Moldova Part 2: Realizations & Revelations

So these things that are written below were written over the course of my time in Moldova. God was moving so much in my heart in that time and I want you guys to get a glimpse into my thoughts and heart! A lot of these are scattered, mind you, so bear with me :)

Here we go...

I feel for the first time that God is changing me from the inside out. While on my lecture phase I felt like sure, God was changing bits and pieces of me, like finding my identity in Christ and not in people, and breaking down barriers of pride and such, but nothing HUGE for me personally. But since being on outreach, and actually just in Moldova, I feel like God is changing my whole entire perspective on the world. Bah, I don't know how to describe it! I feel like being in the same house for my whole life and not really experiencing much outside of Wichita, I was never able to see how other people lived in the world. Sure, I went to a few different parts of the world before I came to do my DTS, but they were all Western countries, so everyone was pretty much well off and fine. But here it's different. People don't have it good here. In America, we have it GOOD. Even people who are considered poor, are still more wealthy than most of the rest of the poverty stricken countries. It's crazy. Conditions here aren't like what we have back in the States. I really believe (now that I'VE experienced it) everyone needs to go to a third world country sometime to experience what millions of other people live like. Then it will provoke you to do something about it. These people need Jesus. They need the power of the Gospel to infiltrate their cities, their homes, their families, their streets, their HEARTS. I mean, I knew that there were places out there that were poor, but I just thought of them as so distant and just a dot on the map that I could never really impact. But that's not true. That dot on the map is full of millions of people who need Christ. I am still processing what that means for me and how I can help and be used by God in that area after I leave here and come back to the States. It's more than just tossing money at something. And it's also more than bringing salvation to people--it's discipling. Teaching them how to read the Bible, how to pray, how to live in relationship with God and with others. That's what will change a people group. I don't have answers for all the things that I just wrote there, but I'm still searching for them.

On another note, another thing that's been--for lack of a better phrase-- rocking my world is this: for the first time ever, I experienced something I never had before. This burning desire and need to spend time with God before I started my day, because I knew that if I didn't, my mind and heart would be a mess. I've never felt such an urge to spend time with God. It's incredible. That's another feeling that I don't know how else better to explain it. But I tried by best. I had a friend once tell me after being out of the country for almost 2 years doing just incredible things in different places, that once she came back to the States, she was afraid of being stagnant. That she wouldn't learn anymore, or wouldn't grow anymore. Like she wouldn't be challenged in everyday life like before. And when she told me that, I honestly didn't understand that feeling. But now I do. I am scared that when I come back, I won't have this desire for utter dependency on God like I do here because I will be comfortable. That's more scary for me than being here. Bah, just something else I'm processing.

I had an amazing time in the Word today. God keeps developing my love for scripture and for theology. I LOVE it. I never knew I was so interested in it until about a year ago. I can't wait to continue getting into it and growing more and more. I spent about 2 hours today just reading scripture and commentaries and trying to figure out challenging things in the Bible. I read the Lord's prayer today and had my eyes completely opened in a whole new way. It was awesome! It's like, I've read passages like these--like the Lord's Prayer, and the Beatitudes, and different parables in the new testament, but I just assume I know everything about them and only look at them from one angle because I've read them so many times and since I was a child too. So it's really amazing to be able to re read them now and look at them from a whole new perspective and let God show me new things through them. Somehow I feel like I need to know everything about God, and have the answer to all of these deep theological questions that are running around in my brain. And to some extent, I think it's really good for me to be researching and diving deep and trying to get to know God at a deeper level, but I also know that God can't be figured out completely. If that wasn't the case, then He wouldn't really be God. I think sometimes (or maybe just me) we forget that God is an incredibly mysterious being. I love that about Him but at the same time it frustrates the heck out of me!

To continue on in my list of things rolling around in my mind, I want to say that I'm learning not to count on one idea or plan I have for myself or my future, even if it is something I feel God has placed on my heart. I say this because I know my heart is easily swayed and I know better now how my character is and how I think and react to things. Instead, I'm learning more and more to let God lead my future completely.

