1 Country + 7 People + 1 City + 3 Villages = 1 Awesome Missions Trip!

I had my passport. My bags were packed and checked in. I had my plane ticket. I was ready to start an adventure of new and exciting things. I was leaving the USA for the first time and going to Romania for a missions trip with my church for two weeks.

Over the eastern United States and Canada, over the ocean with a quick stop in London, we arrived in Bucheresti, Romania our first stop in our missionary journey. In Bucheresti, Romania's capital, is Maranta Baptist Church which is a sister church to the church I attend: Parkway Baptist Church in McKinney, TX. Maranta Baptist Church was like our base for the next two weeks. 

In Bucheresti, Odobesti and Sentesti, we did children's program in the morning and evening, visited in people's homes in the afternoons and had evening services for the adults. For the children's programs, we had games, crafts, music and of course Bible stories. There were so many adorable children! They have the. most. beautiful. eyes. ever. I love, love eyes like a whole ton, so I was basically in heaven!! 

During our afternoon visits, we visited with families of the church who had different needs, such as those that needed encouragement or had a family member who was unsaved that we could witness to. This was a completely new experience for me. Visiting with a family that I had never laid eyes on, in an unfamiliar country, with a language barrier, as well as a different culture was quite a challenge. The Lord really used these visits to teach me valuable lessons, but more on that later. ;)

The evening services consisted of sharing the gospel, music and testimonies. All of our team shared our testimonies as well as several of our translators. I always love hearing testimonies! They just prove what an amazing, awesome God we serve. He does indeed change lives in supernatural ways!!

My trip to Romania was not only an adventure of seeing new places and ministering to children but also an adventure of learning. God taught me so much on my first international trip. For the rest of this blog post, I would like to share a bit of what God taught me.

One lesson that began the second day and continued to the end of our trip started with my first home visit. The first family I visited I had absolutely no idea of what I was to say or do. I am a detailed person who loves to know what the expectations are so that I can meet those expectations as well as know what I am doing. Well, very few details were shared about what we were to do. All I knew was this family had a member who was not saved and who was my translator, that's it!

 That visit was hard as well as a bit awkward for me. However, it started me thinking. How do you connect with a person and share the gospel in a real and personal way when you have never seen them before? How do you prepare yourself to say all the right words in the right way? I asked these questions to the two ladies who have been coming to Romania for roughly 10 years. They both had the same answer. "I don't ever know what to say beforehand. You just have to rely upon the Holy Spirit." 

Well, that answer was nice and all, but I didn't think it helped me any. It seemed that during the visit I went blank and it didn't seem that the Holy Spirit was helping me. Which was wrong, but that's what it felt like. Then I was able to watch one of those ladies visit with a family whom she had never meet before. She was so full of love for this family in her words and actions. After watching her, God showed me that I had walked into these visits with the wrong focus. I was focused on saying everything perfectly, giving perfect answers and asking perfect questions. Instead, my focus should be showing them my love for them and even more importantly, sharing God's love for them. Then I should depend on the Lord to give me the words to say to effectively share that love. The Lord gave me the huge blessing of being used by Him to lead someone to Christ. This was during a home visit which was just next door to the church so I had no time to prepare at all!! The Lord gave me the words to say. When my focus was correct, God took the lead. It was a powerful visit!!

While I was in Romania I felt like I got a tiny taste of heaven. I made so many awesome, amazing friends with our translators. Here I was a young woman from another country who does not understand a single word of Romanian, have no idea of the Romanian culture and I have never come in contact with another culture before and yet I was able to connect with the Romanian young people. Why? Because we both had the same foundation. Christ ruled our lives so we all had a common bond because our passion and mission in life was the same.

It was amazing! We could share what God was doing in our lives and encourage each other in the Lord. They convicted, challenged and encouraged my walk with the Lord and I hope and pray I was able to do the same. This is what heaven is going to be like. Every culture, language, country will come together glorifying God. We will exchange stories of what God did, how He saved us from our sins and how He used us. Romania made me even more excited for heaven and how awesome it's going to be. 

This is just a taste of what God did in my life in Romania. I was so blessed to be able to go and Lord willing, I will be going next year!!

Solo Deo Gloria,

Carissa