Preparing for a Mission Team
Several weeks after I arrived back in Romania in early 2001, my home church sent 40 people to Romania to do an evangelistic/medical mission trip. Much of the work took place in the village I had been working in over the past few months. The team was the largest one that my church had ever sent out, and I had not been involved with a team of that size before. Both my home church and my church in Romania were relying on me to do a lot of organizational work before the team arrived.
We had split up the team into different groups, a Pediatric wing, a General medicine/Pharmacy wing, evangelistic teams, and preaching teams. The weeks leading up to their arrival were spent in constant preparation, getting translators lined up and storing resources for the team.
The month of preparation was difficult for me because I was still not fluent in Romanian. Also, because I had only been in Romania for four months, I was still pretty “needy” as far as organizational plans went. I needed help from the nationals in getting details resolved because I was not yet able to act as independently as I wanted.
I was naïve to take on that much responsibility so early in my Romanian stay. But because the trip involved a team coming from my own church, I had a heart to help out wherever I could.
The big day finally arrived! After a month of intense preparation, the team from my church arrived in Romania. My parents and brothers and sister came with the team during this time. Being with my entire family in Romania was a wonderful experience, and only one of two times that this took place (the other occasion was my wedding). Knowing that we were together helped me to feel whole.
When I went home for Christmas after spending three months in Romania, I felt as if a part of my heart was still overseas. But then, back in Romania, I felt like a part of me was still in America. When my entire family (not to mention so many church members and friends) were all in Romania with me, I no longer felt divided.
Still, it was often strange to see these two worlds mixing. I found that several times during the week, I needed to just take a break, not only because of the amount of work that I was doing, but because of the enormous emotional expense of having to hold these two worlds together.
I was the contact man for both sides, and unfortunately I hadn’t arrived at a stage in my Romanian language or understanding of Romanian culture to be able to feel like I was doing this well. Some additional troubles came up during that week too… but I’ll get to that later.
This reminds me of the time I went on a short-term (six weeks) mission trip to Latvia with a camping ministry. It was the summer of 1995. I thought I was alone, because my translator was late catching up with me. During those first days I began to doubt if I was where God really wanted me to be. I had no idea where my translator was or even if he would actually be there. I could not communicate effectively with a single person. By the second day I was really doubtful about the success of the mission - I was to lead Bible studies in a series of youth camps over the summer, and that could not happen without a translator. I even began to think of how I might get back to the airport in Riga and come back home. It was really weird and quite stressful. In the late afternoon on that second evening while I was still contemplating all these things, I heard some children singing on the other side of the little forest where our camp was located. They were walking back to the camp from the shore of the Baltic Sea through the small forest singing. As they drew closer, I began to notice a few English words in their song. At last they were close enough that I could hear them more clearly and to my amazement they were singing in almost perfect English “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus.” I hadn’t asked God for a sign, but when they sang “… no turning back, no turning back …” that was as clear a sign from God as I have ever experienced.
By God’s grace about 100 young people across the Republic of Latvia were saved during that six weeks and I am so glad that God let me witness His glorious work in that place.
Problems? Absolutely. But when they arose, that little song just replayed in my mind — no turning back, no turning back.
I would give almost anything to go back. I truly enjoy reading about your work in Romainia.
Thanks!
Comment by Ray Anderson — May 16, 2008 @ 4:59 pm