One More Day!

 

So we left Vox Domini yesterday, and we started on a 6 hour road trip to get to Sigisoara.  Sigiasora is a 900 year old town in the middle of Romania!  The ride in it self was an adventure!  We thought Atlanta Drivers were crazy…..they’ve got nothing on European drivers!   We were sharing a narrow road with trucks and horse and buggies!  It was unbelieveable!  But we made it safely to Sigisora, spent a few hours exploring the town before driving to Brasov, where we spent the night.  We had an amazing team dinner and a time to debrief the trip as a group!  As we talked about the trip everyone took away different things, but there were a couple of things everyone agreed on:

1-God is alive and working here in Romania, and he has given these people a heart for Him and to reach others!

2-God put together and INCREDIBLE team!!!  Everyone was working in their sweet spot, and we all LOVED working with each other!  

3-We gained perspective!  It was so good to leave America and experience God in a new culture!  So many times we get so bogged down in the mundane things of life, but it’s wonderful to leave our comforts behind, serve God in another country, and realized that he is a BIG God…..I mean a REALLY BIG God.  If you’ve never gone a mission trip before, I would encourage you to pray about doing so!  God changes you and deepens your faith in a way that can’t be done staying in America!

We’ll write more about our adventure this weekend, because we are about to leave for the day!  We are headed to see Bran Castle (Dracula’s Castle) and then going to Bucharest where we will fly out in the morning!

Enjoy the pictures below of Sigisoara!

Alex, Chris, Davis, Phil, Brad, Elliot, and Casey in Sighisoara

A church in Sighisoara

 

The rooftops of Sighisoara

 

The bus ride there....um yeah...we barely survived!

Words Cannot Express

Sorry for not writing the past 3 days!  Our internet went down on Friday and it was super late last night when we got to the hotel!  So check out this entry and the next one!  I wrote this on Friday about how the conference ended!! 

I’ve sat here for the past 15 minutes trying to figure out what to write about the past 2 days, but I can’t even put all of my thoughts together!  Our team is absolutely exhausted, but we wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world.  Yesterday we had our last full day of breakouts and team time, and the relationships that were built between the Romanians and our team is something so special!  It’s amazing how you can love a group of people so much after only spending 4 days with them!  

God orchestrated the most spirit filled time last night!  We were not able to use the main sanctuary due to a college gathering. We had to rearrange our plans, so we thought it would be really cool to have a night of praise and worship on an outdoor patio under the stars.  Then when we were setting up, the noise of the band was so loud that it would have overpowered anything we would have done on the patio.  So we quickly shifted gears once again, and met in the large gathering room where we had been eating lunch and dinner.  Casey brought down his guitar, we pushed the tables out of the way, and moved the chairs into one large circle.  Casey led us in a few worship songs, and then the Romanians sang the songs in Romanian and it brought tears to my eyes.  It never ceases to amaze me that God can understand the praises of His people regardless of the language.  After a few songs, Chris stood up and began leading us in a time of personal prayer.  It was the most powerful part of the night.  He had everyone hold out their hands, palms downs, and he talked about how God want us to let go of the things that He needs to have control over.  After a time of praying through that, he instructed us to turn our palms upward when we were ready to let go of the things we hold onto so tightly and then receive all that God has for us!  It was such a powerful evening as we watched people let go of their frustrations and worries!  And then not just letting go of those things, but putting themselves in a state of receiving from God all that they need to continue their ministries back at their churches!  We broke up into groups of 3 people and just prayed over each other, and then we closed out with a couple of more worship songs!  It was a night that only the Lord could bring about!  All week, we have told the Lord that we loosely hold the plans for this conference, and asked him to changes things that He wanted changed, and rearrange things where He wanted Him rearranged!  He did that last night, and it was amazing to sit back and watch God be glorified!!

 

After our time together last night, we all went to McDonald’s and ate ice cream and hung out!  We took tons of pictures, played games, talked, and laughed as we enjoyed our last few moments together!  It’s so incredible to see how in just one week the Lord will create deep relational ties among his children.  This week we met more of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and they have taught us so much about his love! 

 

The girls with Marta

 

Tomorrow morning our team is leaving Vox Domini at 7:30am (12:30am back at home), and we are spending 2 days exploring more of Romania.  We are driving to a 900 year old town about 5 hours away called Sigisoara!  Everyone tells us that the drive to this town is one of the most breath-taking things we will ever see!  So we are excited about enjoying the beauty of God’s creation!  We’ll spend the night in Brasov Saturday night, hang out in Brasov on Sunday, and then drive to Bucharest Sunday night.  There we will have our team debrief before boarding a plane Monday morning at 6:50 am (11:50pm Sunday night at home) to make our way back to Atlanta via Paris.  Our plane lands at 4:00 Monday afternoon!  

