“When Love Comes To Town…”

So as most of you know from my last blog, Team Abandon had a rather long layover in Boston.  After spending a day running around trying to replenish some supplies at Target & REI, we headed back to the airport to find out that our flight had been delayed and than finally cancelled..twice!  Well, looking back we see why…Kimi, who had been suffering from infected bug bites all over her body from our time in Nicaragua, ended up needing medical attention. She started to run up a high fever and the infection had started to spread.  The doctors and specialists wanted to keep her in the hospital for a few days.  Cori ended up staying behind in Boston to be by Kimi’s side.  The rest of Team Abandon finally made it on our flight to Ireland.

 

 

We landed in Dublin and took a 3 hour long bus ride to the town of Galway.  The rest of the June squad had already been there for 2 days, so we were eager to catch up with our team and pitch our tents (yes, we camped out in the windy, wet & chilly Irish weather). I had 3 days to settle in and feel at home with my Irish ancestors 😉  The team had meetings with our squad leaders, one-on-one time with Tom & Cindy (our squad coaches), group worship and prayer, as well as spent some time exploring the town.    (and let me just say that my favorite part of Ireland was listening to U2’s Greatest Hits while traveling the Irish countryside by bus !!  hence my blog title”When Love Comes To Town…”  😉

 

Once our time in Ireland had come to an end, the entire June squad headed back to the Dublin airport for our flight to Bucharest, Romania.  While at the Dublin Airport Team Abandon was finally reunited with Kimi & Cori, who had just arrived that morning to make the flight to Romania.  A note on Kimi’s health, she is doing so great! Her bug bites are almost healed and both Kimi and Cori have a great attitude about the whole situation. 

 

 

We are now in Bucharest.  Team Abandon is once again working this month alone. The team leaders prayed about the pairing up of teams this month and they all felt that after what had happened in Boston, our team would benefit from working by ourselves again.  We were greeted at the Bucharest airport by Becky Dan-Walsh and two teenage girls.  Becky’s husband is currently working in the states, so we have not met him. Their ministry , however, is amazing.  Becky runs a ministry called Casa Shalom (House of Peace).  The property used to be home to orphans for the past 10 years that she has been here.  Currently the ministry is changing direction to do government funding issues, so at the moment only a few children live here part-time.  I say part time because they have family outside of the home, but the family situations are not the best and a lot of the kids would rather spend their time at the ministry site. The ministry also operates an after school program during the school year. 

 

While we are here our team will be visiting various churches in the city, working at a home for disabled girls who have been abandoned and abused, and preparing for a huge flea market fundraiser that will take place at the end of the month.  (All this week our team is sorting through boxes upon boxes of donated clothes, preparing them for the market).  Becky has also left for Germany to oversee the packing of another container full of donated items from Germany, which should be arriving next week.

 

       

Some of the boxes of clothes                                                                     I suspect a fashion show soon!

Thank you for your continued words of encouragement and prayers.  Please pray that this month would be so fruitful, that our team would become even closer as we live each day together in community (this is not easy!!) , and that all of us, our team and the workers of this ministry, would have an exponential growth in our walk with Jesus Christ.  Pray that we would be filled with the Spirit and that we would flow over with Him!!!! We know that when we are filled and walking in step with the Spirit, we will display Christ’s love in our time in Bucharest.