News & Updates Category
03.17.2016
As our Discovery Trip team from HillCity Church continues to visit and understand the context that our partner, Beginning of Life works in, we wanted to share this short post from one of the team members, Hailey Wall. As the team continues to see the work that Vladimir Ubeivolc and his team are doing to share God’s love and end human trafficking we want to pray that God will speak to each of them as they continue their journey through Moldova.
Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to be Canadian. All my life my country has owned and controlled itself. Canada has always been Canada. And I’m not naive, I watch the news, I know not every country is like this, but we were going to Europe. Europe! If anywhere was going to be like Canada it would Europe right? Right?
No.
We landed in the beautiful country of Moldova; where your chosen language indicates your political stance. Where two different non-Moldovan countries vie for control of Moldova.
I could not imagine growing up like that. Besides my faith in God, Canada’s stability as a nation is part of what keeps me grounded and feeling safe.
On Tuesday I got to visit a twelve year old boy and his Grandma. He lived with her because he lost both his parents – one when he was a toddler and the other only half a year ago. He was so excited to have visitors. I wish you could have seen him rushing around to make sure we all had seats, and gleefully opening a box of cookies to share with us. And once you got him going he loved talking. He was smart and creative and so kind. He easily could have been part of my own youth group and Sunday School class back home. He definitely stole my heart.
And then there was his grandma, a sweet lady in her 70s named Tanya. She was very sweet and very smart. She was so upset that she had no tea to give to us. And it was so evident that she loved Nicola – instead of being bitter that she had to raise another child in her senior years she embraced it with a smile and a strength that can only be born of love. But she lives on a fixed income they is so small that she couldn’t even by herself a book once in a while. If you saw her shelves apon shelves of books she’s collected, and listened to her talk about her favourite stories it was evident that she loved books. But she loved Nicola more.
It seems that love amongst people here is everywhere, but love for being here is not. At the schools all the kids wanted to know how to come to Canada. One boy even asked if we could take him home with us. And it’s this desire to leave now and by any means possible that leaves so many of these kids vulnerable to all kinds of danger.
And it’s a reminder again of how lucky I am to a Canadian.