I've also noticed lately that I've been limiting God. I've been limiting Him on how He can speak to me. Sometimes I'll pray that He'll speak to me in scripture, and if I don't get an answer I was searching for in scripture, then I assume God is remaining silent. Or sometimes I'll ask Him to speak to me in a dream about a specific thing, and if I wake up the next morning and can't remember the dream or it wasn't about what I prayed for, then I think, "well, God isn't speaking to me about this then". Or maybe when I ask Him to confirm something in the physical realm, and it doesn't happen, I get frustrated. But then I realized, how could I be so ignorant?! Of course God can speak in those ways, but our God is a limitless God. He can speak in any way He wants, and I shouldn't be treating Him like a transaction machine--only expecting to get EXACTLY what I asked for. I love God goes outside of our realm of understanding to speak to us in mindblowing ways. I just need to be patient and expect the unexpected from God I think.

I was reading through scripture today and just thinking about all of my amazing friends and family and comforts I have at home. And this question came to mind after thinking a lot about that and what it's like here: If everything in this world that I love was taken away from me, would God still be enough? I would like to say my answer is yes at the moment, but I'd be lying to myself and to God if I did. I long to be at the point in my life where I can say with absolute assurance, YES! I'm still processing whether that is possible for me to do in my lifetime, or humanity in general.

I was thinking a lot today about time and how weird of a concept it is to me here. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I just know it's unlike anything I've felt before. It's like time goes slow and fast at the same time, and it's almost like home pauses all the while we are learning and growing and doing so much on the other half of the world. People told me that this time was going to by quickly, and now that I've experienced it, I can say I agree. It's almost like I'm living in a different reality or something, like my life at home seems like a dream, sort of like an alternate universe. It's such a strange feeling for me. I often look back at pictures of the very beginning of this journey, before I got on my plane to go to Australia and wonder, "how did I even get here?" It's like I'm surprised at myself that I've made it this far.

I've decided that never again will I take this things for granted: a washing and drying machine, a garbage disposal, a dishwasher, showering without shower shoes, showering with hot water, having paved roads, having conversations with people in English, and lots more. I'm experiencing so many new things in these countries and I think it will be actually harder to adjust to life back home than how I adjusted here. These are just physical things, but it's seriously become so much of my life here now that I imagine it will be somewhat of a culture shock coming back home.

I was asking God today what He specifically wanted for me on this outreach, because somehow I felt like it was sort of purposeless for me. Of course, in my head, I know that I'm here on outreach to bring the gospel, but I somehow felt like I had to be preaching to the masses and seeing tons of salvations and healings and miracles, spending tons of times in orphanges, handing out food to the homeless people, etc. to be considered a "missionary" or that I'd be somehow fulfilling my expectations I had set on myself for what outreach would be like. But recently, God has been showing me that being a missionary is more than that. A lot of what we've been doing on this outreach is prayer and being support for the long term missionaries in the countries we're at. I struggled with that for a while because I thought that since people were financially supporting me with this trip, I couldn't come back with stories of how I just prayed for people on outreach but didn't necessarily see any fruits of that. Then it hit me. Well, a few things hit me. One, I was focusing too too much on what other people would think about the outcomes of my trip here, when really I need to focus on what God thinks about the outcome and what I've learned along the way. This is my first missions trip--of course it's not going to be perfect and I'm not surprised that I haven't see hundreds of salvations just yet. And another thing that hit me is that prayer is just as important in missions work as visiting orphanages and feeding the homeless and rescuing girls from sex trafficking. We've been doing heaps of prayer on this outreach and also have stood along side of the staff in Riga and Cahul and helped them in furthering their ministry to share the gospel. And the plus side is, along the way, we truly have had the opportunity to share the gospel with people even if they can't completely understand because of the language barrier. I believe that our job is to be obedient and God will take care of the rest. Salvation doesn't lie in our hands, but sharing does. So in the midst of realizing of all of these things, I asked God to just confirm for me that what I did on this outreach was really what He wanted--that I didn't fail Him in some way. And this morning, as we were leading intercession for the base, we had the opportunity to hear an amazing testimony from a man who has literally given everything for Christ. He's just recently adopted 3 orphan kids that were neglected by their alcoholic parents and left on the streets for 3 years. The kids have recently been in the hospital because of pretty bad health problems as well. And, this man already has 3 biological kids and he said that he was also sick with pretty bad back pain. While he was saying all of this, he kept slipping in how much he was greatful for God's provision and he also told us that he was greatful for the ministry we were doing here and he was sure that God had called us here. After that, we prayed for him, and I felt God confirm to me that He had me here for a reason and this outreach our team has sewn so many seeds that many people later on down the road will reap. We were laying the foundations for more ministry and furthering of the gospel in the future! I felt joy after that meeting. We also had goodbye dinner with the staff here (Lilia, Virginia, and the family of 4) and they blessed us with homemade cooking and great dessert! But more than that, they shared how much of a blessing we had been to their base and Virginia told us that when she heard an all girl team was coming, she thought, "oh, this is going to be very interesting". But once she saw a picture of us, she said she could see the greatness in our eyes and that we had proven that right--that we are a powerful team. And that also was a confirmation to me that God really was proud of our team even though I felt like we didn't do as much as I expected to do.