Leaving is bittersweet!  On one hand, I’m ready to come home to my own bed, have drinks with ice, have a salad and fresh veggies, but on the other hand I don’t want to leave!  A piece of me will stay in Romania!  I have such a heart for these people, and the more I learn about where they have come from and see where God is taking them, my affections for them deepen!   

We will be processing all that we have experienced over the next 2 days!  I’m not sure if we will have internet or not, but if we don’t we will update you about how our trip ended when we land back in the States!

Thanks for all the encouragement and prayers you have poured out on our team!  

April

 

Day 6: The Good Times Keep Rolling!

So we told you about this incredible lighting system that we were able to bring over for Vox Domini….check out these before and after pictures. I didn’t have any before pictures from this year, so you’ll see one that I took last year!

Vox Before

Vox After...Check out the new lights

Well, we finished our second full day of the Recreaza conference. We woke up to the news that we have a new American President. We had mixed emotions and during our team time we prayed for our country and for our new President. Collectively as a group we were pretty shocked, but we take comfort in knowing that God is in control of all governmental officials and authority, and that ultimately the future of our country is in his hands!

After our team met and prayed for the day, we headed downstairs to start the conference. We started out with a few worship songs, and then Elliott talked about the importance of having a vision. He talked about the purpose of a church having a vision or mission statement, and this was a new concept for most of the churches here. So after talking about that we gave all the churches time to meet and create a vision statement for their church or worship ministry. It was so awesome to see them working together and asking hard questions! Here in Romania collaborating can be a difficult thing to do, so it was awesome to see God begin working among the teams and creating unity!

Team Time-Talking about Vision Statements

After team time, we had lunch and then went straight to breakout sessions! Our team is doing an absolutely INCREDIBLE job of answering questions and challenging them to “recreate” (Re:Creaza) or rethink what they do. Today the breakout sessions were about How to Build a Band and How to Manage Bands and Different Worship Leading Styles! This was a great way to set up our night main session!

We have an amazing translator, named Rebecca that has been with us this week! She currently works in a spa and is wanting to learn how to do nails, so she wanted to practice on the girls on our team! So Shae and I sat with her for an hour each as she did our nails. She told us her story about how her parents were the first people in their village to become Christians, and how they were banished from their families and persecuted because of their faith. But her parents did not falter and held on to their faith, and she knows the Lord today because of it! She is such a sweet, sweet woman, with an amazing faith!

Check out the nails...Thanks Rebecca!

After a long but great afternoon, we had dinner and then our main session! Our breakout sessions have been covering the logistics and mechanics of running a worship ministry, while the evening sessions have been covering some heart issues. So tonight Miriam talked about Raise Up and Release…..the importance of worship leaders mentoring younger worship leaders or musicians. We want them to understand that we can’t just use people to reach people. But they have to see all their musicians as a person…..not just a guitar player or a drummer! It’s our job as the church to pour into them and bridge the older generation with the younger one! Miriam did a great job, and it was truth that needed to be heard!

Finally, we ended our day with some good ole’ McDonald’s….that’s right, cheeseburgers, fries, and McFlurries! The food has been interesting here….A LOT of potatoes and meat. They don’t cook with a lot of seasonings so they have interesting flavors. So tonight we walked down to McDonald’s to eat and have our nightly team meeting to discuss tomorrow’s schedule! We laughed a lot! As a team we REALLY enjoy each others company! It’s been amazing to see how God so carefully crafted this team together, not just with skills and talents to accomplish the task he put before us, but we truly LOVE each other! Laughter has been a huge part of our trip! We have some amazing comedians with us!

Team Meeting at McDonald

So that’s our Day 6! We have built some incredible relationships and we are excited about what God has in store for us and the Romanians tomorrow!

Thanks for all the prayers!

April

Welcome to Joe’s!

Day 5: So, in Romania, they have these wafers called Joe’s. They come in vanilla and chocolate and are pretty much awesomeness in your mouth. Our team has devoured them to the point that we are now rationing out portions to everyone. Random, I know, but I HAD to tell you about this little tasty Romanian treat… well, not fully Romanian because they are made by Nestle, but you get my point.

Hi, by the way! This is Shae blogging for the day. (I know this rhymed… it’s a preview of what’s to come later on this blog. You won’t want to miss it.)

On a serious note, we just finished our first full day of the Re:Creaza Conference and it was AWESOME!!! We started off this morning with a few worship songs and then Casey & Miriam taught on Private Worship. This afternoon was filled with breakout sessions. Everyone attended two breakouts each. It went well I think. Everyone seemed to ask lots of questions and seemed eager to tap into our “cups” of knowledge. Hopefully it wasn’t too overwhelming for them.

