Over and Out

Well, I can’t believe but just like that my trip has come to an end. I am actually doing this blog back in Missouri as we are here for a week of debriefing at Convoy of Hope. I have only been back a few days but this trip has had a huge impact on my life and where I go from here. Also, I lost 20 pounds from the start of the trip, 10 of which where in the last week and I will get to that story. But here is a review of our last couple of weeks on the trip. Where I last left off it was a couple of days before Thanksgiving. Our team got split up into two groups, one went to do a distribution a day and the other went to do construction on a YWAM Center property just outside of Tbilisi. I was with the construction crew who went to work on the property. Our jobs there were a variety of things. We covered the foundation in tar paper so water wouldn’t get through. We put together the pipes that ran to the septic tank and the drainage field. We began laying the bricks for the septic tank and filled in gravel and leveled the pipes in the drainage field. I think it was only fitting that Chad, Bracy, Nathan and I got to work on a septic tank. It was very fitting for us 4. Our work there was only done on the day before and after Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the other group did a couple distributions to the displaced refugees of the war. They handed out pots, pans, food and other household items to people who had recently lost everything like that when they had to flee their homes. Also, they got to go to Gore, which was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. It was a place that was heavily attacked but the Georgian government had already repaired all the damage and it looked as though nothing had happened there just a short few months ago. The government stopped all construction in the Capital city of Tbilisi and sent all the workers there to repair damage and rebuild. Now on the Friday, while the other group was able to go out and do a distribution and visit a 3300 year old cave city we worked on a septic tank. So, the construction crew got home before the distribution people were back and we were locked out. The work we had to do was tough and there were some situations at the site that made it rather frustrating. But we were in need of some adventure so without knowing any language at all we decided we were going to head out. We first got down the street and order a kabob and shoshleik from a restaurant. Then, we went further down the street and ordered a swarma after that. Not knowing our address of our house we were staying at, we wanted to take a taxi downtown but had no way of communicating how to get back. So, we saved our receipt from our restaurant that was down the road so we could show the taxi where to take us back too. From there, we headed to Mcdonalds in downtown. Come to find out, the Mcdonalds overseas are not like the ones at home. They are much cleaner and have a more restaurant feel. That was where we got dessert. From there we hiked a mountain to the lighted tower looking over the city. This was a very tough hike especially in the dark but 2 hours later we made it to the top. The view was gorgeous. We got down, walked around the city more, then decided to try the subway to get back, got off at the wrong stop and found a taxi that got us back home. Saturday I ended up getting a 24 hour flu and was vomiting all day. Sunday, I felt better and went with Mike, Laura, Mikellah, Chad, and Bracy back to Armenia to build water filters in the Kurdish villages. We took a public transportation van to get there and went through a shady border crossing in the mountains and got back to Vanadzor. We really like Vanadzor because the food there is great. It has our favorite restaurant we liked to call the Meat Sweats Hotel. It was a restaurant that was a bunch of hotel rooms and you would dine inside one of the rooms. This place was also a bit shady but delicious. Although we all had stomach issues during that last week in Armenia, God provided and the work we got to do with the Kurdish people was awesome. We set up 7 water filters in the village and also trained some of the locals so after we leave they can continue to install them. Their current drinking water came from the same place all the livestock drank. It was such a pleasure getting to work with the people from the church in the village. They were so appreciative of the water filters. We set up 6 in the village. Each water filter can provide water for up to 80 people a day for all household purposes and it can provide drinking water for up to 120 people a day. The village only had 275 people so there were enough filters so everyone could be supplied with good drinking water. And I have to mention this story while I am at it. Our last day doing the water filters and the day before we left was an adventure for me. My stomach did great the whole trip. I was very fortunate in the bathroom department until the last week. I got a stomach bug the weekend after thanksgiving and was throwing up for a day. Then, 5 days later I got something nasty. Where we were building the water filters we were surrounded by cow dung. That is how they heat their homes and what their bricks are made out of. The lunch they would feed us was very interesting also. Lets just say I was around some funky stuff. To make a long story short last Wednesday night was a long long long long night for me. I got up about 6 times in 6 hours to use the restroom. Then it didn’t really stop after I woke up. So, I am using an outhouse during the day and I hear something solid fall down into the hole. Knowing that I was incapable of dropping anything solid at the time I checked to see if my wallet was still in my jeans pocket. It wasn’t. So, I had to get out a flashlight and a shovel and stick my arm way down in the hole to dig it out. I got it back but I did throw away the wallet. Needless to say that was a great day.
But now I am back in this great country of ours, jet lagged and tired. I just feel so incredibly thankful and blessed that God provided a miraculous way for me to be able to go on the trip and the work that was done in me during that time. It was such a privilege to be able to do what I got to do and for that I am grateful. I am thankful for the people who helped me get to this point. But now I am back in the real world and where the road leads I don’t know. Although I may not have the answers for the immediate future I definitely came to some realizations after going on this trip. Just because I went overseas for 3 months and got to do some amazing work doesn’t put me on some pedestal. If I go out the rest of my life without continuing to put my faith in to action, the work I just got to do means nothing. There are people everywhere whether in the U.S. or a Kurdish village in the mountains that need to know about the love of Christ and to actually be shown it. It is not about doing it to be recognized but to bring hope to somebody in need. Once again I thank everyone for their support and I hope to talk too many of you very soon. Take care y’all

