I am a chef. No, not a cook (although I have done that since I've been here in Romania), but the “boss”. (Chef in Romanian means boss, just in case you hadn't caught on yet.) That's right! The boss… the boss of sweeping, that is. I'll get to that. First, let me tell you a bit about my month so far.
Romania, country #3, we are here! After 36 hours of “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” (a bus to be more specific) from Haiti, my team and I arrived at 2am on a super cold morning to Draganesti-Olt here in the southern part of Romania. Thanks be to our contacts at Hope Church who are providing us with the Mission House where we are staying where we have warm water, showers, wifi, washing machine, and (drum roll please) our own beds! Our two previous countries shared the same island, bugs, and climate. But now we are in Europe and it is different. In the Dominican, men hissed. In Haiti, all the kids yelled “You, You”. Here, hardly anyone says anything to us at all. In a strange way, it was nice the first few days. The Romanian culture is seemingly unfriendly and rude since it's rare that anyone actually smiles back at me, but I must recognize that is just their culture and not intentional to be that way. But I think very soon I am going to desire friendliness and greetings from more than just teammates and might be irritated when I don't receive them.
God has been opening my eyes to themes of each month. In the Dominican Republic, we focused on relationships. (Check out my teammate Reagan's blog for a good explanation, http://reagantaylor.theworldrace.org/?filename=pretend-time). In Haiti, we physically exerted ourselves to build the foundation of a school and church building by doing construction. Here in Romania… we pray. Simple yet of uber importance. We also serve the missionaries and church staff here. Our ministry jobs are mainly in the afternoons so in the morning, we get together with one of our church contacts and spend extended time praying. We pray for the community of Draganesti-Olt, the people of the church, the missionaries who have given up their lives at home in the states and Canada to move here indefinitely, and for the darkness of the community surrounded by witchcraft, gypsies, and oppressive Orthodox religion to fade away as the Light is spread. This has become my favorite part of our time here.
Our ministry jobs are versatile and we split up to do them. We are working at after school programs for kids, teaching English to beginners and advanced students, helping put together the church website, taking meals to widows, and cleaning the church grounds, just to name a few odd jobs. I've helped Keven and Michelle (an older missionary couple from Canada who have now lived here for 5 years) set up a clothes-free-for-all in which needy people came and filled up 2 bags for their families (I have never seen such a quiet yet peaceful stampede of need before). I've swept the whole outside of the church… that's right, the outside. I've raked leaves and have become the human version of a rug doctor and dog walker for one of the missionary women from Canada. Which leads me to why I'm the boss… aside from sweeping outside of the church and it's alleyway, I've also swept driveways and bedrooms. Since one man in town sees me doing it regularly and one time saw others helping me, he looked at them then looked at me and called me their "boss”. I am the master sweeper apparently. Love it. Each and every one of these small jobs would be something I'd probably grumble at like the Israelites if I were doing them at home… at least silently. But here, I don't mind one bit. Our ministries this month are to live behind the scenes as we shower the village and people with prayer in the morning then get out into the community and take care of the tasks that people in the church would normally do so they can be freed up to do other, more important things that they need to. I absolutely love everything about this. I'll only be here for about 3 more weeks, but the members of the church and the missionaries live here and will be here long after I'm gone. So I am pleased to do anything to lighten their load so they are free to spend time investing in the people that they are called to.
