Rockville Church of Christ

Amanda's Romania Trip (June 23 - July 11, 2014)

July 21, 2014

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

I wanted to post this letter to you all as an expression of my gratitude and my love for each of you. I want to thank all those who have supported me over the years as I grew up in this congregation. More recently, many of you have helped me financially and spiritually prepare for the mission trip I went on earlier this summer. I thought you all would like to know what work my team and I did in Romania, as well as see some photos of it all (I will post some on the church website, however, they are currently all on my Facebook if you are interested. Go to my albums and click on "God sent me to Romania!").

There were four students from Ohio Valley University in total that went on the trip. We worked with the Biserica Lui Hristos (Church of Christ) in Bucharest, Romania. The church has about 35 members, but no pulpit minister. They have a resident missionary in the area that speaks Romanian, as well as a program where people from the states financially sponsor the local kids if they keep attending classes. The first week of the mission was the hardest in my opinion. We were all new to the city, language, food, and customs. It had already been a long day of flying, but we landed in Romania and immediately got to work. I don't think any of us knew exactly what to expect, but we trusted that God brought us here and He wouldn't just drop us in foreign land without helping us. As we started teaching English, we quickly learned that there is a wide range of English skills in Romania. Some people came in for lessons that had never spoken a word of English in their life. Others came in speaking more proper than 60% of my friends here in America. It was an interesting range, but it kept things fun to say the least!

We were teaching English using the World English Institute materials along with the Bible, but not many of my students spoke much English at all. I thought it was better for most of my student's to start with basic lessons straight out of the Bible. This included stories such as Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and the crippled man being healed in Matthew 9. The majority of Romania is Romanian Orthodox, but more by tradition than by practice. Many of my students were also younger than 18. Some came in for lessons and were fully willing to talk about God, but some students came in specifically to improve their English. They wanted nothing to do with discussing the Bible. The Lord definitely taught us all some patience and guided us when dealing with students like this.

We held a vacation Bible school for the local kids on the weekends. We had a turnout of about 20 kids each time! We focused on the story of Esther. We had the kids act out parts of the story, make crafts, and ended with a memory verse that they had to learn in either English or Romanian by the end of the trip. The verse we focused on was Proverbs 31:30. While Kenleigh and I did VBS with the kiddos, the two guys on the team led a Bible class for adults on the weekends. We were not able to visit the orphanage and play with the kids as was planned, but we still bought some supplies and food for them that I pray will make a difference.

We were incredibly blessed to meet our brothers and sisters in Christ overseas and work for God for the three weeks we were over there. As many of you know, I attend OVU where I am majoring in both psychology and Bible, specifically missions. I was incredibly blessed to go on this trip and I am encouraged to keep on studying to become a vocational missionary. God allowed us to plant the seeds, now I encourage you all to pray for growth.

I want to thank all of you who contributed financially, all of you who helped calm my nerves about the airport, all of you who prayed for me, and all of you who prayed over me the night before the trip.

In Him,

Amanda Jimenez

The Whole Mission Team