Update #2 Central Europe

Hi guys! Danyelle here 🙂 

We have made it to our location in Central Europe after 31 hours of travel! Luckily, we landed in the evening so we are adjusting to the time difference well! Today was a Sunday, so we started off our day with breakfast, then we attended a church! We are staying pretty close to this church, so we walked and it took about 20 minutes. Fun Fact, our location is full of Roman ruins, so we were able to see one on our way to the church! 

Once we made it to church, we were greeted by many people and they cultivates such a welcoming environment! They played some worship songs in their language and then Isaac, Liana and I were able to lead them through two worship songs, “The Blessing” and “10,000 Reasons.” 

Being able to lead worship in a different country and hearing people sing to the Lord in different languages is an experience I will keep with me forever! I am so thankful the Lord gave me that opportunity. 

Then, Sophia gave a little testimony to the church about why we are here and what we are doing! She did amazing and was the first of us to volunteer to give a testimony! Even more amazing, she introduced herself in the language here! 

Overall, the church service was amazing! The people there were incredibly welcoming and it was a great experience to hear a message in the language. 

After church, we ate pizza from a place named “Friends!” (Yes, like the TV show! It was super to cool to see that here and the pizza was AMAZING. Best pizza ever!) 

After that, we walked around the Cherry Festival! We got to see pieces made from the locals and we bought the best cherries! They were absolutely delicious. 

After the Cherry Festival, we went back to our apartment for a few hours and all of us took a glorious nap…so glorious that all of us were a little sad to wake up. However, being awoken from our nap was made worth it by our next activity! 

After our naps, we had the opportunity to go to a Roma Gypsy community and walked through it. We even saw a Roma wedding right in the street! 

After walking through the community, we had the opportunity to hang out with the children of this Roma community. That was an amazing experience! We were able to show love to these children. There were a group of us coloring with the kids and a group of us playing outside. 

At first, it was a little awkward because of the language barrier but once we split into groups based on the activity, it seemed less awkward! I was inside coloring with the kids and through that experience, I was able to practice the language! One of the girls even had a similar name to mine, which was kind of cool! It really touched my heart to be able to play with these children and show them love of Christ that is within us. When one girl left, she even gave me a hug!

We ended the day with planning for our upcoming VBS (3 of them, to be exact) and then watching an episode of The Chosen, as one of the episodes described one of our Bible stories! 

I know this ended up being a little long, but there were so many great things that happened today that I had to share all of it! 

I love you all and miss you very much! 

-Danyelle

Prayer Requests:

• Continued strength and rest
• That the VBS’ would be fruitful! 
• Continued bonding for our team

Also, enjoy this picture of all us attempting the “Slavic Squat”