Chris
Hebrews 12:12-13

Georgia on my mind

Greetings to all,

It is Monday, November 24 and I am writing to you from Tbilisi, Georgia. We just completed our first week of work and had a nice weekend of doing some roaming around the area. I am sure that most of you are gearing up for Thanksgiving this week. I believe this will be the first Thanksgiving where I won't be eating some turkey then retiring to a recliner to unbutton the top button on my pants to watch football and sleep. We are going to celebrate Thanksgiving here with other Americans from the International Church here but I don't want to unbutton my pants in front of strangers. Anyways, our first week of work was great. We are working closely with the Salvation Army who has a bunch of supplies for the refugees and an office here in Tbilisi. Our group was split up into two groups for this week. One group went to a warehouse to organize supplies that were sent here for distribution and the other went to a town of Rustavi to do some construction work at a children's ministry building. I was with the group that went to work on the building in Rustavi. Here is a picture from Day 1.

When we got there this place was in pretty bad shape. There had been a flood in the basement that left behind rotted walls with mold and a need for some serious paintchipping work. So, we ripped up the linoleum, chipped off paint, disinfected the walls with bleach, and recovered the bare spots with mud so it will be ready to paint. I only have before pictures with my camera but I will try to post some after pictures whenever I get a chance. But, that work was only the downstairs. Upstairs in one of the rooms used for the Kids ministry the wallpaper needed to come off the wall and ceilings. Unfortunately, in Georgia there isn't chemicals available to strip the wallpaper or a steamer, but we had water and elbow grease. We got all the wallpaper stripped off the wall and pretty much most of the mudding done downstairs so they will be ready to paint by the end of the week. We had limited tools and supplies but we were definately blessed to get that much done. The other crew organized a warehouse with clothes, medical supplies, wheelchairs and diapers. They also organized a few boxes of manpons. In case you don't know what those are just look at the name and that explains a lot. On the weekend, we got to go to a Monastery and out to eat at a cool restaurant just outside of Tbilisi. The picture at the top of the blog give a view from where we were at. On the food side of Georgia, once again it is delicious. I have mentioned food in awhile so Grandpa this one is for you. Mike, Chad and I like to considers ourselves meat conniseurs. Mike is here with his wife Laura and they are Missionary associates who have been working with Convoy of Hope for a couple of years. They joined us in Armenia and have been all over the world. During any down time we like to sneak off in search of good meats. We have not been disappointed. The kabob and dumplings here are great. Then on Sunday I went to this Georgian play or what we thought was a play. It was a good cultural experience. . . . .for the first 20 minutes. It ended up being eerily similar to my sister's dance recitals. All the parents in the audience were taking pictures and I felt like the same dance was playing over and over again. I can here my sister laughing at me now because she knows how much I just loved her dance recitals. After that, we went to the international church here in Tbilisi. Today, we got to deliver some clothes and a little bit of cooking supplies to some refugees housed in a building in Tbilisi. These people are from towns outside the city that were attacked by Russia. They have been there in these buildings for about 3-4 months. When they left their houses they could take nothing and they are all destroyed. We have had to here some stories from the missionaries here of what some of the refugees have told them. After the Russian soldiers would kill the Georgian soldiers they would take their uniforms and put them on. Then, they would go around town to homes and we heard some cases of the soldiers killing all the men of the house or of the sexual attacks on the women of Georgia. I walked into a room of refugees today who have literally lost everything they own. You look at the women in the room and don't know if maybe one was raped or not. I am sure all of them lost somebody close to them or maybe many. It is tough to find the silver lining in their situation. The government here is using relief money to pay the men who are refugees to work to build homes for themselves. They have winterized many buildings for the winter to house them until they are ready to move in. This week we will be delivering more to the refugees and I am excited because I do want them to know there is hope. I can't explain why they had to go through that. But I do know that God loves them more than anything and all though bad things can happen to us in this world, it is amazing to see how God can pick us up and make us anew in our most hopeless moments when we just rely on Him. May these people be in your thoughts and prayers. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Chris