Tonight, we had another main session filled with great worship. Miriam & Casey ended the worship set on an acoustic note and then we played a Francis Chan DVD of a talk some of us heard him do this summer at Willow Creek. That talk was revolutionary for us and I think it was for the Romanians as well!!! We’ve been praying that God will transcend the language barriers this week and He is doing just that. 

Tonight, we were reminded of the fact that we can totally do this conference on our own. As a matter of fact, all of us are talented enough to do this whole thing in our own strength. But it’s nothing without the power of the Holy Spirit. Change should happen here this week and that can only happen when we allow the Holy Spirit to do His work. The same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in US… wow!

We will remember that as we continue along these next few days, anticipating and expecting God to change us all for His glory.

Tomorrow will be filled with much of the same. Personally, I’m loving being here with my team this week and getting to know these Romanians. They are precious, precious people and I adore them. There is something so pure and innocent about their faith that I crave in my own life. Our hearts, minds, and souls have been knit together with the Romanians here and God is transforming us from the inside out for sure! 

We’re exhausted as you can imagine and I’m sure we’ll all sleep good tonight.

Praying for our country today and the election.

 Chow, chow for now… enjoy the pics!

Shae

 

Re:Creaza Registration - Yesterday

Re:Creaza Morning Session

Re:Creaza Conference Off to a Great Start!!

Hey Guys,

 

We have been super busy today getting set up for the conference, registering attendees, and kicking off our first night!!  Chris and Kelli made it here safely, and they brought a whole lighting system that is being donated to Vox.  The church has used florescent lights in the main room up until today!  The lights look absolutely amazing, and we had an amazing first session tonight!

 

We are exhausted and heading to bed, so we will write more tomorrow!!!

April

 

 

We are exhausted, but

Camelot or bust…out our pizants!

Chow friends and family of…

April, Casey, Elliot, Shae, Phil, Brad, Davis, Chris and Kelly and me…this is Miriam, a member of the team signing on to fill you in what we did today.

Day 3: Another incredible day here in Timesora, Romania! This morning we lead worship here at the VOX with Marta, the worship leader here, during both of their services. Our worship set was Give Us Clean Hands (1/2 in Romanian  and 1/2 in English), Mighty To Save (1/2 in Romanian and 1/2 in English), and 2 other Romanian songs. I cried during the entire first service. Yes, it was awesome to hear the songs in a different language but it was the language and worship of the heart that rang out! The language of praise and adoration to our God! I was a mess!

Davis, Brad, Casey, Phil, Marta, Miriam and Elliot rehearsing before the service.

Our team leading worship at the VOX Church

 After church, Adi and Jili, the Pastors at the VOX took us out to eat to a restaraunt called Camelot….oh shoooooot!! We got our grub on!! It was amazing! Just picture yourself in Medieval times. They served all the food on a slab….pork, pig, steak, duck, liver, sausage, potatoes, french fries, fruit, and cabbage and you just dig in with your hands. We were stuffed! Friends, Food, Laughter and Romania….doesn’t get much better than that. Below is a sneak peek.

 

A slab of heaven!!

After lunch we came back and had some team time to prepare for the week to come. Had some cool starter conversations about our Breakout Sessions and awesome prayer time, communion, worship on the roof and closed the evening out with a brisk walk to McDonald’s, where we saw the largest Romanian dog ever! Why a dog gotta be Romanian? Are there Romanian dogs? Um….focus Miriam……okay….

We are all excited that Chris and Kelly Briley are arriving tomorrow! Yeah!

Tomorrow is our first full day of the conference. 

Keep us in your prayers! Talk to ya tomorrow.

Lots of love from Romania!

~Miriam

Shawarma-warmas…..

Well we haven’t introduced our team yet, so here’s who on our trip:

Casey Darnell-Leading worship/Speaker (Worship Leader @ North Point Community Campuses)

Elliott Moon-Drums/Speaker (Music Director @ Browns Bridge Community Church)

Davis Harwell-Keys/Speaker (Professional Musician)

Brad Long-Electric guitar/Speaker (Professional Musician)

Phil Rogers-Bass guitar/Speaker (Professional Musician)

Mariam Ah Kuoi-Worship Leader/BGV/Speaker (Worship Coordinator at 12Stone)

Chris Briley-Sound/Lights/Speaker (Production Director @ Browns Bridge Community Church)

Shae Sweeney-Logistics (SPD Coordinator @ Browns Bridge Community Church)

Kelli Briley-Logistics (Baptism Coordinator @ Browns Bridge Community Church)

April Carter-Team Leader/Logistics (Logistics Coordinator/Groups Director for High School @ Browns                                 Bridge)

 

 

Our team, minus Chris and Kelli. They are coming on Sunday!

