I can’t believe that its been a month since our DTS team went on a small outreach to an area of Romania called Oltenia. We stayed in a small town called Draganesti. The entire region of Oltenia has .02% Christians. A majority of the population practices witchcraft, paganism, atheism and Orthodox. As you can imagine, this is a very spiritually heavy area.
Our team arrived on a Saturday. After a long day of travelling, we got settled in, walked around the town a little bit and then had dinner. When the excited chatter from all the rooms finally died down, we got some sleep 
That Sunday, we split into 3 smaller groups. Titus, Martin 2, Ana and I went to a small church about an hour away from Draganesti. We sang a couple of songs in Romanian, I shared my testimony and Titus shared an encouraging message. What stood out to me so much about that morning, was how much each one of us was depending on eachother. None of us could have done it without the other. None of us could have been there without Ana to translate. We couldn’t have sang without Martin leading us. We wouldn’t of had a message if it weren’t for Titus, and there would have been no testimony shared if it weren’t for myself. All of us played an important part in making that morning go so well.
For the other groups, one went to Hope Church (the church that we were working with throughout the week) and another small group went to a house church that afternoon. There were so many opportunities to meet new people that all of us got to do something new and go somewhere and share the love of God.
Monday met us with a whole new set of challenges and experiences. Some of us did kids club at the base we were staying at and the rest of us went out to do street evangelism. I have never done this before, so I was a little nervous about doing this. Usually, this method is really frowned upon in the states, but I was quickly reminded that the cultures are completely different, because the people we met, for the most part, really welcomed us.
We packed bags full of New Testaments, the Gospel according to Luke, and a childrens book and we were on our way! I was paired up with Sarah (one of the staff here) and she and I went back and forth across the road to peoples houses and placed these books on their fences. A lot of people came out to see what we were doing and we actually got into a couple of really nice conversations with people. We got to pray for a few people and really just got to hear about their lives and found that a lot of people had the right idea, and they were seeking God, they just weren’t sure where to look.
Monday evening, after dinner and team time, all 15 of us went out on the main street in the town to do some more evangelism. We broke up into teams of 3 and 4 and handed people books and even got a few to take some surveys. We were working with the people of Hope Church again, which was helpful because we had more translators and people who were familiar with the area. A few hours later, we all met back at the house and shared our experiences from the day and went to bed.
The entire week was full of evangelism, kids clubs, visiting widows, cleaned the streets, and helped with maintenence at the church. It was stretching for a lot of us. New experiences, new people, not always knowing what is going on and feeling like we were being pulled in 10 different directions. But, we know that God pulled us through it all. And the best part is, He brought us all through it together. As a team. As one.
Now, as we are all preparing for our long outreach where some of us are going to Serbia and others to the Philippines, we know more what to expect. From ourselves and from eachother. We have the experience of being together and hopefully we can use the things that stretched us before to make us stronger this time around.
Please keep us in your prayers. For unity, safety and growing in Christ’s love. Thank you and God bless.
Only By His Grace,
Melissa
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