So I know you guys have no clue where I am right now so I wanted to write you and tell you…MOLDOVA!!! Yippie! So I have to say definitely I am feeling farther and farther away from America…the farthest yet! Not in a bad way at all its just that although the DR and Haiti are very different from the US we still worked with US contacts in each place so we had some “American-ness” around us and then Ireland reminded me a lot of the United States in many ways and they spoke English. Now in Moldova we are around almost no one who speaks English except our translator…and even with him we must sometimes explain what exactly we mean by certain words.
On Tuesday night we took 2 subways to get to the bus that would drive us from Romania to Moldova on an 11 hour bus ride! WOW can I tell you this is not the kind of bus you may be imagining right now in your heads….it was one of the bumpiest rides ever and there was no way I could sleep. We arrived in Moldova at 5:30 AM and stood outside in the ice cold weather until the train station opened where at 6 we promptly entered and pulled out our sleeping bags to keep warm in the middle of the train station and some of us fell asleep on benches…others had to stay awake because there were many gypsies there and we were heavily warned about how easily our things could get taken.
This month is going to be AWESOME!!! This is a little bit about what we are doing, we are doing house visits to encourage others, evangelism, starting up a bible study with un-believers, VBS with children that come everyday to the church (many are orphans or come from poor families), and at night we go to different churches and bible studies and share testimonies or preach.
I love it here already and God has been moving in many ways. So far we have gotten to visit two grandmothers and pour love and encouragement into them and bring them sweets. Culture here is very different and today when we visited one lady who was 92 she was almost in tears because although she knew we were coming but her security check did not come in so she did not have any money to buy any food for us and she was very distraught about this and said she was “ashamed”…she is from Russia and culturally in Russia and Moldova they always want to provide you with something to eat, tea, or sweets of some kind…this is how they show hospitality. It is more than that though, very different then the US.
We met the kids yesterday and played games with them. They are absolutely precious…super sweet and desire so much to be loved on. I made friends with a girl named (pronounced) Earda and Dasna who are sisters. I was drawn to them immediately because they instantly reminded me of my sister, Melissa, who I miss very much! The girls are two years apart also, age 8 and 10. It was an easy connection with them and although we did not speak the same language, love is the same language in every country I am learning J Today I gave Earda two princess bracelets (gifts, my love language) and guess what she pulled out for me?! A chocolate bar she brought for me! Two minutes before I was just wishing for some chocolate! Today we taught them about the Parable of the Lost Sheep and talked about hearing God’s voice. Then we played a game where one person was the Shepherd and there were two “sheep” (the kids) who were blindfolded and then the other kids made different animal noises and the sheep had to search and find the Shepherd listening for his voice.
I am typing this blog to you all on a bumpy van ride and while sitting at the border to enter a country that is not actually recognized as a country…it is called Transnistria. It is right next to Moldova and tonight we are going there for a bible study. This is a very complicating and hard to explain but for those that are interested I would look up some history on it! It is actually harder to get into this non-country then to get into Moldova! Transnistria has a president and everything…funny.
We are staying at a very small church, one little room for the boys (they can literally only fit their beds to sleep on in it) and a little bigger room for the girls. We make breakfast and dinner for ourselves but lunch a woman named Nina cooks for us because she is also cooks for the children that come each day.
Well we have arrived where we are eating dinner tonight! Real Moldovan food!! The sweetest people ever are hosting us for dinner and bible study J
Miss you all!! I won’t have much access to internet this month so I will probably not be able to write many personal emails! I will have to check more into how we will even be getting internet!
