Hello from Bucharest!! I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in some time! There has been so much change going on this month it has honestly been hard to sit down and write….I felt like right when I was about to something else would happen. So I decided to wait until things were settled.
Within the first 4 days of being here….we went from a squad of 33 to a squad of 30 people. Rachel, who was apart of team Agape8, is heading back to Nicaragua until next May to continue doing fulltime ministry. God has called Megan, our dear sweet NEON sister, to South Africa where she is living with the couple that has been mentoring our squad, Tom and Cindy Sipling. Taylor, of team Fuego, has gone back to the grand ole state of Georgia. Saying goodbye to all of them was so hard and we miss them dearly! But I know God knows best and has amazing things in store for each of them!
A few days after the news of our teammate and squad member’s departures we encountered more changes to teams and team leaders. Will, our fearless NEON leader, is now leading the team formerly known as Fuego (they are now called, In.tent.city) and our teammate, Matt, is now leading our team. Kaleb, who was on Team Azariah, is now on our team. Team Azariah is now split amongst the other teams so instead of 5 teams we now have 4 and with all new team names. So, ladies and gentleman, there is now no longer a Team NEON but I am apart of team Bamboo Brigade! I like to call us the “BB’s” for short…..but I don’t know if the guys really like that yet…maybe it will grow on them? 😉 We choose bamboo because it is the fastest growing plant on earth and then brigade because of its meaning, “a group of persons organized for a specific purpose.” We are continually GROWING towards Christ and God has placed us together for a specific purpose J. And here we are, tah dahhhhh……
We have been working with a lot of kids again this month – leading camps for poor children in surrounding villages. In the camps we did arts and crafts, sports, sang/taught songs and taught Bible stories. We have also visited a local womens shelter, helped organize clothes that have been donated to our contact to give out, and done some street ministry.
color, color, color singing and dancing with the kids
In the midst of all the sorting of clothes and teaching kids though….for me one of our biggest ministries this month has been to each other. We have all been through so much change and several have been going through some tough times. We have and are continually learning to draw more together through Christ! I was thinking about how I could describe this to you the other day and remembered an email I had sent almost a month ago to some close friends and family. I read over it again and realized how much it applies to this month as well. Last month I was learning more of this with my team but this month it’s been with the entire squad. I will end by sharing part of what I had written with you…..
This month has been another tough one emotionally. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been AMAZING…but God has really been breaking me down in some areas of my life as well as within our team.
Today hit a turning point within our team. To make a long story short…being with people 24/7 is hard, haha…not that you couldn’t figure that out yourself…but its just such a strange, abnormal situation we are all in. We are forced, in a sense, to build community with one another, whether we like it or not. It’s hard to explain our situation without being here, but I will explain it to you like I did my team tonight. We are all born into a family, right…we don’t get to pick and choose who our family is – they are assigned to us from the beginning. They will always be your family, whether you want them to or not. You have amazing times with your family, great times, tough times, hard times…good times are always easy. It’s the hard times that get us it seems. In your family crap will come up…within your family you can choose to confront the issue immediately or ignore it. Confronting things immediately may sometimes be a bit messy and hard, but you work through it…you push through it…you resolve…
Hold it in and no matter if you want it to or not, I bet you that it comes out in one way or another whether through actions, tangled up emotions, anger or bitterness…it will pop it’s head back up and need to be resolved.
As a team here we call each other family. We didn’t choose to be with each other, we were assigned to be with each other. We are called to do life with one another. We can either choose to confront issues from the get go…or ignore them and have them eventually explode out in some other fashion. Better to confront it from the get go I say. We are learning this within our team. It’s funny because we are here to do ministry…we are specifically here to minister to the people in Romania and the other countries we will travel to…but we are also meant to minister to each other. We are working to be a family that shares one another’s struggles, fears, joys, excitements…we are working to lift one another up better, encourage one another better and pray for one another better…we are working on TRUE community.
[written August 28th …continually learning more about community everyday since…J ]
