This month, as you know if you are following my blog, my team changed. I want to start out by posting the poem that my teammate Meg wrote about our team.
ve·rac·i·ty
a devotion to truth
an unwillingness to lie
a movement to speak life
a desire to see others through Christ's eyes
a need to find His words
for ourselves
for our team
and those we see in life
a love for a God who chose to love us first
ve·rac·i·ty
(Note: I will try to get some pictures in this blog asap, but seeing as it takes a while and this is the third time I am attempting to post this blog, I will try pictures again later.)
Ministry of the month
This past month my team was in Sistarovat, Romania at a Christian camp and conference center called seventh spring. Sistarovat is a small community of about 400 people. We spent the month working with another team, Arise and Go, and spent most of our time gardening, painting, chopping wood and helping with laundry and other household chores. The whole month was pretty low key as far as work went. If it was raining even a little bit (which it did for about the first 4 days) we were told to relax because there wasn’t much for us to do when we couldn’t be working outside. It was a huge blessing as most of us were exhausted from jet lag and a very emotional weekend before arriving to Romania. Our ministry for the month was basically to help out Mihai (our contact) get the camp ready for the summer.
Favorite memory
Caving! I had never been caving before and when Mindy (a member of team arise and go) asked if anyone would be interested in going if her friends were able to I jumped at the opportunity. I really had no idea what to expect but the whole trip blew me away! From getting to spend a few days getting to know Mindy better to the amazing presence of God I felt in entering the caves the two day trip was amazing! We were met at the train station by Mindy’s friend at 2 am and spent the night at her parents’ house where we were fed upon arrival. We got up early the next morning, ate breakfast, met the park ranger Marius (who is this big biker looking dude: complete with handlebar moustache and do-rag whose ringtone on his phone is the bear necessities!), and headed out to the grocery store to pick up snacks for the cave and food for dinner. We dropped everything off at the park ranger apartment, got our gear and headed to the cave. We spent about 6 hours in one cave, exploring and taking in the greatness of God’s marvelous creation! We headed back to the apartment where Marius cooked us the most amazing meal I have had on the race so far and homemade bread. We ate until we were stuffed, told jokes and laughed around the table and passed an old guitar around; taking turns playing and singing. The next morning, we went to two more caves and then headed back home. It felt like I was hanging out with friends that I had known forever and that gave me a much needed break from everyday life on the race. God showed up in awesome ways over those two days in the formations and ecosystem of the caves.
Biggest challenge
The biggest challenge for me this month was staying focused on the present and finding God and purpose in the mundane, everyday tasks we were doing. It was hard to want to keep getting up and digging up grass plots for gardens each day or sweeping the patio that was sure to have more leaves and flowers on it a few hours later from the trees. It felt more like we were doing tasks just to keep busy and have something to do than actually helping accomplish anything. It was challenging to keep fighting the urge to stay in bed and read a good book or chat with teammates and go help around the camp each day.
Church situation
This month we attended a Baptist church consisting of 4 members (no, that was not a typo…there were only 4 people there). We met in a small white building with a wood burning heater in the center of the room and wooden benches for seats. We spent the first 30 minutes in prayer, followed by a short bible study and then by worship (which usually consisted of some music and then one of our teammates speaking).
Food
We were so blessed with food this month! Angela, the cook for the camp, made us delicious meals each day. Each morning we had bread with butter and jam. For lunch and dinner Angela made us all kinds of soups and noodle dishes. They were amazing!
Random WR moment
Over the past month, some of our team combined with team arise and go to create an acapella group much like the one on the movie Pitch Perfect. We rehearsed and sang the song Just the way you are for our squad talent show at the end of the month at debrief.
Funniest moment
Our train ride. Hands down. There were 11 women traveling together from Bucharest to Lipova (a neighboring town to Sistarovat) on our first overnight train adventure of the race. After an hour train delay, we finally got on the train at about 1 am. With all of our packs and with no knowledge of the language or how the trains worked, we climbed aboard what we thought to be our car. We are all walking single file up and down the aisle that is barely wide enough to walk down (let alone with all of our packs) in search of someone who can tell us where are seats are located. The conductors did not want to help us one bit. We finally did find our seats (after probably looking like a funny motion picture had we recorded and sped up a video of us) and spent the next 10 hours attempting to sleep. The next morning was spent trying to figure out when it was time to get off (we had an approximate time on our tickets, but with the hour delay and us being informed that they usually try to make up time we had no clue as to the actual time of arrival, nor what the train station looked like.) Because of this, we spent about an hour standing by the door (3 stops too soon) with all of our gear ready to jump off the train quickly as we were told it would only stop for about one minute (which upon arrival, the train actually waits for everyone to get off before they signal it to leave: go figure!)
What I will miss
This area is beautiful. It is so quiet and the landscape is a great change from the desert that we came from in South America. It was great to get to relax in this peaceful countryside and watch as the flowers started to bloom on the trees. It was cool enough to wear jeans and a hoodie (my favorite time of year back home) and yet warm enough to sit in the grass and read, journal or take a nap. I will miss walking through the quaint little town to get a snickers bar (I swear they taste even better here!) from the store and watching Mihai walk around the camp with his sheep and goats right behind him.
Spiritual lesson/revelation
Lucky for you (and me because I don’t need to type it again) I posted a blog about this last week. I will link it here so you can go check that one out as well.
http://sarahworkman.theworldrace.org/?filename=one-small-touch-caving-in-romania
Prayer requests
Pray for Angela, our cook for the month, as she does not know the Lord.
Pray for the camp and the children that will attend this summer: that they will experience God in supernatural ways and that they will have a blast doing so.
Pray for Mihai as he continues to host future World Race teams and as he continues to prepare the camp for the summer months.
Pray for the small community of Sistarovat: that more people will come to know Jesus and that joy and happiness will fill their lives!
Pray for our team as we are beginning to learn what it is like to live as a community: me with a bunch of introverts and them with an extreme extrovert like myself, and the balance that is needed to love each other well. And that the depth and growth of this team will expand even in the months to come.
