month God has taught me a lot about strength and endurance. The atmosphere in Dragenesti is very spiritually heavy and that definitely took a toll on my body. I was so tired, had a headache, and was sick much of the month. One night I slept 13 hours. I was not the only one to experience these things. Much of the team had headaches and were exhausted and worn out. Throughout the month I had to find the strength and endurance to push through the headaches and tiredness. I had to rely on the strength of the Lord to keep pushing on.
I pray that all of you can find the strength found only in the Lord. It is through His strength that we can find true endurance in times of hardship.
