Lost
To recap on Ireland… it was a hard month for me but now that I’ve spent this past month in Moldova, I’m glad to have had my experiences in Ireland to prepare me for this month. In Ireland I had to step up and lead or die. Ok maybe not die, but pushing through the hard stuff was the easy way out last month; it would have been harder on me if I had taken the easy way out and didn’t step up. Does that make sense?
So from Ireland we flew to Bucharest, Romania. (What? This is my life?) We stayed in a house in some backwoods part of the outskirts of town. Oh, by “we” I meant the whole P Squad: 66 people. This is not America, my friends. We can do this sort of thing. During our few days there we raised up some new squad leaders from the group of team leaders. Our new squad leaders are Lia Frederick and Joshua Maisner. Jessica Smith and Lucas Tillman took their place as new team leaders.
I am still a team leader, and God could not have put me in a more right position, I think. But now I have a new team, and along with that we also have a new team name! We are James Woodley, Robby Smith, Micah Higgins, Stacey Compton, Alicia Tarjeft, and Kara Graham? We are team Pro’digal. That’s right, pronounced “Pro – digal, ” where “pro” is as in “pro” and “digal” like what you do with a shovel.
Funny story, actually not, how we chose that team name. You see, our first day as team Pro’digal we were told to go and “make a memory.” We did. We needed to find food. Since we didn’t have any Romanian money, called “lei” pronounced “lay,” we decided to walk into town. Boy did we walk. For a solid hour and a half we walked. Finally we came across a hotel of sorts, and with broken English we were able to call some cabs. They would take us to an ATM so we could withdraw money and pay. There are six of us, but the cabs are these little things that carry four people max. So we call two cabs and split up one guy and two girls in each cab. From our understanding they should be taking us to the same place. Ha…
So we go on our little cab ride, I’m sure the dude is giving us the run around, running up the meter cause we can’t tell him when to stop nor do we know where we’re going. Eventually we end up somewhere in downtown Bucharest, and since the other cab isn’t there we’re able somehow to tell the guy to radio the other cab and bring them to the same place. The guy radios and make some gestures that we interpret as “everything is going to be ok” and then drives off. So we wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Seriously, a half hour goes by, and we’re starting to get worried. I was with Stacey and Kara, I think it was.
So we’re standing there, downtown Bucharest, no one speaks a lick of Romanian, we don’t know where our friends are, we don’t have any way to contact anyone else since we haven’t had a chance to buy sim cards yet, nor do we have numbers for anyone. They are lost, they don’t have any way to contact anyone, they don’t know the name of area we came from so that at least they could get back. It’s starting to get dark…
I HAVE NEVER FELT SO HELPLESS IN MY LIFE.
I mean really, as team leader I’m responsible for my team and making sure everyone’s ok, looking ahead to minimize the possibility of things like this from happening. And now something serious is happening!
So we pray. God help us find our friends. God be with them and keep them safe.
It’s been an hour now. Kara is reminded of something Alicia said once: “If you get lost just stay in the same spot until someone finds you.” We decide to start looking around this (humongous) block of downtown to see if they’re standing around waiting for us like we are for them, inside the Mcdonalds behind us, and kittle strip mall behind us. Nope. We decide to split up, with myself waiting in the same place for the cab to arrive while the two girls walk around a small park and look around for the others. It’s still bright enough but I decide to stay planted and give them fifteen minutes to walk around and meet me right back at the same spot that I’m standing in. They agree and go off. Oh goodness. Now I’m by myself, two girls off on their own, and the other three are God knows where.
So I’m meerkatting all over the place (you know how meerkats stand up and look around from their hole?) looking for any sign of Micah. I say Micah because she’s pretty much always wearing a neon green rainjacket and willbe the easiest to spot! (Sorry Micah! I love your rainjacket though.)
I turn around and what color do I see walking out of the McDonalds right behind me? Neon green Micah jacket color! And there they all are, trotting along with team Truth, bellies all full of McDonalds like nothing even happened! “Micah!” I shout. The lost have been found. In a few minutes Stacey and Kara show up and we are “reunited and it feels so good!” (lyrics)
It turns out that their cab arrived down at the other corner of the block about twenty minutes after ours did. They walked right behind us as we were waiting and looking around for them, ran into team Truth, even waited and looked for us, and the same side of the block that we were on, then decided that we were probably all right and went in to eat some mickey d’s.
Team Pro’digal: We once were lost, and now we’re found. Do I really have to explain the gospel aspect of that name?
Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far! I only have $200 left to raise by November 1st to meet the next support deadline of $10,000! What a huge accomplishment so far, thank you for all you’ve given! That deadline is now only five days away so please pray about supporting me. Thank you also for all your prayers and encouragement sent to me by your emails, they are much needed and appreciated indeed! God bless!
