I was also encouraged to connect with people from Woodridge Community Church (in New Berlin, WI), and some people that Pastor Chu from CCCM visited earlier in the year. The purpose of my Albania trip was to be a part of the kids’ camp that took place at Disciple’s Church.
While in Baia Mare I had the opportunity my abilities in Romanian in a new light. I found myself translating for my friend Lydia, and the Tamasan family expressed to me their surprise at how well I do in the language and their appreciation for the work I am doing here in Calarasi. We were holding an English camp and a VBS in two separate villages. I got to see how good Lydia is at multi-cultural situations, and how not being able to speak the language didn’t stop her from diving right in. That’s good because she’s planning to go into tribal missions through New Tribes and her ability to connect with people despite the language gap and learn phrases from them will be important for her. Seeing the close friendship between Lydia and the Tamasan family was also really awesome to me.
I enjoyed my time leading the girls ministry in Roseti with Zoica. I didn’t know what to expect, certainly I felt a little overwhelmed beforehand about taking on this responsibility, but with God’s help I made it through and enjoyed connecting with the girls in a new way. When Amber came back we threw her a surprise party since I could see how much the girls missed her while she was away.
The end of July and most of August were kind of a series of miscellaneous ministry events, which is pretty typical for OH Summers. There were teams from Vienna, Norway, a camping trip with the youth ministries in the area (Chiselet, Oltenita, Chirnogi, Roseti, Calarasi, Bogata), a trip to the Black Sea with kids from Caramidari and the visiting team from Norway, and now the entire OH team is nearly done with a much needed two week vacation.
For me vacation means I indulging my nerdy side. I got a break from people and constant events, so I took advantage of the time to study for my College Writing course that just begun and to work on learning Mandarin Chinese. I’ve also gotten to sleep in every day, so it has been great! As for learning Chinese, I began some months ago, maybe March or April, but wasn’t able to find a good method until more recently. When learning Romanian I was able to depend a lot on reading and writing, but with Chinese it’s important to work on hearing and speaking first, adding reading and writing later. The reason for this is that you have a separate character for each word and focusing on that loses the overall patterns of speech, bogs you down and makes the process discouraging. I’ve found that Spotify actually has a lot of audible lessons in many languages, and that forming basic conversations with a native speaker helps tremendously.
I have ample opportunity to use Chinese since there’s a pretty special Taiwanese guy I keep in touch with who can tell me if I’m saying things correctly and teach me new vocabulary. Last week I talked to his family through a video call and they were surprised that I could say a few things to them and I felt pretty pleased to understand a few words from their conversation such as you, yours, I, mine, that, thank you, no, dad, mom, brother, sister, and want. But mostly I rely on translation.
In the coming month I’m looking forward to a trip that some of the OH staff are taking to Bulgaria, and then schools here will begin. I plan to continue my involvement in the Chiselet After-School program and Kindergarten. I have some extra money that was given me so I want to buy materials for the Kindergarten. They don’t have many story books, games, craft supplies or activities for the younger kids, so I want get them good materials for the future.
Since it looks like my time here is coming to a close I want to focus on giving the kids something that is more difficult for the locals to offer such as English classes, arts, crafts and such activities. This works because I come just two days each week and Alina teaches them the other three days, so my involvement would offer a variety that the kids aren’t normally receiving. The kindergarten class can vary from one to fifteen kids, from my experience, so I never know what to expect, but I’ve found it’s extremely helpful to do a lot of preparation beforehand.
I ask you to pray that God will lead me in his perfect will because the unexpected happens frequently and the plans I make for the future seem always to need adjustment or to be put aside entirely. Much has happened that was unexpected this year, and I want His guidance to be evident, and I want to follow that guidance with confidence. I know God will lead me because He is faithful and He has never failed to guide me. Also pray for the ministries that are beginning this Fall, that this will be a very blessed time, that I will be able to pace myself well, not take on too much while also not wasting my time. Pray also for the people that God brings across my paths, that they will see Christ’s love and care reflected through his people, that they will know our Lord and how good he is to those who love him.
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