Romania
Draganesti is a small village in the region of Oltenia (look straight up… 'OLT'). We are located in southern Romania about 3 hours south of Bucharest (the captital). This month we will be working with Jason’s team. Both teams came from very different situations last month. My team stayed in Serbia and experienced living in a large mission house
with flushing toilets, hot showers, a kitchen to cook in, nice beds, a 10 minute walk to use the internet, a 10 minute taxi/bus ride to town, English club and other social events as our main ministry, and further, a month without another team. Jason’s team was split up with 2 other World Race teams. People from all the three teams lived in different places such as with the locals or in the church, some took cold bucket showers, ate mush for every meal, used squatty potties, had spotty internet usage, and did manual labor as much of their ministry. So coming together this month has introduced a new dynamic for both teams. This month, Jason’s team has been experiencing more luxuries overall than last month, while my team is experiencing more of what poverty looks like overall.
We are working with Pastor Raul Costea and other surrounding missionaries.
Raul and his family are Romanian missionaries who come from the northern part of Romania, which is culturally very different from the south. One huge difference is the lack of people following Christ in the south versus the north. For this reason Raul and his family moved, as a missionaries, from the north and first began doing ministry with an orphanage in Slatina. They then moved to Draganesti (south of Slatina) and began a Baptist church that supports many missionaries in the neighboring villages.