Hebrews 12:12-13

Our last days in Armenia

Dear Loyal Listeners,
It is Monday, November 17th and I have currently just arrived in Tblisi, Georgia. It is actually a suburb of Atlanta in case you didn’t know. We just arrived here this afternoon after driving about 3 hours and crossing the border from Armenia to get here. We drove through a lot of mountains, saw a lot of sheep, and my feet were sweating terribly the whole way. I happened to be sitting next to a heater under my chair and I was wearing my insulated boots. I immediately regretted that decision. Oh well, the smell wore off after I took my boots off in a couple of hours. Anyways last week went good. Our team got split up into two groups. One group was working on the water filters while the other group went and taught the Community Health Evangelism to the Kurdish village people. I was on the water filters and we stayed and did all of our work in Vanadzor where we were being housed again. I did get a chance to go up to the village for a little bit on the first day to meet some of the people our group was training. In the CHE training our group was actually training the trainers. The program is set up for the people of the community to implement the program. It is hard for people of the church to even approach peoples’ homes in their village. The main religion of the Kurdish people is actually one that actually gives sacrifices to Satan in order to please him. And they don’t particularly like the people who are Christians. But obviously in these villages there isn’t much information about how to be healthy. Things we take for granted knowing like it is good for us to brush our teeth and wash our hands after touching raw meat, they don’t know. So, we train the trainers, have them study and know the information, and they inform the community. These people are also just volunteers from the community and they seemed very excited. Also, the mountains there don’t have very many trees, that means no firewood. Very few homes there can afford the cost of gas and that leaves them with only one option for heating their homes and cooking their food. They actually use cow dung bricks for both. The cow dung doesn’t release much energy for heat and it is not the healthiest thing to grill your food with. But, they really don’t have an option. The missionary Nick Pucinni here is working on making bricks out of left over coffee grounds that puts off a lot more energy than the cow dung and not to mention is healthier. Now, back in Vanadzor we worked on getting all the rock and sand for the filter and from there we had to sift it and wash it. A couple of guys from the villages came down and worked along with us so when we leave, they can be able to construct them. This will hopefully be implemented with their CHE program as well. Unfortunately, our container is still stuck going through customs that has all of our plastic containers for the final construction of our water filter. We were never able to fully construct one for them, so hopefully we might have a couple days when we get back to show them. A fully operational filter needs barely any maintenance and can pump out 120 gallons of water a day. The only maintenance is raking the sand at the top of the filter. We looked around town for another plastic container that could work, but could find nothing. But I did find some Christmas gifts for people while we were looking for containers. By Friday, we were done with our work and got to enjoy a couple of nice days off. It had been quite chilly outside the past week so it was nice. Oh and on a side note. On Thursday, we purchased a 2 month old lamb in the Kurdish village. Saturday a couple of us from the group got up in the morning and went to a house in town where the lamb was staying. Our little lamb Manny put up a bit of a fight but died with dignity. His official Time of Death was 10:32. From there we skinned and butchered him for our BBQ that night. We had our translator Tom made sure we did everything like how the Armenians would do it. We kept everything except the head, intestines and bladder. But the chickens played with the bladder and I had to go down the river with the owner of the house and clean out the stomach and the intestines so she could feed them to her dog. The lamb was delicious and we made some soup out of it too. We had the BBQ in a park in the mountains. Oh and if you are wondering if I ate the weird parts of the lamb. . .. . . All I have to say is when in Armenia. Now, we march onward to Georgia. On a side note, I would like you all to know that I have a beard now and I am beginning to enjoy it. Joel, that one is for you. And on a personal note this trip has been great for me. I am so thankful for how God has brought me hear to where I am today. This verse kind of explains it all and I just feel like sharing with you today. It is from the apostle Paul in Romans 5:3-5, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” I am definitely hopeful for the rest of this trip and where God is going to take me after this trip. Take care guys and hope you all have a good week.

Chris

Hebrews 12:12-13

First week of November

Dear Readers,
This is a recap of our first week of November here in Armenia. Once again, we headed back to Vanadzor to do some more work on the homes. I did drywall work all week long. Also, we did work with setting up the Styrofoam bricks on another home. On Thursday, we poured the walls of that home. We got a unique experience after working there, we actually got to see the containers that earthquake refugees have actually been living in the past 20 years. I will show you some pictures first and that says a lot in itself.

