Sean in Moldova-land

It’s been a whirlwind of a past week. We had the permanent site announcement and then went straight into a visit, spending three days in the village we will be in for the next few years. I appreciate all the prayers through this process and I am excited to see what is coming next.

The process of site placements began in February when Peace Corps put out an application for cities to apply to have a volunteer. I can only speak to the situation for Community Organizational Development volunteers, I do not know the details for the educational volunteers. We had 60 cities apply for a volunteer, they conducted 34 interviews, visited 24, and then they had 20 volunteers to place. On our end, we have been considered for different places since we arrived based on our language ability, work background, preferences, and interviews with the program directors. Everyone has been very anxious to know where we will be spending the next two years, as you might imagine.

July 5th was the big reveal. After some health sessions and a discussion about how sites were chosen, we were directed to the courtyard where they had drawn a huge map of Moldova and had marked all the cities where volunteers would be placed. We were all blindfolded and then taken one by one to where our town is located on the map. I was standing at the Southeast corner of the map when I was taken. For whatever reason I had in my head I would be placed in the Northeast. We kept walking, and walking, and walking. It got loud as I passed a huge concentration of volunteers and then it got quieter, and quieter, and quieter until I couldn’t hear anyone around me. I called out, hoping someone would respond. Thankfully, Marian and Dylan responded and sounded just as relieved that someone was near them. We then took off the blindfolds and eagerly opened the packets we were given that gave us a glimpse into our lives for the next two years. It was very exciting to see where everyone is placed. I am in the district of Glodeni, in the Northwest of Moldova close to the Romanian border. It is a town of about 2000 people on paper (not to be named now again for security purposes). We often chat about the disparity of what is on paper and what the reality is for a town, there is one volunteer who was told his city had 12,000 people and in reality only has 7,000 because of all the people who have left for bigger cities or have moved abroad.

July 6th everyone went to Chișinău to catch a bus to our villages. Thankfully Dylan and I take the same bus. For me, it’s a 3-3.5-hour ride from the capital. The furthest you can get placed is 4 hours, so I am quite far out. The ride wasn’t bad with someone to ride with and the endless sunflower fields make for some gorgeous scenery. It is very nerve-racking to take your first individual ride cross-country with limited language skills on a bus that will hopefully arrive at your village (which you have no idea what it looks like) and hopefully you will get greeted by someone and not be awkwardly standing around looking like a foreigner. This is on top of all the worries of if you will like your partner and host family and if they will like you. The last thing you want to be is not what they expected in a bad way. I will speak very briefly about my visit now and will expand on different topics in future posts (otherwise this would be way too long).

Thankfully I had everything well taken care of for me. I arrived to find a group of 15 teenagers (who I later found out are volunteers at the community center where I will be working) holding welcome signs and was greeted with the traditional bread and salt ceremony that is common in Eastern Europe (my first post had a picture of this welcome ceremony I did at orientation). We then all walked to my host family’s house and had snacks. My host mother is the town’s middle school Romanian teacher, so she knew all the kids and we had a great time. Then we planned the weekend, they left, I had supper, and then went to bed.

Sunday, I went to church with my host mother. It is the oldest town in Moldova with the oldest wooden church in Moldova, which is cool. After lunch I was given a tour of the town by the teens, which was a blast. There are some beautiful cliffs and hills that surround my village, from the top of which you could see the entire town. That evening happened to be a soccer match, my town versus Dylan’s town, and my partner happened to be the coach of my town, so we got to hang out as my town swiftly destroyed his. I may or may not have gotten a little too into the game.

Monday, I got to see the town in action. I had a meeting with the mayor, toured the library, museum, post office, and finally the community center where I will be spending most of my time. It’s called the Nehemiah Charity and tries to serve all of the town’s needs that it can. My boss founded it 5 years ago. He was working in Chișinău at the time and was getting ready to preach through the book of Nehemiah. He read how Nehemiah saw his people suffering and went to do something about it, and wanted to pose the question, “who are your people?” In this process he broke down weeping and God had placed his hometown on his mind (my village) and long story short he moved back and started this charity. I got the chance to deliver meals to the elderly, those who cannot cook for themselves or cannot provide and learned more about the social situation in Moldova and different marginalized groups in society. The center does a lot with youth and various other groups, and I am excited to see what my work there will be like.

