Day 6- The Village of Archita

Today our team traveled to the village of Archita to host another VBS and visit christians in this village.  To get to this village, we traveled 20 minutes on a gravel road.  The village was extremely remote.  We’ve seen poverty in all of the villages that we have visited but this particular town was very impacted because of it’s isolated location. Kids here don’t go to school because they have no access to one.  They don’t eat daily but when they do eat they eat potatoes.  Bethany Baptist feeds this village bread in the winter.

On the way there, we learned more about how Romania is similar to our home state of Washington.    Some of the major industry is logging and farming. They have wildlife and forests as we do and many similar animals like bears and wolves.  Everywhere we go we see white storks.  They are in Romania for the summer but migrate to Africa for the winter.

Arriving in the village we were greeted with beautiful weather and the most amazing kids.  We had a smaller group than our past 3 programs but we got to spend more quality time with each participant.  Here are some pictures from our time with them today.

We prayed through the village and visited church members homes today.  Part of our group visited some neighbors who started a children’s ministry in the town.  They are faithful women who have so much need.  Members of our team gave them our lunch and encouraged them with Mathew 6:26.  In our group debrief tonight we talked about how hard it is to only meet an immediate need and leave.  We are so grateful  that God has placed the faithful believers at Bethany Church to continue to serve these people.

One of our favorite parts of the trip has been building a friendship with the church members here.  Instead of going out to eat tonight, we had a barbecue at Sabin’s house, one of the Bethany pastors.  We stopped at a local market to buy produce.  During the dinner we got to try mici, a sausage shaped patty made of mixed lamb, beef, and pork and a much improved fruit called the honeymelon that puts honeydew to shame.

There is so much joy to be experienced just spending time with other believers.  Enjoy this clip of a game we learned tonight from our awesome chauffeur and DJ Nate “The Great” who also interprets for us.  We’ve reached a pivotal point in the trip where we are over halfway done and starting to look towards coming home.  It will be an impossible thing to say goodbye to these incredible people.

Committed to being present and prepared and take in all that remains for us our next few days!