The ten-day outreach to Bucharest, Romania, went really well. At the time it didn't feel like we were doing much of anything special - but looking back what we did was pretty important. We took on a good portion of the church's ministry there for a week. Calvary Chapel Bucharest has a neat ministry that focuses on individual kids. There are about a dozen kids who come regularly to the church after school for lunch, a Bible lesson, help with their homework and a bath. These kids wouldn't be in school without the church - they would be out on the streets begging, scrounging, probably stealing to get by - and maybe they are still doing these things, but because there are people who care about them they are also getting an education, learning boundaries, and receiving loving attention.
There were 9 of us who came from the school including our leader, an intern who is from Bucharest. We cooked food, taught Bible stories, played games like "vaca mort" (dead cow), helped with baths and doing the little girls' long hair. Most of us weren't any help at all with homework, but we did what we could. It was encouraging to see how much it meant to the kids, how encouraged the ministry team was by us being there. We did plenty of cleaning and painted a fence and prayed that the rain would stay away until we were done. (It mostly stayed away.) We did evangelism in a park - one of my first times doing that.
It's hard to decide what to say about the 10-day. I really liked so many aspects about it - being in a team, having more to do than reading and classes, being out in the city, the sense of urgency that came from us having just 7 full days in Bucharest. But I loved the church and even though I felt a little shy with the kids I really didn't want to leave. When we were at the train station, my bags were on the train a full 15 minutes before I was! Each mile the train took us back toward Hungary didn't make sense. And when I got back to the school I kept feeling the urgency for Bucharest that I'd had before. So I did a lot of praying and sought some counsel at my school and from the pastor of the church where we had been... and the Lord seemed to be leading, which is why I am in Bucharest as I write this, doing my 30-day ministry outreach for the missions program here. I came on the first train after school was out.
The last two weeks at the school went by quickly... filled with papers and gatherings (secret sister tea, Dove Awards, graduation, castle cleaning) and sweet moments with friends who have become so close it was like leaving family all over again.
Here are a few pictures --
In Romania...
(The good Romania pictures were taken by Claudia Enescu, the pastor's wife in Bucharest.)
With friends just before the Dove Awards (student entertainment and funny pictures from the semester)
Katie's graduation from MTP (the one in brown) - with Pam our teacher/mentor, Esther and me
Very nice.....sounds like a fun time as well as being God's hands and feet.
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