We drove back Monday night and on Tuesday my partner and I had a conference with the Peace Corps about how to make a successful partnership. I won’t share everything we discussed, but we both think it will be a fruitful partnership. Prayers that I finish training strong and that God continues to prepare the way for my work would be greatly appreciated. The Romanian is coming along well, but with all these trips I have felt disconnected with my lessons. Hopefully it all doesn’t go out the other ear.

I got invited to a wedding which I might get to go to on the 20^th, so that is exciting. It is my new host sister getting married. She lives in England but came back to do the wedding here.

Hopefully I will get to start Romanian singing and dance lessons soon. We are learning some traditional tunes to perform at swearing-in.

Tried McDonald’s in Moldova. Not much to report, kinda the same, still tastes a little off. They also offer shrimp salad and wraps so that’s kind of cool. No free refills, a very American thing I deeply miss.

I think one of the things that God is going to teach me here is how to help people through change and how to see what groups get marginalized through the process of change, even if that change is a good thing for society. Pray that he opens my eyes to those around me and to continue to break my heart for what breaks His.

“If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, until my change comes. You shall call, and I shall answer you. You shall desire the work of Your hands.” Job 14:14-15

One of the biggest questions when one goes abroad is, “what is the food like?” I figure this will be one of several food posts throughout my time in Moldova but wanted to address the question early to satisfy all of the hungry readers (pun intended). A bit of a setup is needed to understand the food culture in the villages.

            Like most places around the world, the base national cuisine is composed of what is readily available in the country or can easily be acquired from a neighboring country. In the United States, we use the term “cheap and easy” to describe how either poorer classes eat or how we eat on the go. I am realizing how much of a luxury even that is, noting that we have enough money to buy what is easy. In Moldova, people do and eat what is cheap, which unfortunately does not often correspond with easy. Cooking can be a very labor-intensive process that can take up hours of the day, even after a full day of work outside of the house. Bunica (the Romanian word for grandmother, a word that all the volunteers use even in English to describe the lively older ladies who secretly run the country) often cooks off and on all day whenever she gets the chance. Thankfully most people do have refrigerators and freezers, so food can keep a few days, but since most of it is farm fresh and lacks preservatives, I don’t trust it after two days.

            Moldova has always been an agricultural country, and even today, 50% of the population is rural. After the fall of the USSR most people in the country were given plots of land, either .2 ha, .8 ha, or 5 ha and were expected to farm it themselves, no equipment, no help. A majority of people used it to subsistence farm. As a result, most people in the villages eat what is in season in the gardens and what they can make from the animals they have in their house. Right now, cucumbers and tomatoes are everywhere, so most of the trainees receive at least one or two of each as a supplement to their lunch every day. Raspberries and cherries are near the end of their season, and everyone, of course, awaits the grapes in the fall. Pork is the preferred meat here, but I eat a lot chicken. Meat never goes out of season.

            Bunica has been making a lot of zeamă lately, a Moldovan chicken and potato soup. Our garden seems to have a lot of baby potatoes, so mostly I have been eating chicken (which we produce and clean ourselves), potatoes, and some type of vegetable. For lunch I will get noodles from time to time or dumplings, with a side of bread, salami, and cheese. Cultural side note: there are two separate words for cheese here. One is brânză, which is a homemade cheese produced by each family from their cows, and cașcaval, what we think of as a block of cheese from the store. Certain dishes are made with each type of a cheese. Clătite is a classic, which is a sweet crepe dough rolled up with brânză on the inside. Plăcintă, a baked dough often stuffed with something, can be made with cabbage, brânză, meat, potato or about anything else one can imagine. The last Moldovan dish that is coming to mind at the moment is sarmole, grape leaves or cabbage baked with rice and meat on the inside. It can also be made using bell pepper shells to hold all the stuffing.

