Eastern Europe. Bring on winter weather. Arriving cold with no warm clothing, we all hit the thrift stores that seemed to be on every corner. Luckily, it was another all squad month so we’d all be together (which means sharing warm clothes). In Romania (month 8), we worked along side Hope Church in Draganesti-Olt. The teams did street and door to door evangelism, passed out Operation Christmas Child boxes, helped with children’s after school program, logistics coordinating for the office, videography and photography, recruiting, and fellowship within the local villages/churches. I’m grateful we had one more all squad month to redeem ourselves from the last one in Ongole, India (month 2)-where people were sick, hot, and somewhat grumpy. Turn us a complete 180 and there we were in a small, 2 story house sharing 1 bathroom and 2 showers for 30 girls, and slept in bunk beds with 6+ people in your room. This month was a definite turning point for G squad-in the best way possible. We went on a 3 day road trip into the Carpathian Mountains, we worshipped together…a lot, we were in tight quarters, so we made new/closer friends, we stayed up until 1am playing Monopoly Deal and watching classic YouTube videos, we made squad inside jokes, we cooked and ate together, our wonderful guys put on a remarkable Valentine’s Day dinner where we were treated like Queen’s! The list goes on. To make this month even better, my parents got to come visit for a week. I was so excited that they got to come and share in this experience with me, if only for 6 days. I’m glad they got a little flash of how we’ve lived for the last 7 months- although, it would have been fun to watch them take on India or Swaziland ;).
Month 9-Moldova, turned on me. I became apathetic, tired, lazy. We were so close to the end and here came the slump. It was hard. Moldova was a month where we needed to be busy, we needed things to do because it was cold and if we weren’t active we’d be bundled up in our sleeping bags scared to move because we’d lose heat! The team I was with was paired with a Catholic church in a village outside of the capitol. We played with the local kids for about 1-2 hours a day after attending Mass and though it seemed like very little, it was very draining for us. We didn’t have a translator and only understood simple words from our host. The team didn’t feel useful or needed at this location and so after contacting the office it was decided that we would switch over to doing Unsung Heroes (the ministry where you find other ministries/missionaries/Christians in that country and pursue a further partnership with them through the World Race). We headed into the capitol, Chisinau, and immediately started reaching out to local Christians/churches to see what kind of connections we could find. After a few meetings here and there, we contacted a local friend of Lindsay’s (Sherbs- as we like to call her) who she had met a few years prior in Lithuania. Egor works as a high school teacher at a Christian School and invited us to come and share our experiences with the students there. After we spent a day there, we were asked if we wanted to come back for the next week and participate in their classes. We had loved how the first day went, so of course we said yes. For the rest of month 9, we worked with the Christian school’s pre school, elementary school, and high school. It was such a blessing in disguise. Looking back now, I am very grateful for my time in Moldova. The village people, teachers, and students we were able to met and fellowship with made the hardships worth it.
