When I first made the decision to go on a Momentum team, I wasn’t even sure where Moldova was in the world. I soon found out it’s between Ukraine and Romania. Our accommodation for the two weeks was the CEF office in the capital Chisinau. During the two weeks we had an English day camp from 9:30am – 2pm. We attempted to teach the kids English (even though we couldn’t speak Russian or Romanian), played some games and had a 5-Day Club programme in the middle.
The first week our team of six split into two smaller teams. My team went to a Romanian speaking church and the other went to a Russian speaking church. At our church we had about 20 kids each day which gave us the opportunity to get to know them really well. They had great enthusiasm for joining in with the different parts of the programme and it amazed me how much we could communicate with them without using many words. Each day one of us took the Bible lesson. For those who have been to training week you may think teaching a Bible lesson is hard in itself but try doing it through translation. This means you have half the time to fit everything in as you need to give time for translation and so you have to be much more concise. Even though this seemed quite daunting, when I got up God gave me the words to say and when you ask He will always give you the words.
In our second week the whole team went to a church just outside the city in a village called Ciorescu. Each day we drove to the village and I thought I knew some bad drivers in Northern Ireland but it was another whole story in Moldova! On our way to Ciorescu there was a particular junction where there were four roads and an area of no man’s land in the middle. In order to get across you had to find a space and go for it! At this church we had 45 kids and some of the teens from the church helped us as well. With a bigger number of children we struggled a bit with behaviour however even though it seemed like they weren’t listening, when it came to the quiz they were able to answer — God was still working.
Personally this Momentum team really pushed me out of my comfort zone; this was only my second time flying and the longest I had been away from home. A verse I held onto was Philippians 4:6–7 ‘Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel’ (CEV). Never underestimate the power of prayer. God was always there for me to rely on, always there for me to talk to and ask for help. So it was good to be made uncomfortable and God used it to draw me closer to Him.
Interested in serving at home or abroad next summer? Keep an eye on cefireland.com/servethissummer for more info!