I was feeling really conflicted and confused about debrief and just outreach in general, like that I had to be completely selfless all the time, almost to the point where I was prideful. And also feeling like this outreach in Moldova was purposeless and we weren't really running towards any goal. So one of my teammates, Josie, came in after talking with our school leader, Dukes, on skype and just encouraged us with saying that we should ask God the big questions, like what specifically does God have for me on outreach in Moldova? What is my role in this team and in serving the people here? Also she told us that Dukes was telling her about baptisms the Thailand team got to do in a prison, and how they shared the gospel message and saw over 100 salvations. And she was saying that they were able to reap the fruit that had been sown. It helped put things into perspective how we haven't been seeing much fruit yet here on outreach. It's because YWAM just started recently here in Moldova and not a ton of mission work has been done here compared to Thailand, so we are actually the ones sewing the harvest--it's just a very different outreach team we have. So after hearing this, we decided to keep on worshipping and praying and asking God what He had for us. Jessica read the passage from 1 Peter 4:7-11 that talks about love covering a multitude of sins and that each one should use their own gift they have received to serve others, so that in all things all praise will be brought to God through Jesus. That started me thinking a lot about how I need to really pray and ask God how I can really be serving here, and it took pressure off of me to have to do everything right and like carry the team somehow and make sure I'm being completely selfless and stuff. Then she read out of this devotional book called Jesus Calling by Sara Young and it said, "I am leading you, step by step, through your life. Hold my hand in trusting dependence, letting me guide you through this day. Your future looks uncertain and feels flimsy--even precarious. Secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things. When you try to figure out the future, you are grasping a things that are mine. This, like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion: doubting my promises to care for you. Whenever you find yourself worrying about the future, repent and return to me. I will show you the next step forward, and the one after that, and the one after that. Relax and enjoy the journey in my presence, trusting me to open up the way before you as you go. (Deut 29:29; Psalm 32:8)". This really spoke to all of us because we were also all worried about what we were doing when we went home and even just the next few weeks of this trip. After that, Emma walked in and told us how her conversation with Dukes went and she said that they talked about the future and how Emma really wasn't thinking about the future at all and just focusing on the here and now. Then we read out to her the passage that Jess read. We talked a lot about purpose here in Moldova as well. Then we shared with her what we read in 1 Peter and she told us she was praying the exact thing over our team on the way back from talking with Dukes! So after that, me and Jess were saying how we really felt like God was piecing together all of the things in our hearts and minds that we had been struggling with. I physically felt that I could breathe better after that. Then we also realized a bit later that Emma had shared earlier the day before about having a firm foundation (the wise and foolish builders passage in the gospels) and how she was praying into that, and we realized that all of this stuff we were focusing on really need to have a firm foundation in Christ.

