Moldova Mission Trip - Day 6

 Day 6 is over, no pictures to share and I'm struggling to blog tonight (and not for the reason most of you would guess). We spent the day at Orhei (the special needs orphanage), where we had (key word) 120 beds to do in 2 days. joining us were our 3 translators, 2 drivers, Lucia (Works for Sweet Sleep in Moldova) and 10 people from a church in Orhei. By lunch time we had built 100 bed frames and had placed 21 beds (fully completed in their rooms). Off to another long lunch (this time about 2 1/2 hours since the waitress forgot to put in a couple of the orders). 

 Once we got back to the orphanage we found out that the director of the orphanage had the boys (all that were getting new beds) clean out their old beds. If you are doing the math then you realize we have alot of work ahead of us because if we didn't complete all the beds then there would be boys with no place to sleep tonight. All hands on deck; the guys from the church in Orhei were able to put the remaining beds together rather quickly, most of the team that I came with went to put slates in the beds and put sheets/blankets/pillows on the beds. By God's grace,  we were able to complete 86 beds (a Sweet Sleep record according to Stuart) and now 107 boys and young men are able to sleep sweetly on their new beds. 

 Normally I blog about the days events and post lots of pictures but not tonight. I hardly ever blog about my feelings (not sure why) but tonight it's the other side of Dan. This has been a great experience but I think that God wanted to get my attention and show me that it's all about him and not my happiness. For the past few days I have been more involved in the putting the rooms together, making sure that they were complete. Well today Stuart told me that we needed to change jobs (he would be in the rooms and he needed me to oversee the staging area where all the parts and pieces to the beds were). No problem, I still should be able to get around to the rooms and be a part of it anyway. The reason that Stuart needed to be in the rooms was that there was a young man named Martin that has been waiting for 3 years to get his new bed and Stuart was not sure which room Martin lived in so he was going to be there to capture this Sweet Sleep moment on video. before I knew it the day was over and I had not been to any of the rooms and the only orphans that I saw were the ones who were helping gather supplies to get the beds completed in their room. It was at this time that I believe that Satan started attacking; I started to realize that I didn't have any pictures to share with anyone nor did I have any of the wonderful experiences that I am hearing everyone else talk about. Let's just say that the later part of today has be a mentally draining struggle. On the way back from Chisinau from Orhei (about a 45 minute ride) I started praying to God for help in understanding what today was about. It takes awhile to get stuff thru my thick skull but the reality of it is that this is not about me feeling awesome because of the things that I have done. Today was about sharing God's love thru new beds. Because I was in the gym working "behind" the scenes, the rest of the team was able to experience something that I get to experience daily (unconditional love and appreciation (thank you God for blessing me with 3 Foot of Love (my nickname for Jonah)). Although it hurts not to be one of the gang with the stories I realize that I am a part of it and should be extremely happy and satisfied with what I am hearing. I can say it sucks having to learn things the hard way but it is GREAT having a loving, compassionate God like we have.

 Tomorrow we still have a few beds left to place and then we get to walk around and hang out with the kids . 

 With that I will end, not sad although it feels that way, and hope that you come and see what God has in store for me tomorrow.

Dan

Please check out the Sweet Sleep blog at sweetsleep.blogspot.com to catch the rest of the teams experiences.