This month started off a bit overwhelming but I’m loving Romania more and more each day. If there was a “standard” world race day that I’d use to summarize what my month in Romania looked like November 22nd would be it. Nothing “special” happened this day but it was still a gift as each day is. The day started off with worship and intercession prayer before lunch. Then after lunch is when I found to be the best time for me to do my daily prayer walk. With this I’ve started to listen to different sermon podcasts. The one I listened to this day was “How to Turn Your Sorrow Into Strength” by Elevation Church. The focus was about how our greatest sorrows can become our strengths. The Bible story used was how Benjamin got his name and what the name means.
After my prayer walk we had our structured ministry time and my teammate Mack and I went to one of the ministry families house to help them clean up their yard more through raking leaves and then burning different brush. Burning the brush proved to be a challenge when working with wet wood, damp cardboard, and the family’s 5 year old “helping”. Whenever I would start to get it going he would throw stuff on the fire thinking he was helping but he would just put it out. Then when it was going well he would take things out of the fire that were burning and swing it around. I tried telling him to stop in both cases but he would not listen. It took him very mildly burning his hand for him to change his behavior. I’m the kind of person where I enjoy trying to look for life lessons in what’s happening around me. I think the lesson in this that God was trying to relay in this is how when we are doing things we aren’t supposed to do God will try to tell us not to but if we aren’t listening to Him sometimes we have to get burned to realize what we are doing isn’t smart. Just as I continued to love that kid through it all, God’s love for us will never change based on our actions. In some situations getting burned is God showing us love. If we won’t listen, letting us experience a little pain now for us to avoid greater pain in the future is love. Thank you Aunt Deb and Uncle Bill Wirth for sponsoring this day!
Turkey Day! The 23rd was definitely a day I won’t forget simply because it was the first major Holliday that I’ve been away from home. I’m not going to lie it was a little tough at times but having such an awesome squad family around me made it still a great day. After worship and intercession prayer I listened to another sermon by Elevation church called “There’s a catch”. It was a great sermon with lot of good points. My favorite part of it was a story about how when their church was starting one Sunday they didn’t take an offering but instead they gave money out to the congregation by taking envelopes under each seat with random amount despite the church being in its early stages of development. Most were just $1 but some where larger, even up to $1000. But there was a catch. They had to use that money to bless someone else. The church was giving back to the community through the congregation which I thought was really cool but then it got better. The next week the pastor said they are doing the same thing again this week. Everyone applauded and then the pastor said but this week the money is in your bank accounts. I thought this was ironically appropriate for thanksgiving. We should all be very thankful for what we have but at the same time we need to keep in mind that it is not really ours.
After this I went to teach English again to the family I had helped teach the prior week. The difference was this time Drew who helped me last week stayed back to help cook for thanksgiving. I went into it a little nervous but it turned out to be great and not as difficult as I expected. It does help to have such an awesome family to teach to.
When I got home we had thanksgiving dinner and it was amazing. We all pitched in some personal money to buy all of the food and it was all so good! My squad mate Averi made this thanksgiving day video if you want to watch!
After dinner was over I was able to FaceTime Home into a few different family gatherings which was definitely the highlight of the day.
The next day is my new favorite ministry day. The day started off with a lesson on our Myers Briggs personality test results and what they mean. Our leaders were very purposeful in their words to make it clear that this test and what it tells you does not define you. We are sons and daughters of God above all else. Using the Myers Briggs test is more of a tool that we can use to better understand ourselves and others on our team. They went in depth into a concept called the car model. I found it to be really interesting. For those of you are curious and know what I am talking about I am an INFP. If your interested in figuring out what you are you can go to ___________ to take the test and then go to the “personality hacker” website or look up their podcasts. I then listed to a podcast on being an INFP on my prayer walk. I believe that if I can better understand myself and those around me that can translate into more effective ministry. I could go on for a while about this but I digress.
For ministry time on this day Mack and I went to a park with a couple locals where they are trying to start a new kids club. The park itself is not big at all and had a pebbly ground. When we got there 2 kids were there and then 2 more came and then some more came until about 8 12-15 year old kids were at the park. We played soccer and threw the disc (frisbee) I brought and it was a blast. Playing sports with kids was something I’ve been looking forward to since launch and it finally happened. I was overjoyed and can’t wait to go back again. Thank you Jerry and Marcella Farina for sponsoring these two days!
November 26th was a day of some much needed rest. Before starting the race I thought “Rest day? Why would I want a rest day? I just want to keep doing ministry all the time. I might even use my rest and adventure days to do ministry. I don’t need rest and adventure.” Man was I wrong. I’ve leaned quickly that’d I’d burn out so quickly if these days weren’t in our schedule. These two off days make ministry on the other 5 days possible. The ability to recognize that we as humans need time to rest is something our culture does not appreciate. I’m not talking about sleeping. I’m talking about what refuels you, what recharges your battery and gives you energy. For me often times rest means going for a hike, playing a board/card game, or watching a movie.
For me on this day sleep was a part of recharging. I slept in until 11, had lunch and helped prepare dinner. Once a week this month instead of eating dinner separately one team makes dinner for the whole squad. In was our teams turn and we had tacos. With 22 people their was a lot of preparation involved so this particular rest day wasn’t as restful but it was still very enjoyable. After dinner though I got my rest in through playing a card game and watching Lord of the Rings. Though no ministry happened on this day thank you Sandy Kline for sponsoring this day which helps makes the other days possible.
