We arrived in Draganesti-Olt, Romania, on Friday and have been getting oriented with the ministry and culture here. This month is all-squad month so our entire squad of 55 people will be living together and doing ministry here through Hope Church (http://www.hoperomania.org/). Draganesti is a small town with 12,000 people and 50 percent unemployment. Both Romanians and Gypsies live here, although not in harmony. The Gypsies came from India centuries ago, but the native Romanians feel invaded and see them as people who do not work, are lazy, and steal. The Gypsies want to be accepted by the Romanian community, yet they have their own king (not officially recognized by Romania) and their own President (who is currently in prison for stealing and has a house in Draganesti by the train station). According to our host Raul, the community is predominantly Orthodox mixed with superstitions and witchcraft. Hope church shares the Gospel with both groups.
Back of the train with my teammate Lauren, Draganesti bound!
Hope church does ministry at the local, regional, and international level and our squad is the first one to get to participate in not only the local and regional ministries, but international as well. I will be traveling with some of our squad to Greece for the next week to help Hope Church find new places for ministry, pray for a base location for future squads to do ministry there, and help their partner churches there by conducting surveys to find people interested in planting a church (with whom the local church will then follow-up). After that my team will be directly helping Raul with behind-the-scenes things while the rest of the teams on the squad do ministry on different projects.
My tent in the foreground, mission house in the background where the girls are staying
I’m really excited for this month because I think a lot of my skills will be directly applicable to empowering Hope church. I’m also looking forward to growing personally through the homework that our host Raul will give us each night. For example, one day he might ask “What does a Biblical man look like?” and we have that night to find the answer in Scripture and discuss it the next day.
With love,
Zach