Also I'm learning that everything that I have been learning IS a learning process. I know, it doesn't seem to make sense. But let me try to describe it. I sometimes get frustrated with myself that these revelations or realizations haven't sunk in completely and I haven't been perfect in applying them to my life and all that. Then I realized, woah, all of these things that I'm processing are huge things, and it WILL take me a while to really wrap my head around them and grow in them.

Ok, that's about it for now. Sorry for the abrupt ending, but that's just a fraction of what God has been growing me in recently!

Can't wait to see you all.

xoxo,
Laura

Moldova Part 1: First Experiences

Hello all! I'm back in Riga now and just spent two weeks in Moldova finishing up ministry! Just an overview of what we did ministry wise: spoke in churches and youth events, prayer walks, teaching English, going to disabled school. Below is just a few of the highlights for me.

Our team will stay in Riga until the 8th for debrief week and then fly back to Newcastle for commissioning week. I get home the 18 of March.

Quick note: This blog was written as a journal every night before I went to bed or whenever I needed to get my thoughts down on "paper". So this was written over the course of the 2 weeks I was in Moldova! Some things are written in past tense, and some present, because of the span of time I wrote it in--so don't be confused :)

I'm not sure where to even start. Before traveling to Moldova, I felt like God was preparing me to just really go hard while being there. I myself wanted to just really give these last two weeks my all. One, because I think this time is an opportune time for the enemy to attack our team. The reason I say that is because since we're so close to being done with outreach, it would be easy for us to just coast and think about going home and being reunited with our friends and family. I also think since the culture and spiritual climate here is so much different (and I'll get to that later) that it would make us an easy target for attacks. And the second reason why I want to give it my all is because I have been realizing as of late that I had sort of been relaxing ministry wise in Riga. Of course I particpated in outreach there, but I don't think that my heart was totally in it. And I want that to change while we're here in Moldova.

While traveling to Moldova, I felt really cheerful and happy and was just laughing a lot. For the most part, our flights and such were really smooth and traveling in general wasn't bad. Once we landed in the capital, Chisinau, it was about 1:30 am. We were all pretty tired and weren't really sure what was happening. We weren't sure who was picking us up and how we were getting to the place where we were staying or anything like that. Just to give a bit of background on the country of Moldova, it's the poorest country in Europe  and nicknamed the "Africa" of Europe. In 2000, around 10 million people lived in Moldova, but now only about 3.5 million do. That's because people can't find jobs here so they leave to countries like Russia, Italy, and Spain to find work. Often times parents leave their children with neighbors or grandparents. And this is also the way that people are trafficked--because they are so desperate to get out of the country that they'll agree to do work in other countries even without knowing really what they're getting into.  So, all of us knew that it was going to be impoverished, but I wasn't expecting what we saw. After a few hours, we arrived to the place we were staying at in Cahul (a small town 3 hours outside the capital). Our team was split up into two different apartments, and at this point it was like 4:30 am, and all we wanted to do was sleep. Oh, by the way, there's like virtually no city lighting in this place so we couldn't even see where we were. I think our team felt a bit of fear and anxiousness for a bit because we had really no idea what was happening or where we were, and we were in a country we had never been to before and a very poor one at that. We had to trust who was driving us and who was leading us to our apartments even though we only knew that they were part of ywam. The whole time I felt like we were just praying protection over our team and God really saw that through. We made it safely to our designated apartments (I'm staying with 4 other girls in a family's flat and the other 4 girls are staying with our contacts), and slept the whole night (day? haha) through until 1pm. When we woke up, we still didn't really know what was happening, but that was fine because we all had peace that God had it under control. We met up with the other half of our team and headed out to find some food for breakfast the next morning.

