Our Day In Tinca

A very emotional day.

We spent most of yesterday in preparation for the rest of the week. But even though there was much to do, God still took every opportunity to place people in our path that needed to witness His love first hand. Whether it's praying over a woman who just lost her husband or a free Big Mac that "we just happened to have" (there are no coincidences) someone on this team responded to His call every single time.

For those of us who had not been here before, today was the day we had been most anxious about. We had all heard the stories and seen the pictures but we knew this would not, could not totally prepare us for what we were about to witness.

But God is so good. And His plan is perfect.

First, He gave us Lois and Kim who are not just members of the team; they are our counselors. Not only were they constantly preparing us for what to expect but they also told us how to react in certain situations and what we could do if we started to feel overwhelmed.

Next, He gave us just a few hints of what was to come so that by this morning we were as ready as we possibly could be (or so we thought).

We were as prepared as was humanly possible. But that's not good enough for God.

We had planned on starting our day with 30 minutes for daily devotional. By the time we were done it had been almost an hour and all of our faces were wet. We had already prepared our minds for today, but God sent His Holy Spirit to prepare our hearts.

Then we went to a place overlooking Oradea where we took a team picture (it's the one on the top), and then we formed a circle and prayed over the city.

As we drove in to Tinca everyone turned to watch us go by. While cars do pass through occasionally (I think I saw three the whole time we were there), it's probably pretty rare for 15 passenger vans to come in.

We got to the house where the food was stored and loaded up Rachel's car. We didn't want to use the van since the rain last night had turned the road into about six inches of mud and if we got stuck we might have trouble getting the van out.

We then walked through the village with Rachel leading the way in her car and delivered food for several hours all the while surrounded by a hoard of children.

That's the part you can never be fully prepared for. You can hear all the stories about kids with no shoes, but until you see a child that's not even two years old standing barefoot in the mud and it hits you that it's 45 degrees out here and not only is he not wearing shoes; he's not wearing anything other than the shirt that hangs down to his knees.

But God prepared our hearts, and even though they were breaking He got us through and there were so many acts of love witnessed today that we couldn't possibly list them all.

Thank you so much for your prayers. Remember it's not just the eight of us but also Rachel, Erin, Marrion (pronounced Mari-ahn) our driver, and also all the people taking care of us while we're here.