            Here are some classic trainee lunches:

• Sarmole and bread
• Five hard boiled eggs, a cut-up tomato, and bread
• Spaghetti with cut up hot dog, a cucumber, and a tomato
• Noodles with butter and cheese and bread
• Salad, bread with cheese and tomato, and sour cream
• Five slices of bread with cheese, salami, and (maybe) tomato
• Borscht with bread and small cookies
• Plăcintă (flavor of the day) with sausage and noodles

Overall the trainees and volunteers enjoy the food here, we just run into trouble because if we do not eat all of the food our bunicas get aggressive with the questions of why there is still food left in our lunches or on our plates. They want us to be well fed, which is wonderful, but some of the volunteers live in fear and are very persistent on finding ways to get rid of their food at school so they do not bring leftovers back to the house. My bunica is quite sweet but always questions my food eating habits, such as why I eat so slow or why I am eating a piece of bread at a given point in the meal and not eating the potatoes. Hopefully we all will find a balance. The weirdest thing I have eaten here is pickled watermelon, which takes like pickles but has the consistency of soggy watermelon. I also ate this interesting dish that was rice, tuna, pickled mushrooms, pickled baby onions, and corn. I am not a huge fan of the bread here, but it does go nicely with bunica’s homemade raspberry jam.

A few side stories: I went to that poetry festival in the woods, which was fabulous. The traditional Moldovan outfits make me feel as if I am in Sound of Music. You can see the dancing video on Facebook or Instagram, it’s not uploaded to the blog for storage purposes. There was a lot of traditional song and dance, as well as cultural exhibits and food. Some pictures can be found in the photos section of the blog.

I met this older woman who was telling me and friend how she has kids in France, Italy, and Spain. Her grandkids do not grow up speaking Romanian or Russian because it is not needed over there, so she has to learn French, Italian, and Spanish if she wants to speak with her grandkids. Kind of crazy to think about.

I will be in a group singing the United States national anthem for the swearing in ceremony. That is going to be a cool experience, a true celebration of a partnership between two countries. More on that later.

One of the hardest questions for me to respond to is (probably in part due to my limited language skills): “is life better in America?” Grandpa is constantly asking me things like this, and it is difficult to respond to this question. My gut response is yes and no, but it is hard for me to compare. The answer to what he has in mind is yes, but even responses such as “it’s different” or “in some ways yes, in others no” seem inadequate as well.

I find out my permanent site placement on Friday! I will then visit from Saturday to Monday, after which I will return to my training village with more of an idea of what my work will look like. Prayers that this trip goes well would be greatly appreciated, and that God would continue to go before me and that I would be able to participate in His work in the village. Letters (address can be found on the contact page) and prayer requests are always welcome. First letter to arrive took 24 days to get to me. I will probably do a letter request soon, to ask for some encouragement through my first weeks at site. Hope you all are doing well!

“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food…By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.”             

Genesis 1:29, 3:19

It’s 7 am Sunday morning and I leave my house to make the hike to the top of the nearby hill. At the top is a 30 ft cross which overlooks the entire village. As I approach the cross, passing the horse that is always grazing in the same pasture, the trees clear away, and I look down into the valley and see the entire village. The rising sun is to my back as I go to sit at the foot of the cross, the goats grazing happily just a little way down the hill. Moldova is such a beautiful country, and so many villages are built into its rolling hills. From the top of my hill you can see the neighboring village, and from the back side you can see both the regional capital (about 7 km away) and the country’s capital on the horizon (about 36 km away).

            From my hill you can also see the top of almost every house and notable building in my village. The town’s name (not listed for security purposes) comes from the phrase apă rece (cold water), probably because the water from the wells where the village started is quite cold. It has around 2600 people on paper, though official numbers are hard to count due to the large number of people living abroad or who only come home on weekends. Fifty percent of Moldova’s population is located in the two largest cities, Chişinău and Balţi, and the other fifty percent live in villages which average around 3700 people (though many are much smaller than that, and we were told we will be placed in a city with around 1000-3000 people).

            My training village is very standard for Moldova. There is one main road that runs that runs through town, and it is one of the only ones that are paved. It has an orthodox church, a small medical clinic, one school (which goes to the 9^th grade after which students are bused to the regional capital), a kindergarten (ages 2-6), a post office, one main store (think small dollar general with a grocery section), three mini stores (small stands with basic needs), a “culture house” which has the library on the second floor (with four computers, internet, and around 8000 books) and a museum attached to the back, a town hall (which happens to have a lovely rose garden out front), two small soccer fields, a park for children, a hotel/restaurant/meeting space, and a Baptist church. The local hangout is the small patio outside the main store. What cannot be bought in the stores can usually be found in the regional capital, which is about 25 minutes away by “public transit”, a very crowded minibus which charges 6 lei (about $0.33) one way. I go there once a week for “hub days” where all the volunteers (who are split over 6 villages) gather for medical and security sessions.

