Our five weeks here have been amazing, but also incredibly busy. Busy with ministry, adventure weekends, relationships inside and outside of the squad, developing bonds with our new teams, living with 35 other people, finding time with God, and everything else in between. Plus, my mind has been incredibly busy with all of that and more making it difficult to even reflect on the time we spent in Craiova, Romania.
Our ministry has been working alongside pastor Raul and his family at his church (“Hope Church”). One of my favorite things about this trip is getting to form some special bonds with people all over the world that are just incredible people who love God and others well. Romania, although it is the country we spent the least time in, was another amazing opportunity to meet people mostly in the ministry, but even some outside of the ministry.
Pastor Raul has an amazing kingdom focused mind. He finds ways to reach the community with the good news of Jesus in lots of different ways. Some ways we got to be a part of include:
- Street evangelism.
- Giving out food, handing out posters or pamphlets with the gospel on it, just walking up to people and having conversation, inviting people to events we were putting on, and picking up trash.
- Giving out food to local Roma communities that are less fortunate.
- Digital ministry
- Recording testimonies, conversations, updating the social media, and more.
- Putting on American events where we got to interact with people and share the good news.
- Pray over neighboring communities to see what God has in store for planting churches
- Eyeglasses ministry where we gave people new glasses while sharing the gospel and praying over them.
- And more.
Our schedule typically looked like this Tuesday through Saturday:
9-10:30 Prayer over the ministry and that day.
10:30-12 Digital Ministry, prepare for the afternoon ministry by packing food or whatever it may be.
12-4 We would have off to have team time, lunch, and a little down time.
4-8 Back to ministry, where we would almost certainly evangelize in one of the ways listed above.
Back to the regular recap, I just knew I needed to give a decent overview of what life looked like here.
Highlights
Getting to play basketball for ministry a few times.
Some beautiful architecture.
Getting to know the host family. Love them and will miss them a lot.
Getting to stay at a host family on one of our weekend trips. The house had a backyard, couches, ac, beds, dogs, just made me feel I was normal for a second again.
Maestro! Ate there once a day. Such great food.
“Goody goody”, “People of God”, “Captain America” and other Pastor Raul quotes.
Going on to the roof of an apartment building to look over the city of Craiova on one of our last nights with the two sons of Raul, Sammy and Jonathan, love them a lot.
Getting to do ministry with Jonathan everyday. He is 17, a pastors kid, enjoys basketball, and I was just able to enjoy relating to him, messing with him, and being constantly around him.
Relationships with people on the squad continuing to grow during our time being all together.
Surprised
The amount of people that smoke over here.
How much English is known at least among the younger generation.
The lines on the road are all white, no yellow line in the middle, confusing.
There is a lot of fountains in Romania.
Was reminded how far from God this world truly is. Forgot a little bit from being in Christian circles for the majority of the last 7 months.
Currently Growing
Gosh I feel like Romania has been a lot of growing and very little growing somehow at the same time. I have been feeling burnt out for a lot of my time here, with the busy schedule yes but I think more so from living with 35 people and constantly having to be on. This alone has been an interesting area of growth in figuring out how to find rest, but also how to be filled up by the Father and not by people.
What’s next?
So, we are now in Albania! We drove yesterday about 21 hours from Romania through Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Kosovo to finally arrive in Tirana, Albania. Our time in Albania will be spent in five different ministry locations meaning all the teams are by themselves in their locations. My team is new. We got new teams like 4 weeks ago. I am back on a coed team with 4 guys and 3 ladies. Make sure to check out my team “TBD” either on the left if you are on a laptop or click the tab button then find “my team” if you are on your phone. Give them a follow/subscribe and check out their ways of telling the story of our experience.
Prayer Requests
Start praying for the ministry in Albania and what God has for us there. Prayers for my team to really connect and dive into time together. That we will be full of energy, love, joy, etc. as we are in month eight and it may be getting easier to feel drained or unmotivated.
Love y’all a lot! Jesus loves you a heck of a lot more!
Peace,
JD
