We have now been in Dragonesti about 5 days and I have learned much about this town. From what we were told, it is a town of about 5,000 people with a significant Roma (gypsy) population. Olt is the county that Dragonesti lies within and the county has a population of around 500,000 people. It is the least churched area of Romania with around 600 believers in the entire county. The largest church has about 100 members.
The county also has an unemployment rate of around 50% and a very high rate of HIV. Poverty is common based upon what I have seen in my time spent around the town.
The other team will be working in Dragonesti this week and we will be heading out to one of the surrounding villages. We will be doing things like serving the widows in the area, evangelism and passing out bilbes, cleaning the streets, some childrens programs and passing out invitaitons to local church services.
Much like Serbia, Romania is a highly orthodox country. The first pastor to move to the area actually had the people of Dragonesti start a petition to have him expelled. Fortunately, he is Romanian so they could not accomplish their task, but it shows the opposition to Christianity in the area.
If you want to look at the church we attended yesterday, you can look at their website at http://www.bisericasperanta.ro