In addition to the mass diaspora out of the country, there has also been a mass migration of rural Moldovans to the city in hopes of finding work. This is one of the reasons that the Peace Corps here is so respected and valued by Moldovans: not only are Americans choosing to live in a country where most people are trying to get out, they also live in the villages where most people see no future for Moldovans. In this way the Peace Corps Volunteers are helping to bring hope that Moldova has a future as a country, not just two cities.

My village has suffered from the diaspora as well. In the 1970’s it had around 6000 people and now it only has 2600 as mentioned above. 400 of those are retirees, 200 are students in the school, and the kindergarten has around 90 children. I am no expert on population, so I couldn’t tell you if those numbers indicate a stable, growing, or shrinking population. The collective farms had around 60 tractors to work them, now there are nine tractors in the village, and the vineyards are about one-fifth of what they used to be. The town used to have a choir around 100 members strong, today the same choir has about 16. About a third of the houses have gas to provide heat in the winter (the library and culture house have no heating at all) and the city is hoping to get a grant to build a sewer system. I do not know how likely that is to happen.

Training is continuing to go well, but the days are long. Nine-hour days six days a week get old and Sundays are usually filled with activities as well, so it never feels as if I have a break, and if I do, I should probably be studying Romanian. We are all anxious to find out our permanent sites on July 5^th. Prayers that the directors have wisdom for that would be greatly appreciated. That will determine what we do for the next two years, where we live, and who our partners will be. There is a chance I might be working with a Christian organization, which would be fun and interesting. My group will be spread to the four corners of the country, so I do not know how likely it will be that I see other volunteers while at my site. So much is still unknown, but God has given me a great peace about being here and about my work, so I am excited to see where He takes me next!

We got to visit three monasteries the other weekend as a cultural excursion, which I will talk more about in a future post about religion in Moldova. Some pictures of that are on the Photos page. I will also be attending a festival for Eminescu on Sunday, a famous Romanian author and poet. It will be the full Moldovan experience, with a parade, a craft fair, and performances of traditional songs and dances! One of the funnier experiences so far was going over to a friend’s house for supper. I asked four different Moldovans if bringing a gift is appropriate. They all said it was, but when I asked what I should bring, they all replied that they had no idea! I was very confused on how none of them knew what was appropriate to bring, considering this is a common practice and they have lived here their whole lives. I ended up just buying some chocolate and hoping for the best.

I hope all is well with you all, and, as always, if you have any prayer requests, shoot them my way!

“And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away…and pray to the Lord for it; for in it’s peace you will have peace.”

                                                                                    Jeremiah 29:7

Also I made it on Moldovan TV: http://trm.md/social/un-nou-grup-de-viitori-voluntari-ai-corpului-pacii-in-moldova

I have successfully made it to my training village just north of the capital and have finished my first full week of training. I was having trouble deciding how best to do this blog, but I think for this first part I am going to do a topical approach and through it you can piece together life in Moldova and what it is like for me here.

            I thought a fitting introduction would be to introduce you to my host family. I arrived at the school in town quite nervous to meet my host family. It is always nerve-racking for both sides, each wondering what the other will be like and if this whole thing is going to work or not. Since this was my fourth host family I did not really get nervous until we crossed the town border. At this point I had five days of Romanian under my belt and could only successfully introduce myself and point to things and ask what they were, not that I would remember the word at the end of the conversation.

            I arrived to find my host grandmother there (from here on out I will not use the word “host” as it is cumbersome to say and type but know if I am referring to someone in Moldova it is my host mother, sister, etc.). I could not really understand what she said to me, but I got that her name was Elena. Once the chaos settled down from unloading and we were waiting for grandpa to get back with the truck which he used to take Travis (another trainee) home who happens to live with his sister, the language teachers translated, and I found out Elena had been a Romanian and French language teacher at the school for forty years but was now retired. I asked her if she had any animals and she said that she did, and when she mentioned that they had two cows, Ina, one of the language instructors, aggressively questioned her to see if they boiled the milk and if they made the cheese properly so that I would not get sick. It was nice to know I was being looked after.

            We were then picked up by Grigorii (host grandpa). He is 68 years old and was a truck driver in the soviet era. He drove refrigerators and metal all around the five sister republics for 45 years. He was explaining to me that during this time everyone was guaranteed a job and Moldovan products were guaranteed to be bought (mostly by Russia). Now, under capitalism, it is hard to find work and difficult to find markets for Moldovan products. He is now retired and gets $100 a month from his pension. He works his small plot of land and is finishing the new bathroom for the house. He told me he has been smoking for 50 years.