 

 

Well, we spent our first full day here in Timisoara.  Adi, the pastor at Vox, took our team out to share with us the story of the fall of Communism here in Romania.  Romania became a free nation on December 20, 1989.  The Revolution started here in Timisoara and lasted one week as it spread to other major cities in Romania.   Adi shared with us about how the National Army was brought in to control the crowds from rioting, and how thousands of people were killed because they were going to fight to their death for freedom.  As we walked around Freedom Square, we could see bullet holes that were left from the Army firing at people during the Revolution.  It was amazing to hear the story from Adi, who was a college student at that time and experienced the Revolution first hand, and it was even more surreal to be standing in Freedom Square where 19 years ago it was filled with thousands of people chanting God Exists.  

 

Freedom Square: This is where the Revolution started in Timisoara!

 

 

After we finished hearing about the Revolution we headed to Fast Food Shawarma!  Where we devoured some Shwaramas.  This is a staple meal here in Romania, and they are absolutely Ah-Mazing!!  

 

 

Lunch time!! Yummy Shawarmas!!!

 

 

Some of the guys enjoying their Shawarmas!

 

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Timisoara, and then we all headed back to Vox Domini!  The band rehearsed with Marta, a worship leader here at Vox, because they are leading worship at both services tomorrow!  

We ended the day by visiting the cemetery that is across from the Vox.  This morning when we woke up we noticed tons of people filing into the cemetery with handful of flowers and candles.  Today is All Saints Day which is a Catholic Holiday celebrated on November 1st, so tonight when it got dark the cemetery was lit with candles.  We decided to walk over and check it out!  People were still coming in to pay respects to their loved ones that had passed!  

We hit the ground running tomorrow with church, and then working on all the final details for the Recreaza Conference that starts on Monday!  It has been a great day of recovering from jet lag and getting to know about history of Romania!  

Until tomorrow,

April

We Made It!!!

Well, we made it safe and sound to Romania!  We had a great trip!  We had no problems navigating through the Rome airport, and all of our luggage made it with us!  When we got here we were greeted by Phil, our teammate who has been here for a week already, and Marta who is a volunteer that works at Vox Domini coordinating the worship program.  We are so excited to get to know her!

When we got our luggage unpacked, we headed to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and drinks!  It’s always interesting to experience an everyday activity, such as grocery shopping, in a different country.  For example, ALL the wheels on the grocery carts swivel, so it’s like you are pushing the cart on ice….it could be pushed sideways, diagonal, spun in a complete circle….needless to say the guys had a great time playing with this!  After our adventure at the grocery store, we came back to Vox, ate dinner and emailed family letting know we were safe!  We all headed to bed early because we were exhausted!  It’s a six hour time difference for us from the States!  

But it is now Saturday morning here at Vox, and we are heading out to see the city of Timisoara, and eat some Shwarmas!  We start the ReCreaza Worship Conference on Monday, so we’ll come back this afternoon for the band to practice and to start getting things set up!

Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement!  

April

Romania or Bust

Hey Guys,

Well, we have one more day and 7 members of our team will be flying out to Romania.  We leave on Thursday at 4:30pm, so we would love for you to be praying for safe travel!  Phil, is already over in Romania, and Chris and Kelly will be joining us on Monday!  

Tomorrow we will be wrapping up our work responsibilities here in the States and packing our team bags.We’ll let you guys know when we get to Romania, and we’ll hopefully have some fun stories to share!  

Until Friday,

April

10 Days and Counting!!

Welcome to our team blog!  We will be updating this blog daily once we leave for our trip, so that you can hear about all what we are doing and how you can be praying for our team!   We have 10 people going on this mission trip, and we will be hosting a Worship Conference for worship leaders and teams from all over Romania. We will be covering a lot of the “How to” details during the day with several breakout sessions each day, and then we will be diving into the Bigger Picture of what they are doing during the night sessions.

Our team just met tonight for the last time before we leave next Thursday.  We had a great time talking through the last minute details and then spending some time in prayer!  We have spent hours of planning and preparing for this conference, but we hold those plans loosely.  We are open to whatever God wants to do in and through us!  We cannot wait to just hang out and pour into the lives of the Romanians that we will spending time with for 10 days!  

We ask that you will partner with us in prayer as we wrap things up here over the next week and prepare to head out.  If you can be praying that the last minute details all come together, that we will guard our time in the Word over the next week so that we can minister from an overflow of what God is doing in our lives, that God would prepare the hearts of the Romanians, and that we would have safe travels!

Thanks for all the prayers and support!