During a recent mission trip to Romania, youth from First Baptist Church spread the Gospel to Romani children and developed a deeper faith.
Ward Page, youth minister at First Baptist Church, said the mission team went to Romania to assist the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) with Ralph and Tammy Stocks from July 11-19. He noted that the youth were one of the first mission teams to connect with the CBF in that region.
“We wanted to get a foot in there to develop a long-term relationship with the pastors there,” he said.
While there, Page said they worked with the Romani people, often referred to as “gypsies.” The term is now considered derogatory. He noted that the Romani people migrated to Europe from India and Pakistan.
During the first two days, the mission team worked at the Ruth School in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, where they were asked to plan and direct a VBS (Vacation Bible School) type of ministry for the Romani children, which they called Kids Club. The school serves to educate children through the eighth grade and is funded solely on donations.
“After that, we traveled to a nearby town called, Br?ila. For the next three days, we visited eight villages for two hours at a time,” he said, noting that they conducted the same VBS ministry in the villages.
During the VBS, Page would teach a simplified version of Daniel, Chapter 3 so it was easy for the translators to relay and easy for the children to understand, which was then dramatized by the mission team.
After the teaching, the children were split up into groups for crafts and recreation. Then, they would participate in music and Bible study.
“We teach them that God is always going to be with them no matter what, and I think that is a much more positive message for them, rather than us telling these children who are very poor, don’t have any real possessions, and are considered to be undesirable and unwanted in their culture that God is going to bless them and take care of all their problems because that’s not what they know and that’s not real to them,” he said.
Along with leading a VBS, the mission team painted some of the classrooms at the Ruth School, sanded some of the chairs, removed some splintered areas on the chairs and removed graffiti.
What Page said impacted him the most was how hungry the children were for attention.
“They don’t usually get that because they lead a very tough life,” he said. “There was one teenager we met named, Emanuel. He asked when we were going to meet again, but I had to be honest with him that this was probably the only time we would see each other since we try to visit other villages. He said that even if we don’t see each other again, at least we will meet again in our next life in Heaven. From that point on, I changed the way I ended each day. That was very uplifting to all of us.”
Page said there were several challenges to the trip, including the language barrier when they only had two translators who were often pulled in many different directions.
“Sometimes, the challenges were responding to what we saw. Sometimes, we would see children who didn’t seem like they had had a bath in weeks; they had no shoes and cuts on their feet and legs,” he said. “The children lived in close proximity to farm animals that were very dirty sometimes. It could be a challenge to establish a connection with children because they were fearful of us too.”
Ward said one of the things he enjoyed most about the trip was seeing his students rise to every challenge and seeing the changes in them after the trip.
“That is really why I do what I do,” he said. “My students will probably refer back to this trip for the rest of their lives. I think a few of them are considering missions or ministry as a vocation, and I think this will change how they see the world and themselves for the rest of their lives.”
Several of the teens shared what they learned and enjoyed during the trip.
Chelsea Clemons said she enjoyed working with the Romani children, while spreading the word of God and growing closer to her church family.
“I feel like I became more aware of the world’s problems, especially poverty,” she said. “I realized that in America’s society, we struggle to give God any of our time, while (Romani) children were so excited to listen and learn about Him for hours at a time. Seeing their excitement made me realize that I need to be that excited about God all the time.”
Clemons shared one of her favorite memories from the trip.
“I made a bracelet for this little boy because he asked for one, and I was really impacted by his smile when I gave it to him,” she remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such graciousness. It reminded me to be thankful for the things I have.”
Connor Sparrow enjoyed ministering to children who had never heard about Christianity.
“Being the ones that introduced them to the Gospel was very impactful,” he said. “I also enjoyed getting to spend a week with the people on our team. Experiencing this amazing trip with my friends made it that much more special.”
Sparrow shared that he learned to be thankful for what he has.
“No matter how little you think you have, it is most likely a lot more than these people in Romania. I also learned that just giving these kids attention made all the difference in their lives and created a lasting image they will cherish forever,” he said. “The whole experience made me realize how blessed we all are to live a privileged life here in America.”
One of Sparrow’s favorite memories from the trip was on his last day.
“We were teaching children in someone’s backyard and we passed out crayons to them, so they could color the craft we gave them. However, a few minutes went by and we noticed that some of the kids weren’t doing anything with the crayons. I then realized they didn’t know how to use crayons because they had never seen one before,” he explained. “This really hit me hard because we take something as simple as knowing how to color for granted, but they didn’t even know how to do that. The kids were overjoyed at their new knowledge of coloring and to find out that we were letting them keep the crayons. It was great to be able to make a direct impact in these people’s lives.”
For more information about the Ruth School, visit www.projectruth.ro. For more information about First Baptist Church, visit www.fbckernersville.org.