            When we arrived at the house everything was ready for Lenuța’s (my host sister’s) birthday party. She turned ten and is in the fourth grade. She is on summer vacation and mostly helps her mother around the house. We are slowly having more conversations, but she doesn’t quite understand that I do not catch most of what she is saying because she talks so fast. She has an adorable habit of talking to herself and I always think she is on a phone call. She says she enjoys school and seeing her friends. She really liked my red water bottle, so her mother picked her up the only one she could find at the store, which was gray.

            During the massive birthday party meal, I sat next to Victor (host father) and his friend, Ion (John). I was lucky I came when I did because Victor was going back to London on Thursday. Victor, like a fifth of Moldovans, works outside of the country and sends money back home to support his family because there is no work in Moldova and the little there is does not pay well. He says that there are a lot of Moldovans in London. He gets there by a van that drives across Europe, taking a total of two days. I asked him if there was any work closer to home (like in Germany), but he says he works in London because it is legal for him to work there. I asked him if he liked it, and he does not, the streets are too crowded, and it is nothing like home. He does not know when the next time he will be able to come home. We learned in training that if the Moldovans who lived outside the country stopped sending money back to Moldova, the national economy would collapse in 2-3 months.

            After the feast there was a dance party in the courtyard. Aurelia (my host mother) was getting really into it and I had a chance to practice my Moldovan dance steps that I had learned two days before at orientation. Aurelia works at the kindergarten and carries out all the motherly duties of the house. She is the daughter of Grigorii and Elena. I asked her if it was difficult for her to live without her husband and she responded matter-of-factly that it is how they have to survive and if he stayed in Moldova it would be very difficult to survive. We got a brief chance to talk about house prices and salaries and she said a normal salary is around 3,000 MDL a month (about $167). So even if the houses only cost around $12,000 in the village, it is still very difficult to pay. She has this helpful (but sometimes annoying) attitude that when I pull out my phone to Google translate something she tells me to put it away and speak Romanian. Mothers are mothers anywhere in the world.

            I was finally able to settle in after the party to my room. They live in a typical fenced-in compound where everybody lives (grandma, grandpa, mother, sister, and me). It was a mini vineyard, a barn for the animals (we have two cows, three geese, and a bunch of chickens), and the house itself. The bedrooms are connected by a hallway, but the kitchen and dining room are in the basement and you have to walk out, around, and down to get to them. The house has no running water, so we get the water from the well down the street. Like other volunteers have mentioned, it is quite weird to live in a house with high speed internet (often 72 mbps) but no running water. Everyone was subject to the priorities of the Soviet Union, which happened to be electricity but not sewage. We use an outhouse which will soon be replaced by the new bathroom grandpa is building. I am thankful it cools down enough at night for me to sleep as there is not air conditioning and I do not have a fan.

All things considered I am doing very well, and my Romanian is coming along nicely. Prayers that it continues to do so and that the directors have wisdom for site placements are much appreciated.

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 23:9

Having done enough programs abroad with large organizations, I understand that the experience highly depends on the in-country staff for that organizations and the systems and processes they have in place, not just what corporate dictates the experience should be like. How blessed I am that Peace Corps Moldova runs better than a well-oiled machine. Peace Corps came shortly after the breakup of the USSR, entering Moldova in 1993. I am known as a M34, meaning I am part of the 34^th group of volunteers to be in Moldova. I was aware there would be three months of training, but I don’t think I could fully prepare for how much they ensure we will be prepared to enter our villages after these three months.

            I spent a day in Pennsylvania for what is known as staging, just a brief time to get to know the other volunteers and reflect on your commitment to service (easiest chance to still back out if you need to do so). We then flew to Moldova via Newark and Frankfurt. I am in a period known as Pre-Service Training (PST), where I am considered a Peace Corps trainee, at the end of which I will be sworn in as an official volunteer. After we arrived at the airport in Chisinau, we were whisked off to a hotel where we have been conducting orientation training. This is an intensive period of everything you need to know before going to your training villages and living with your first host family: safety and security concerns in Moldova (including a talk from the US Embassy security agent), food and water preparation, cultural taboos and norms, basic language training (about 11 hours over the 5 days), host family expectations, and introductions to projects (health education, English education, or community organizational development). See below for a picture of the schedule.

