Romania was by far one of my favorite months on the race….oh and did I mention……….WE JUST FINISHED MONTH 10…..AH!!! So crazy!!!! Okay..back to the blog… 🙂 Our main focus for the month was helping the missionaries with whatever they needed. We visited widows and gave them food, weeded lots of gardens and vineyards, painted an old gate, cleaned the church, helped visiting Texas teams with kids camps, passed out books and tracks, gave our testimonies and sang at church, washed the m’s cars, babysat, created a networking system for the pastor, and all sorts of little odds and ends. We also did an outreach trip to Bulgaria, which was a cool experience and brought our total to 13 countries visited this year. The next person you should know is Raul. Alecs, Orange, and George are next. Those are our main family, even though we met so many amazing people, including our wonderful gypsy kids. They would see us coming, and run and throw themselves in our arms! God did so many things in each of my teams lives. We are sooo thankful that God put us in a place where the people became our family. It was an intense month internally, but for the first time, people poured into us and made sure we were loved on. It helped get us through the hard times. I am really going to miss Romania. I am praying about returning one day. Only God can know when. Please pray for my new family. Pray for their ministries, their families, and that God would use them in MIGHTY ways here. Pray that they would grow even more in the knowlegde of who God is and that they wouldn’t grow weary in doing good.
Our month was full of precious memories that I will always hold on to. For the first time on the race, I felt like I was just with friends, even when pulling weeds for four hours.
Let me tell you about these people I’ve come to consider family.
I’ll start with Marian and Andrea.
Marian was our main contact for the month. He is 25, married to Andrea, and they have a beautiful daughter named Ruth-Naomi. Marian was our big brother in every sense of the word. He picked on us, told us we were slow at pulling weeds, threw dirt clumps at us, told jokes, and got really protective anytime we were uncomfortable. He taught us some hilarious phrases such as ‘te pup’, and his laugh always made us laugh. 😉 He is on fire for the Lord and disciples the guys in the church. Andrea is gentle, strong, and compassionate. She loves on the women in the community with such grace and persistence. She takes care of widows, and leads Bible studies with the women. She is full of wisdom, and truly cares about how you are doing. One of my team’s and mine’s favorite memory is them coming over with ice cream and soda just to see how we were and to pray for our families. It happened at a time where we all really needed it, and we were so blessed by it. They are incredible- and I want the world to know them. 🙂 I could write a book about how awesome they are!
He is the pastor of the church we were involved with. Raul is full of revelation of the Word. He is humble, walks in authority, and is respected by all. This man has God’s favor all over him. He challenged our faith, accepted us into the community, and inspired all of us to change the world. Because of his work, the entire community of Dragonesti has been affected.
These guys became our little brothers. They called us porticollo (orange-sarah), banana-nicolita (me), red (les), and lemon (carm). They teased us unmercifully. They threw water on us, chased us in the dark around the house, tripped us playing soccer, and pulled many pranks. One night we stacked logs in front of Alecs’s door so he couldn’t get in. We also attempted to pour water on them from the second floor. 🙂 The boys baked us cookies one night and they all got in a huge flour fight. I showed them how to rub hand-sanitizer on your hands and light it on fire…haha. George was notorious for throwing weeds. He helped us translate, and you could find him at any moment reading scripture. He loves God’s word. Orange was our hyper brother. The guy danced like Ray Charles and was as strong as an ox. He is very young in his faith, and he is hungering for more. Alecs is a gifted worship leader. He would come and worship with us late at night, and he leads worship at church. He has a heart made of gold, and he is so good with the kids in the community.