This is where it get's hard to explain for me. I'll try to do my best in describing what it's like here. Since we're not in the capital city, it's even less developed I feel than what it is in Chisinau. Anyway, we walked outside of our apartment, and there was just trash and dirt everywhere. The sun was no where to be seen, so just a fog of gray covered the place. There were makeshift playgrounds for kids outside the pretty run down apartment building. To my right there were big garbage bins with about 3 or 4 stray dogs there just digging through it. My heart broke at the moment when I realized that we really were in a country stricken with poverty. We started walking, and we continued to see tons of stray dogs around the place (I suppose it would remind me of Mexico if I had ever been there) and let me tell you about the people. It's so strange because while we were in Riga,  I felt like we blended in relatively well and the only way people could tell we were foreigners was because we would speak English or talk pretty loudly. But here, even if we are completely silent, people just KNOW we are foreigners. They stare, and a lot. It's crazy. I've never felt so on the outside than I do here. I guess I just assumed that here it would be like Riga except a little bit more poor. But it's absolutely completely different. I feel so out of my element here. I've been praying a lot about how to portray how things are like here and what I've been learning, and I feel like God just wants me to do my best in describing, and He'll take care of the rest. I don't have to try to explain every single detail to you because you're not here, so you won't exactly be able to feel everything I'm feeling and see everything I'm seeing. That may sound harsh but in reality, that's how it is and it's really hard for me to not be able to explain things better. And when I get home, I'm still a bit worried about how to explain and describe all of my experiences to you, but I have realized that, hopefully you will be able to see the changes through how I act and how God is working through me.

I also want to share about the villages that I've been to. I didn't even know there were such a thing as villages really anywhere in Europe. I always envisioned villages as being in India, or Africa, or Mexico maybe. But never Europe. So when our contact told us we were going to a village, I was surprised and actually had no idea what to expect. Since this outreach has been one where we're not really sure what is happening and what exactly schedules are like, we've been used to just going with the flow and being flexible. So, one day we were told we were going to be teaching English somewhere, and Katie, Jessica, and I volunteered to go. We actually didn't even know what age group we were going to be speaking to, or acutally where we were going. I just assumed we were going to go to the church we had been to and have an English class there. So, our contact, Lilia walked us to the place we were getting picked up at and we got in a van with a pastor of some church and then our 14 year old translator, David. On our way there, (still not knowing really what was happening but trusting that God had it all planned out perfectly despite of our obliviousness), we were swerving to avoid a ton of potholes because the road conditions were so poor. On either side of the road, there were crop fields that went on forever it seemed. But it was all just so desolate and empty. As we kept driving, we saw rolling hills (but not the pretty kind you think of) filled with houses with tin roofs. This is when we asked David if we were in a village, and he said yes. We got further into the village and there were many makeshift houses and lots of trash and rubble around everywhere. It was like we went back in time or something. There were water wells and a few horse drawn wagon/wheelbarrows. We got out of the car and just stood there dazed. I didn't feel like it was real life either. We were going to do an English class in a "school", for the kids who wanted to come actually outside of their normal school to learn English. It was likean English club. The outside of the church was still being built, so it was just the foundation built with a few walls up--it kind of reminded me of something you'd see in the anciet Mayan ruins or something. Anyway, the room was in the basement of this church. We went down into it and it was really quaint and decorated plainly but somehow beautiful. It sort of reminded us of Little House on the Praire. Anyway, we taught the kids about animals and it didn't go at all how we planned, but that was fine, because I love it when God works through us when we have to be spontaneous. The kids were so eager to learn English and it was really refreshing to see. I loved hearing their laughter and joy when we did something silly or someone made a joke. It was a lot of fun.