From here we have been split into training villages based on projects which we will be at for the remainder of the ten weeks. There are six villages within the same region and we will all convene on “hub days” in the region’s capital city. This period of PST is made up of four to five hours of language every morning followed by program training in the afternoon. During this time, we will have field trips, conduct surveys on our site, learn organizational development approaches and practices, meet with members of the community, and learn how to get around and live in Moldova. It is a very intensive time that I am told is going to be a much different pace than the two years of service. I am excited and so grateful to be being poured into and have such a world-class support system that will always be there to answer any questions and address any needs I will have once I begin my service.

            I do not have much time to write more at this time but wanted to give a quick update. I felt a great peace after I met the people who will be serving at the same time as me and know they will be there for me and that I can love and pour into them during our time in the country together. I am humbled by their experiences and knowledge and I am trying to be prepared for anything while expecting nothing. So much of what I will do depends on my village, which I will find out the beginning of July. Until then I hope to get a hold of Romanian (and learn the basics of Russian as a lot of signs and instructions are still in Russian) and learn how to integrate into Moldovan society. Prayers that I will learn all I will need to learn to be fully equipped to love and serve the people I encounter would be greatly appreciated. See “Photos” for a few pictures that I have taken so far.

“Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or clanging cymbals. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have faith, so that I could remove all mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”

                                                                                                1 Corinthians 13:1-3

“So, how are you feeling about the Peace Corps?”

            I am excited for the work but still in the midst of my post-grad crisis on “figuring my life out.” I know I am going to get to Moldova and love the work and my day-to-day life. Nothing about the Peace Corps itself or living abroad makes me nervous. My time in Quebec, Senegal, and France I feel as prepared me well for this experience. As a result, I probably haven’t done as much homework as I should have, but I do know most of the learning simply will come from being there. Packing was a breeze (I am used to living out of a suitcase by now) and the Peace Corps is great about ensuring all the details regarding flights, visas, and lodging are taken care of for us.

            The emotional challenge for me has been figuring out how life functions outside of college and coping with the change that accompanies every season of our life. We don’t and won’t always live near family, see our friends on a regular basis, prioritize the same things, understand how God is using something to shape our lives, and have a firm sense of home. I do not have any idea of what my life will look like in five years and I have no game plan for after the Peace Corps either. I am wondering if it was the right choice to leave those I know and love in Nashville, even though I know the space from Belmont will help make the separation from college life a bit easier. I want to invest in relationships I made near the end of my time at Belmont but am not quite sure how to do so from a distance. What if everyone moves on with life and this experience makes me feel more out of place when I return? I have asked people to pray that when I am in Moldova I fully invest in my time there, not seeing it as a transition job or once-in-a-lifetime experience, but rather as the place God has called me to give myself to for this period of my life. I want to love and serve the people well and trust that God will provide for my future, without fearing that I am “missing out” on something else (a job that pays well, marriage, family, friends, etc.).

“Why did you choose to go into the Peace Corps?”

            The primary reason I chose to work with the Peace Corps was because it is an experience and work I felt God has prepared me to do well through the experiences and knowledge I have gained at Belmont. The gnawing question I had during my last semester was: “how do I live in the world?” This might seem like a very basic question, but it has been at the heart of my conversations with God recently. How was I called to love the homeless person on the street while I attended an expensive, luxurious college? How do I live my life knowing what extreme poverty looks like and how most of the world lives? How do I live a life that honors God without selling all that I own, taking up my cross, and following Him? Or should I? How do I know if God is calling me to help those overseas instead of helping those around me in the USA? I don’t think Moldova will provide me with the answers, but I cannot shake the notion that these questions are some of the most important for me to pursue as I continue to live in the mystery of faith in Jesus Christ. I am praying that my time in Moldova will provide me space to reflect on how God is working in my life and the ways I can participate in His work for the rest of my life.

            As I have been preparing to go, the words of a hymn keep coming to mind, taken from Samuel’s call from the Lord:

Here I am, Lord.

Is it I, Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go, Lord,

where you lead me.

I will hold your people in my heart.

“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; can you not perceive it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

                                                                                    Isaiah 43:18-19

Trip timeline:

June 3^rd – Fly to Philadelphia for staging

June 4^th – Fly from NJ to Frankfurt

June 5^th – Arrive in Moldova

My thoughts and prayers are with you all.