Romania Team – Update #10

Sunday morning and camp after party:

There were a few dead-eyed stares when our alarms went off on Sunday morning; I think many of us could have slept many more hours. We hurried to get ready for church and walked over just before 8:30, and were served our last Romanian-style breakfast; we will miss the delicious breads and cheeses, and I will particularly miss the sweet peppers. Soon after we went upstairs for the service that morning, and got to see many of the kids from the camp in attendance. There was a lot of hugging, smiling, and laughing. We were asked to come up on the stage along with all the kids and leaders from the camp who were present, and we sang one of the songs we had sung at the camp (“Voi Cânta Bunătatea Ta”, a beautiful Romanian praise song). After the service we had to say final goodbyes to a few of the kids and leaders who would not be coming to the after party, and then went downstairs again for lunch and to listen to a presentation from Cristian and Estera explaining the reality of their mission field and how they have been impacting that field for Christ. We had some time in the afternoon to nap and get snacks at the store, and then we went to the church one more time for the camp after party. We had so much fun; we performed our camp dance one more time, we played a game where we had to squeeze each other’s hands to grab a bottle (just trust me, it makes sense when you play it), and we had lots of worship and another call to prayer for the kids, almost all of whom went up to the foot of the stage to be prayed for.

During the message Cristian gave I was sitting next to a girl that we had all interacted with at camp; she speaks very fluent English and was very friendly to all of us, but she was especially good friends with Tyler. She explained to me how Tyler has been reaching out to her ever since the camp last year and really helped her through a hard time, but that this year he challenged her to grow in her understanding of God by telling her how important it is that she read God’s Word (she comes from an Orthodox background and was never encouraged to read the Bible). During the camp she decided to take his advice, and by the time I was sitting next to her on Sunday she had read and underlined multiple chapters of the Gospel of Luke and it was so amazing to see the light in her eyes as she recognized verses from what Cristian was teaching; she kept saying, “That’s exactly what Tyler has been telling me! And that’s exactly what Estera has been telling me! It’s like God is trying to speak to me!” Cristian and Estera wanted to thank Tyler for the influence he had on this girl, but Tyler told them, “It was all God.”

We partied for hours that night, having pizza downstairs and playing more games. Saying goodbye was tearful and every time we thought we were done there would be another round of hugging and promises to keep in touch. We eventually made it back to the community center to pack and sleep before our flight the next day.

Here is another personal story, this one from Isabelle:

During one of the messages at the camp Isabelle heard our translator say something about taking a quiz, and she was very tired and took that translation literally, ripping off a piece of notebook paper and handing it to the student next to her so he could write down his answer to the “quiz.” The student was pretty confused, and Isabelle was extremely embarrassed, wondering why she had done such an awkward thing. Well, later during one of the other messages a question was asked of the kids: “Who is Jesus?” and it was then Isabelle understood that her “awkward blunder” WASN’T a blunder; it was an opportunity. She took another sheet of blank paper and wrote on it: “Jesus is…” and gave it to the same student who had been sitting next to her. He was a little confused again, but she explained, “I want you to answer the question: who is Jesus to you?” He filled that entire piece of paper with words and brought it back to her, so excited to express what Jesus had done in his life. He gave his testimony later and told everyone how he had intended to work instead of come to the camp, but he did come and he felt so renewed in his faith. Cristian later told us how this boy had given his life to Christ as a direct result of a sports program they started up for youth in the area. It is so incredible how in both Tyler and Isabelle’s stories we can see how God uses multiple people who have no idea what the other people have done or are doing, and He uses them all in different ways to impact lives like this girl and boy at the camp.

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Please keep praying for the kids who were at this camp, the ones in our stories but also the ones whose stories are still developing; we pray that the seeds have been planted for these kids, and we trust God to figure out who will do the watering. Praise God for His relentless love, and how He will stop at nothing to reach these kids that He has chosen to be His children.