The other village I went to was with Kathryn on a Sunday morning. We were told that we would be giving testimonies at a church there and that it was very conservative so we had to wear dresses, little makeup, and no jewelry. When we drove to the village, it was about the same scenery as the last one, except not quite as impoverished it seemed. When we walked into the church, there was about 10 elderly women standing in the pews waiting to greet us with kind handshakes and some with kisses. It was very sweet. They tried to talk to us in Russian or Romanian but of course we did not understand, so our contact Lilia tried to help us the best she could. None of the women's husbands were there with them, the only men in the small church sanctuary were the pastor and a guest and his son. We were sitting on the opposite sides of the room as well. As we were sitting down, awkwardly waiting for the service to start, a woman in the back started singing a song in Russian and others joined in, so we just sat back and listened with delight. Then we stood up and they started singing more songs, and I was just trying to worship God the best I knew how without knowing the song they were singing. One kind lady came up to be with a hymnal trying to show me what song we were singing and I just smiled and said, "sorry, only English". Then she understood and went back to her seat. I was really touched by the kind gesture. After a few songs, we sat down, and the pastor invited Lilia up to share something and then invited me up to share my testimony. Nervously and uncertainly, I got up and started to share a story from lecture phase where I clearly heard God's voice about washing people's feet. While I was sharing, a few ladies in the back were observing me pretty harshly it seemed, and the rest either had smiles on their face like they were interested in what I had to say, and some just looked stoic. The whole time I was just trusting the Holy Spirit to speak through me completely exactly what I need to share. Then Kathryn got up to share as well, and after that, the pastor shared a short word from Psalm. Then a guest from Bulgaria I think stood up and shared from the passage in John 15 about abiding in Christ and the importance of that. That was cool in and of itself because I had just been studying that passage a few days before. After that, we stood up and sang another song, and then one lady, Valentina, stood up and was having a conversation with the pastor (we had no idea what they were talking about) and she accepted Christ into her life that day! It was incredible. Then we got in groups of 3 and just prayed for each other and worshipped some more--there was a lot of sitting down and standing up. Then after, we were told we were going to a lady's house in the village for something. Still not sure of what was going on, we walked out to leave only to get joyfully stopped by the ladies to hug us and kiss us. They thanked us and we tried to thank them back as much as we could. Then Valentina stopped us. I won't forget the look of joy she had on her face after that service. She was smiling so brightly and just hugging us and kissing us with all her might. It was beautiful. We eventually had to leave, and so we got into the pastor's car and patiently waited to go to this house. Since the roads are pretty horrendous in Cahul, let alone the villages, we were expecting a bumpy ride to the house. But, we weren't expecting this! We pretty much drove through a forest to get to this ladie's house and got stuck in the mud a few times. Even though it looked really scary and unsure, I was totally at peace and comfortable with the whole situation because I was trusting that God was taking care of us. I think normally I would have freaked out and got really nervous and scared, but it was different this time. I think that through outreach, God has taught me to be really flexible and trust in Him for every hour of everyday, despite not knowing what is going on. Anyway, we got to this elderly woman's house and walked in, and she willingly and graciously offered me her house shoes to wear. It was such a simple act of kindness, but it really blessed me and encouraged me more that people here are so hospitable and open. I still wasn't sure what was going on, but as she was leading us into a bedroom, I had a feeling that we'd be praying for a sick person laying in the bed. When we walked in, her husband was sitting on the bed. It's hard to describe what he looked like and what emotion I saw coming out of him. Physically, he looked mostly fine, except he had one droopy eye and it looked like there was paralysis on that side of his face, so we assumed he had sometime recently had a stroke. He was leaning on one hand, his elbow to his knee, and he looked really downcast and defeated. This man's wife and the pastor were talking back and forth and it was hard to see what was going on the whole time, but we found out that the man, Simion, had started having heart problems in December and wasn't doing well, so his wife wanted prayer for him. She was a Christian, but not for too long I don't think, and he came from a Christian family, but had never accepted Christ into his heart. We stood up and started praying for him, and I was just praying God's truth to really be revealed to his heart, as well as physical healing. We sat back down and they started dialoging more, and we found out that the pastor was just sharing the gospel with him, and Simion said that he believed all of the things, but he wasn't really ready to accept yet and give Christ his life. So the pastor just encouraged him to read scripture and to really discover for himself who Christ is and when he is ready to accept, to just pray it out. All the while this conversation was happening, Simion still looked pretty somber and sad, and there were tears rolling down his face. It was actually really heartbreaking to see, but I walked out of that house with so much joy in my heart because I knew God has his heart. He's so on the verge of Christ in his life that I could taste it! I don't know, I just felt peace about the whole situation. While we were driving back from the village, Lilia shared with me that the name of the village was "Bucuria" which means "joy" in English. I was seriously so excited when I heard that because I really felt that God's joy was over that place even though it didn't seem like it.

**Those were just a few of my thoughts during this trip, and stay tuned for the next blog about what God really was teaching me through it all!

Love you all, see you soon.
xoxo,
Laura