Well, after a
well rested and much needed de-brief in South Africa. We all began our intense 20 hour stent of
travel from Johannesburg, South Africa to Villa Tecii, Romania. We had a 10 hour plane ride from South Africa
to Turkey, after a 2 hour layover we then had an hour and a half flight to
Bucharest Romania. After we arrived and
exchanged money, bought sim cards and filed 7 lost luggage reports we began our
8 hour bus ride north to Villa Tecii, where we would meet our contact John
Fracker.
Ville Tecii
is a small gypsy village in the mountains of Northern Romania, near
Transylvania. Ville Tecii is everything
I wanted out of Eastern Europe. It’s
very lush and green with mountains, lakes, evergreens and flowery fields. The architecture of the homes and the sound
of houses pulled carts down the streets gives you the feel that you’ve gone
back in time. I didn’t really know much
about gypsy’s until recently and the more I learned, the more I realized that
they’re very similar to the Karen people group that we worked with in
Thailand. They are a people without a
home country and they are most known for being poor, uneducated, and
wanderers. But obviously the group we
are working with managed to settle down long enough to form a village. But also like the Karen they face tremendous
oppression and hate from others. That’s
where John Fracker’s ministry comes in.
The first
thing I found out about John was that he’s a good ole boy from Murphy
Tennessee, and I’ve liked him ever since.
He came out here and began working with the gypsy’s when God called him
here about 7 years ago. Shortly after
that he fell in love with a local gypsy girl and they got married. With his wife, John preaches the gospel of
love and acceptance to these marginalized people.
Recently,
Ville Tecii has literally doubled in size with the arrival of H-squad (which is
52 people) and 3 teams from the August squad.
Currently all the active World Race squads are ministering in Romania
because on September 21st we’ll all be going to the huge World Race
conference in Romania for all current World Racers and alumni. It’s nice to be working with the whole squad,
especially since we have worked alone for the large majority of the trip. But it’s also been a huge blessing to
interact with the teams from the other squad.
In my pride I was thinking it would be a great chance to teach and pour
into them, and we have to an extent. But
really it’s been them that’s been pouring in to us. This is only their second month and they have
an enthusiasm and passion that we’ve lost somewhere along the way. That enthusiasm is what we need to finish
this race strong.
Our primary
ministry this month is pouring into our Christian host family. Sandu (the father) is a pastor of a church in
the village. Other then that we will be
speaking at church services and doing home visits. We’re very excited and feel that God has big
plans for this village. Please pray that
He’ll use us and that in our last leg of this race we’ll be able to stay
focused and engaged.
