Sitting here in a bus station in Moldova, hour number 12, arrived at 5:45 am and it’s now 7 pm, only 1 more hour to go before we board another 16 hour train ride to Kiev, Ukraine… sprawled out in the corner, bags of food and water bottles and backpacks and laptops all over the place… people coming and going, here and there. It's strange that these travel days are now ordinary. No one is phased, we’re just hangin out.
I realize I am a little behind on this whole blogging business. let me apologize. In order to catch you up in the most time-efficient manner, I am going to take a page out of my dear friend Nicole’s book, and interview myself. Hopefully these will be questions you would want answered, and everyone will be happy.
So here we go.
What have you been doing all month?
I’m glad you asked. This past month Team Lumi-P (Reckless Pursuit & Luminous) worked with Hope Church in Draganesti, Romania. Hope Church is pretty cool. They are dedicated to spreading the gospel all throughout Oltenia, a south-central county in Romania that is a whopping 3% Christian. Hope Church has a ton of missionaries working to spread out across Oltenia and plant churches and bring hope. We got to support them in quite the wide variety of ways: passing out pamphlets/CDs, doing kid’s ministry in the neighboring villages, helping run services, babysitting their kids, gardening, doing small construction projects, hanging out with the church youth, working in the church office… pretty much anything these people needed.
So how was it?
It was awesome. I learned a lot about what it means to me a true missionary and a true follower of God. The people of Hope Church live out their faith in a way that I rarely see. They give everything they have to offer every single day, they go non-stop, they love big. They’re also a little bit exhausted, but they say it’s worth it for their Jesus. I was challenged in what it looks like for me to actually live out my faith fully. Also, it was cool to be able to boost the missionaries themselves, since we were only there for 3 weeks and these people live and work all the time. I got a new perspective on what it looks like to be a short-term missionary and humbly serve those who are serving others.
Did you learn anything exceptionally interesting?
Yes! God used my time in Romania to nudge me consistently more and more towards believing Him for the supernatural. I got lots of time to consider the bible and talk with other believers and pray about the reality of God’s power being the same here and now as it was so long ago when the bible was written. I believe He wants me to start taking risks and asking the random person I meet in the train station if I can pray for God to heal their legs. He wants me to believe Him for those things, for prophetic words for my teammates and the people we minister to.
Anything else noteworthy?
Chyeah. Raul, the pastor of Hope Church, arranged some pretty awesome trips for us throughout the month. We got to go to the original Dracula's Castle, aka the castle of some weird king from the 14th (I think?) Century who was super gruesome and inspired dracula (of course in Transylvania). We go to go to Raul's parent's house and eat delicious cabbage rolls. We went to Alba-Iulia, Raul's home town, and go to tour this old fort/palace area. Oh and we got to live with Team Luminous for the whole month, and Team Favored for the last week of our stay in Draganesti. We had a blast hanging out, cooking joint team dinners and singing disney songs and doing ministry all together and playing soccer with the missionaries, all of whom speak english and are pretty much hilarious.
There’s the dry bones blog. And now, some photos for your viewing pleasure!
Team Lumi-P, kickin it in Alba-Iulia, just explorin and stuff.
Classic Reckless-P
Snuggle puddle with Fuji and Nicole
Sometimes during long road trips to Dracula's Castle you get the most tired ever and have to take naps in the back seat.
Joshua and Tiffany came and hung out with us for a whole week!
Youth bible study at Hope Church. Learning about Ruth.
Giving my testimony at Hope Church, Raul translating and I'm pretty sure slightly embellishing 😉
Lumi-P Team dinner
The whole family! Lumi, Reckless P, Favored, and all the missionaries and their families from Hope Church. Our last night in Draganesti, we threw them a fiesta and cooked Mexican food as a going away party.
[photo credit to all kinds of people]
