Adventures in Romania

Hello Everyone!

     We arrived in Romania on Friday the 13th and it has already had an interesting beginning. Our first of many travel days was an experience to say the least. While there were no major problems it was still a long 28-hour long travel day. First, we all jumped into vans for the 1.5-hour drive from Gainesville, Georgia to the Atlanta airport. Then we made our was through baggage claim and airport security for the first of our 2 flights. Our first flight was an 8.5-hour flight from Atlanta to Paris. The 8.5 hours really flew by (pun intended), and other than the weird interaction between me and a male flight attendant, it was a breeze. Then, after a quick run through security again, we got 2 hours to poke around the Paris airport. We got to experience some delicious French treats (I chose a yummy chocolate croissant) and coffee! Then we hopped onto our last flight of the day; a 3-hour flight from Paris to Bucharest. After a nice airplane nap we landed in Romania! We went through customs and collected all of our bags and piled into vans for the last leg of our journey. After a 5.5-hour drive we made it to our final destination for the month of Craiova, Romania. 

     We have only been here a few days but things are not what we had imagined. The first night here, a few of my squad mates were feeling under the weather. Now, three days later, there are 8 different people who have tested positive and unfortunately must quarantine from the rest of the squad while the rest of us isolate ourselves from the general population of Craiova. I hope we can start doing ministry soon but, it is all if it is safe to do so. As of right now our teams are not really allowed to interact with each other so, I doubt we will start ministry for several days. But, God is still good and he is definitely teaching me things through this. I know this is just a rough spot but, this is not going to be how the entire 11 months will go. Being isolated from my squad is hard, especially when you are in a room without any windows. But, the Lord is already teaching me things in this time. I am understanding the importance of rest in every sense of the word. Purposefully setting aside a time to debrief with the Lord and to reset yourself both physically and spiritually is so important. It also gives us room to figure out how best to do that. It will vary from week to week and person to person. 

     There is still time for fun and silliness though! For example, my team were trying to do something as simple as ordering dinner through an app. You would think that is pretty simple right? It would have been simple if the was written in English but, alas it was not everything was written in Romanian! So, we did our best, with some assistance of Google translate, and we thought we had ordered cheeseburgers. After arriving about an hour later than scheduled (around 11:45pm) we were elated that we were finally going to get our dinner. But, when we opened the wrappers and all that was in the wrapper were the things that we thought we had asked to be taken off. For example, I asked for no mustard or pickles, and all that was in the wrapper was a bun containing only mustard, pickles, and nothing else! We were so tired and delirious that all we could do was laugh it off and make our “cheeseburgers” into fry sandwiches. 

Photo taken by: Renee DePhillips

     Overall, our time in Romania has not looked the way we wanted it to but, we are still learning a lot about patience and the Lord’s timing. We are also learning a lot more about each other even though we are mostly isolated from one another, we are still able to talk through open doorways and play games through apps! This is an amazing group of encouraging and supportive Kingdom seekers and I can’t wait to see everything we get to do together over the next 11 months!

Matthew 6:33 (ESV) “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”