Ok! So it's been awhile since the last blog due to website changes and stuff so here's a recap of what Romania was like for me! We were there from the 18th of November until January 8th.
So a little more about Romania. Once We got there had a few rest days where we got to settle in to our home for the month. We called it the mission house or home. Where all 29 of us racers stayed and also our host family lived. It was a little cramped to say the least but it was home, a safe space with a warm bed and good friends:)
Once settled we got to meet our ministry! The Hope Church is a new church still in the church planting stage in Craiova. They are the second church with their mother church in a village a couple hours away called dragonesti. Raul & Ana were out hosts. They felt called by God to start the Hope church in Craiova. Craiova is called the graveyard of missionaries & pastors because of the very low rate of Christianity. The Romanian culture is very much about following traditions and part of those traditions is orthodox Christianity, often mixed with some witchcraft. Most people here participate in these traditions without even really knowing what they mean. They are stuck in a cycle of blindly following the leader and In this case that means they don't have a real grasp of the religion or the Bible. Some of the people we met on the streets when asked about their religion couldn't tell us much about it at all. When we shared what we believed more often then not they were astounded that we have such a personal God. One that cares for us deeply, that knows us each by name.

After meeting the Hope church team we got to work! We would start our mornings off with an hour of worship & prayer then we did street evangelism, admin tasks, youth events, kids clubs, partnered with an after school program, worked with ukrainian refugees, hosted and held women's events (beauty 4 ashes), taught English classes, led & participated in hard topics Bible studies, handed out Christmas shoeboxes, and in general were the hands and feet of the church. It was surreal to be a part of it all. I remember packing shoeboxes from the other side of the world my whole life and it was definitely an awesome experience to be on the other side of it. To have celebrated Christmas in Romania, handing out presents & gifts to the people there has been an awesome experience.

We did get to spend Christmas together as a squad!! We worshiped, prayed, ate, played games, exchanged presents (secret Santa style) and in general had a great time! I got to bake all the desserts for the day and it was a really great way to share something from me to the squad. Then the day after, we packed up and left for our ATL weeks.
ATL stands for Ask The Lord. We (each team) had been asking the Lord during our time in Craiova where in Romania He would want us to go during our ATL time and what we would do. My team settled on heading to Bucharest. We booked an Airbnb (for 4 guests & there was 7-8 of us:) and got on a train!
We lived in Bucharest for about 2 weeks, while there we got to spend some quality time with each other and with God. We got to learn more about God and who He was calling us to be. It was a really sweet time. We got to find a really cool organization called Casa Shalom founded by a woman from Maryland named Becky. She was really cool and welcomed us into her ministry for the few days we were there. We got to work with, sing and get to know some of the Ukrainian refugees that her organization is housing. We got to spend some really valuable time with them. we got to see Becky's heart for them and how God had called her to this and she obeyed.
Then we packed up again, met the squad, had team changes (where we're split up into new teams for the next few months) and hopped on a bus for Albania!
More on Albania & my new team in the next post!!

Love you all lots!
Jordan D.