Last Friday, it was heavy rain in the city. When I looked out of the window, I saw the half flooded sidewalk outside of the base building. It reminded me the first day that I arrived. It was the 11th of July, a rainy day. Me and Denali arrived on the same night. Natalie was the student that came before us. The 3 of us and some staff had nice dinner in the living room. And then the storm got stronger. The power was off, we started to light up some candle. That was a wonderful evening.

And 3 months after, same living room, same base building. There are totally 12 students and 1 staff living together. Oh yes, we have been living together for 3 months and I love them more than ever. Still remember July and August, we always went to the beach together. Sometime after dinner, sometime during weekend. We use to had dinner at the balcony, enjoy some fresh air and the sun. And now, winter has came. No more outdoor dinner but the meal stay amazing.

In a week time, we will be going on our outreach. Are we ready? For me, I really not sure. Many things need to be taking care of before the journey. But I am sure once I got on the bus, I will be 100% ready.

The teaching this last week was on our identity in Christ and what the cross did for us. To be honest, last week was a little rough for me. Emotionally. The teacher (Andi) was the pastor from the church I am attending here in Constanta and I really enjoyed learning from him more than just what I hear on Sundays. He’s passionate and knowledgeable and just an all around encouraging person to get to know.

For me, I have heard sermons on “The Cross” many many times (as I’m sure many Christians have), but this week-long teaching was very powerful to me.  Especially salvation past, present and future. I have never heard this teaching before, and it was difficult for me to process, but thanks to God and to the some people I am in DTS with, I feel like I understand a bit more.

Our spirit was saved when Christ died for us and we accepted it. Our soul is being saved. We are working out our salvation of the mind, emotions and will everyday and God is working through us. We have future salvation when we speak of eternal judgement and the rewards for the good deeds we do that were planned for us. This is not to be confused in saying the we can do good works to be saved, but we do good works BECAUSE we are saved. Salvation is the frame work of what God has given to us.

Three questions that were asked of us in the teaching were:

1. In what I did, did I do God’s will or my will?

2. In the works I did, did I draw attention to myself or God?

3. In what I did, did I do through my power, or His power?

I have been challenging myself with these questions daily. I think they are important for us to consider on our day to day lives.

Another part of the teaching that was very powerful for me was the reiteration that we cannot rely on our own strength, we must rely on God.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.

This is so true. We will just exhaust and frustrate ourselves if we try to fix our own problems. We need to give our burdens and struggles to God. He wants to take care of us! We all have strongholds from our past from what people have done to us, what we have done to others and what we have done to ourselves, but we need to release these lies that we live our lives by and give everything up to God. Nothing is too powerful for Him. Nothing is too much for Him. We need to turn everything over to Him with our hearts and trust in Him and HE will overcome these things for us.

Well, it’s starting to get late. Our entire base went bowling tonight in the mall instead of having small group and it was so much fun!! Hardly any of us can bowl, but we had a blast anyways. A few of us are meeting throughout the week to either study the bible together or to learn Romanian, including the ministries that we are part of and plan. There is always something going on!

Happy update : The store down the street got more Transformers in!! Haha, we’ll wipe them out in 3 days

Peace be with you all and I will try to update some more pictures to this site! God bless!!

Melissa

We all have varying amounts of free time in between our activites depending on what we are involved in. There are several different ministries to choose from. Neighborhood Kids Club, New Wine Cafe, Street People, Girls Home and the Day Center. The two that I have chosen are the Cafe and the Kids Club. Kids aren’t usually my thing, but I’m working in stretching in that area. Tonight is the first night I will be going with the team to the Kids Club, and I’m actually really excited.

Our teacher this week is Don Stevens, teaching on The Kingdom and I am absolutely in love with this class. He is a wonderful teacher and he really encourages us to think and have opinions and it’s very enjoyable to learn. We have been discussing different worldviews and it’s really interesting to hear what different people from different parts of the world.

We have 6 different nations here in Constanta, Romania. It is truly amazing to me how God has brought all of us together and that we would never have met or known eachother except the one common thing we are all here for. To get closer to God, to get to know God and to share God with others. We have 1 student from Hong Kong (Hazel), 1 student from Azerbaijan (Emiliya), 1 student from Moldova (Ana), 1 student from Canada (Matthew), 2 students from Romania (Robert and George) and 6 students from the USA (Natalie, Leah D, Kristen, Titus, Denali and Melissa (me)). It just amazes me how different yet similiar we all are and we all love the same God. In different languages, cultures, continents and denominations, we have the same basic blueprint on our heart.

It’s a pretty quiet day right now. I’m sitting in the living room at the table and I can hear the cars and people outside and the occassional bird song. Hazel, Denali and I are chatting about other opportunities offered by YWAM as we flip through the Go Manual with the lists of classes and schools. Kristen is relaxing on the couch reading “Is That Really You, God?” by Loren Cunningham. This is one of the books we have to read and do a small report on for the school.

I think so far this has been a wonderful learning experience living in this 3 room house with 12-13 other people. The rooms are small and we live in community, but I believe in character building. It’s just such an adventure to me. We are all beginning to develop deeper relationships with eachother and getting to know everyone. There have been several evenings that we congregate in the living room and we play guitar or the keyboard and sing or we just chat and ask eachother questions about life. I would like to think we’ve have some pretty great conversations so far.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our school and just getting a general overview of what a typical day is like for us. I will post a couple more photos here in the next day or so! Thank you all for your prayers!

Grace be with you,

Melissa