Sunday in the sun

Pace (peace to believers).

Today has been a gift from God.  We started very early this morning with a breakfast at our team house in Belti.  It was our last day to be away from Chisinau.  After breakfast we drove about an hour to a church in a very small town.  The church was wonderful.  They were so grateful to have us, and we could not be more delighted to be there.  At church we were given seats of honor.  Another American mission team was also visiting the church.  They took on the responsibility of leading some of our worship.  It was a neat experience because we got to have bilingual worship.  Several of the songs we sang were songs that the church knew in Romanian as well.  As we sang, both in Romanian and English, I couldn't help but think about how much of a joy and blessing it was to be celebrating the love and salvation of Christ with people across the world. It was beautiful to be in God's presence with people across the world from where I normally am and to know that they are truly in love with God.  Several times I noticed our whole team taking in the beauty of the service.  I also got to introduce our team to the congregation and to send blessings to them from Lipscomb University.  I also got to thank them for their hospitality and service to the country.  They then wanted us to sing a song to them, so our whole team got up in front of the congregation and sang A Shield About Me a cappella style.  In a culture that is known for never smiling, as we sang to our brothers and our sisters all we could see were beautiful smiles staring back at us.  They loved hearing our voices and hearing us rejoice.  After church we were invited to the preacher's apartment for a home cooked Moldovan meal.  We actually found out after we arrived there that the pastor didn't know we were going to be there, so when he got to church he called his wife to tell her to prepare a meal for another mission team that was visiting.  So all during church she cooked all 15 of us a traditional, delicious meal.

After lunch we visited our last orphanage to deliver a wheel chair to a little girl who had to constantly be carried around.  She was ecstatic to receive her wheel chair.  All the kids loved it.  I played a few little hand games with our new little friends, and then we left right as the rain was beginning to come down.  We spent the rest of the day driving back to Chisinau.  There was one point when I woke up from trying to take a nap and just became angry at the roads because they were so bumpy.  It was crazy.  Driving through those roads reminded me a lot of when we were trying to drive to the Czech Republic and were just bumping all around.  But we finally made it back.

Tonight we spent some more time with the Grace House girls.  We all sat around and made bracelets and ate some delicious ice cream and just listened to music together.  We just got to be girls together and it was so nice!  We adore all the girls.

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