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

Joni and Friends 2011

This summer I had the honor to serve at a Joni and Friends Family Retreat (JAF). This is a retreat where families who have a member that has a disability such as Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome etc. can come and have a camping experience the whole family can enjoy. The family member with a disability has a Short Term Missionary (STM) assigned to them for the week. This STM does everything with that disabled family member including eating meals together, doing camp activities etc. This gives the parents some much needed time to relax, knowing that their child is in capable hands. This was my second year serving at JAF.

I was a STM to a 9 year old autistic boy. He was verbal and a very sweet boy. I had a great time with him. The Lord taught me many things as I worked with him. For example, I had to learn to be patient and flexible when working with my little guy. He enjoyed doing most of the camp activities but he was also easily frustrated.

He was upset when he was unable catch a fish. If he couldn't get his craft just perfect he would tear it apart and throw it. After lunch he would start to become overwhelmed with all the activity, the people and all the newness he was experiencing and we would have to go to a quiet room and watch a movie for about an hour. We missed several activities everyday and I had to be okay with that. 

A couple of times he would become upset and try to find his mother. As he searched for her, he did not want me nearby or following him. He wanted to be alone! I had to learn to talk in a gentle and quiet voice and find creative ways to distract him to do other activities. These are just a few lessons I learned in working with my camper.

Throughout the week God placed a question in my heart to ponder over as I worked with my camper and watched other campers at JAF. I realized that every single one of these kids/adults that had a disability were made in God's image. That made me realized that God made them as they are because they could most glorify God as they are. So my question that I pondered over was...How do these people glorify God in ways that I, as a "normal" person, could not? I began looking for answers to that question throughout the week and I found several ways.

One way is how they enjoy the simple things in life. One camper with Cerebral Palsy was absolutely overjoyed when his STM sprayed someone with a water gun. He was unable do it himself yet he loved it when his STM did. We "normal" folks must do it ourselves if we are to have fun. 

Another way were the smiles of the campers. They were beautiful. But think of it, what would you do if you could not talk? And you couldn’t control your hands very well to do sign language? How do you communicate? Lots of them do it through smiles. And they are the most beautiful smiles that you will ever see. Their faces just glow! I sometimes get a picture in my mind of one of the campers smiling and I get chills. It’s just so precious!! 

Now that I am at home back to my "normal" life I want to continue to hunt for ways that people with disabilities glorify God in ways I cannot. I challenge you to do the same. Do not look at people who are different with eyes of scorn. Look at them the way God does: human beings made in His image and likeness. People who are made to glorify God. Find the ways they glorify God in ways you cannot. You will be surprised at what you find. 

Here is a slideshow I made of the pictures I took at JAF to show at my church. It gives you a taste of  JAF.

For God's Gory!

Carissa