When I first heard that month 2 in Romania will be all-squad month, I rolled my eyes and mentally braced myself for a nightmare. Reading the comments from previous racers on The Log only made it worse. The only things I learned about the area were that:
- the village is heavy on witchcraft
- the gypsy children will throw dead rats into the house if the windows are left open, and
- the dogs will become aggressive with eye contact
On our first day in Draganesti-Olt, Raul, Hope Church’s head pastor, described the village we were about to call home for a month as the graveyard for missionaries. Together with the thought of cohabiting with 43 other humans in a single house with 3 toilets & showers for a month just sounds like the perfect beginning to a 4-part horror story.
Looking back, the month was filled with blessings and growth. Here are a few highlights:
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Travel Day – Our amazing host arranged a team of drivers to drive overnight to Belgrade, pick all of us up early the next morning, and transport us to the Mission Home in Romania. This generous act shortened what would’ve been 2 days of travel down to 8 hours. Since I had the front passenger seat, I had the honor of not sleeping and had the opportunity to get to know my driver Tavi; His story and his vision for Maruntei were both beautiful and inspiring.
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Squad Ministry – Village Clean Up: Our first squad ministry was Village Clean Up. Raul believed in clean town = clean hearts. I was teamed up with Tavi, Jenny, and Doug; we were responsible for the stretch of road between the train tracks and Tavi’s house. Halfway through, a man standing in front of his gate was speaking very loudly towards us with exaggerated hand gestures. That got Tavi’s attention and he came over to translate for us; He said that we were cleaning the streets better than the people he paid to do the same thing. Turns out he is the guardian of the town’s mayor (still do not know what that means) and he wanted to offer us pears from his yard as a token of appreciation! Those were some sweet yummy pears!
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Adventure Day / The Left Behind Days – For our adventure day, we were given the options to check out the Braun Castle in Transylvania or go to Greece. I chose to explore northern Romania along with 6 of my squad mates. The Braun Castle was alright but Marcel, our amazing driver and friend, decided to take a detour coming back because he wanted to show us the road that the Top Gear hosts proclaimed as the best road in the world – the Transfagarasan. Wow! The mountainscape of Romania is breathtaking! Pictures do not do justice but here is a glimpse.
View of the Carpathian Mountains – On our way to the Transfagarasan
Not a road for the faint hearted – it’s full of endless curves and sheer drops.
One of the main reasons why it took us forever to get home
On the way down, we got stuck behind a herd of sheep… Just a normal day in Romania!
The group that went to the castle was “left behind” while the rest of the squad went to Greece later that week. Those few days were some of my favorite days of the month. It was a nice time to rest and get to know each other on a deeper level. We even got to wash our chacos in the washer!
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Meeting New Friends at the Parliament (Bucharest) – We had 2 off days back to back because Hope Church was launching their cell groups and everyone headed up north for a retreat. Because of that timing, a few of us went to Bucharest for the weekend! Emily and I decided to go check out the Palace of the Parliament because it is the second largest administrative building in the world, after The Pentagon. Honestly, I wasn’t super impressed with the building but we met two friends, Una and Hatam, on the tour! Una is a former IBM employee who now travels around the world as a guest speaker in different tech conferences. Hatam is a firefighter in Saudi Arabia. It was so casual that we even decided to have lunch together in Old Town afterward!
Front View of the Parliament:
View of Bucharest from the terrace of the Parliament:
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My ministry focus last month was to equip Ana, the head pastor’s wife, with everything she needs to know to assist her husband in administrative tasks. That ranged from basic emailing, to google everything, to social media. I didn’t sign up for it but my team volunteered me without hesitation on the very first day. Ana is an amazing woman of God, a caring mother, and a supportive wife. Her submission to her husband is admiring. She is such a people person who has absolutely no interest in administrative task. However, her want to support her husband where she sees a need pushed her to learn. Working with her became something I look forward to daily. She is so honest with her thoughts, easily amused, and likes to feed me – asking for more would just be greedy!
As I am sitting in Bulgaria reflecting about last month, what I imagined to be the beginning of a horror story became a month of intimacy. It was a month of growth. We challenged each other to deeper relationships among each other and with the Lord, poured into each other, and lifted each other up in prayers and encouragements. Month 2 showed me a glimpse of what community looks like and taught me to embrace all of it – the good, the bad, and even the ugly. In this past month, I even realized that I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart out of formality many years ago but not because I wanted to. I made the decision to invite the spirit into my heart because I acknowledged that it was the missing link between my head and my heart. That simple step has already unlocked so much for me in the weeks following- time and time again, I feel like I’m playing Zelda and am unlocking levels as I go. As I am reflecting on my time in Romania, I realized that I never fully understood what community meant / looked like. Now that I got a glimpse, I want more. I want to meet people where they are and as uncomfortable as it is, I want them to get to know me. While it makes me nervous, I’m excited to see how the next few months will unfold. While the race for me is essentially a kingdom journey with a twist of adventure, I don’t want the growth to end when the race is finished. My prayer is that the growth on this race will set the tone on how I live the rest of my life. #relationshipgoals