The trailer we are walking into is the home of one of the workers there, David, who will be moving in there with his parents after living in this little trailer for 20 years. The homes that we are building are only for a small percentage of the people still displaced by the earthquake but David was very blessed and thankful to be getting a home. David was a really neat guy. He is working on these homes and eventually, in a little while, will be living in one. By the way he has to work free of charge on the home since he is getting one. His family had been living in this trailer for 20 years, the trailer has gone through 2 fires and all they said was God is good. Most of us, including myself, would complain about living in a trailer for 20 years. But, they just prayed and believed that God would provide them a way out and were just thankful to have a roof over their head. You think a lot of times in those situations that you would maybe just have pity for them. But after you go into their homes, they offer everyone tea and coffee, then all they can say is that God has been so good to them, you begin to realize how inspiring they are to you. Now, the guys at the work site are a different type of crew than we have worked with this whole trip. Many lead some pretty rough lives and you can see it by just looking at their faces. One of our guys had been offered alcohol, cigarettes and even some drugs while at the work site. When we first started working there they were a little standoffish towards us, but by the end of the week we had really built relationships with them. Both sides were sad to see each other go. We never preached to them or talked about God to them but hopefully our actions toward them spoke more volumes than any words can be said. God has a great plan for all of us no matter what we have done or where we are at in our lives. Hopefully this opens up a chance for David to speak to these guys and help bring them closer to the hope that is in Christ. All I know is how Christ has changed my life and how it can change theirs. Who knows what could happen. So, over the weekend we just got to hang out in Yerevan and get some well needed rest. We went out for a nice meal on Saturday and just hung out at the house on Sunday. This week we will be heading into a Kurdish village to teach our Community Health program and to also construct water filters. We will be up at about 7000 feet and it is starting to get really cold. But that is alright, because I now have a very thick beard and it adds about 10 degrees. I also have not ripped my jeans in the past 3 weeks so that is also some good news. I haven’t been able to check how the Chiefs are doing lately, but from the last time I checked it might be a good thing that I am missing this whole season. It is crazy to think that I only have about a month left. This is our last week in Armenia and then we will be in Georgia the rest of the time. Before you know it I will be back home and getting a chance to catch up with everyone. Until next time. . . . . . . .. . . . .

Chris

Hebrews 12:12-13

Halloween Time in Armenia

Dear Amigos,
Sorry, it has taken me so long to get another update out but we have very limited internet access. You know it is hard to find wireless internet access here in these straw huts we are staying in out here in the mountains. Actually that was a joke. The house we are currently in just doesn’t have internet access. To get internet access we go to the Yum-Yum donuts whenever we can find time and a ride to downtown Yerevan. We have been staying in Yerevan the past week at a house of a missionary couple who is currently out of town. It is a newer house but everything seems to keep breaking here. There has been a busted water pipe, no heat, and I have had one hot shower in the past 5 days. I am actually beginning to like the cold showers. Also, Chad and I had a hole form in our air mattress. I wonder if there is a weight limit on those things. Anyways, back to the work we are doing here. When we last talked the group was in the middle of the Community Health Evangelism training which we will be using in another week. I will explain that more during the week we are doing it because I think I will be able to explain it better after we get started and get to use it. So the day after my last blog we finished up CHE training and then we went to the Armenia/Turkey border to check out Mt. Ararat. I got some cool pictures from there but I can’t put any on the internet while here. I have to say it was quite experience to see the place where it is thought that Noah’s Ark landed. After we left there, we came back to Yerevan and had dinner with a family that lives downtown. The couple is from Sri Lanka and they have two daughters. Prassanna, the husband, works for World Vision. This is a huge non-profit organization I am sure many of you have heard of.

We had some Sri Lankan food and sat around and chatted. Prassanna got up and gave a bit of his life story and how God has worked in it. Growing up in Sri Lanka his mom was Buddhist and his father an alcoholic. He came into a relationship with God after the age of 16 when a distant relative began talking with him and telling him about Christ. Now, in Sri Lanka there is freedom of religion. But there are Buddhist sects who highly oppose Christians and have free reign to do so. In fact, the pastor of the church Prassanna went to in his hometown was just murdered by some Buddhist monks. He has worked for World vision in places like Mongolia for 4 years, another country I can’t remember for 2 ½ years, and is now in Armenia. The family was great and was so honored to have us over. The next day we were off to Vanadzor to begin work on the homes for Habitat for Humanity. This is a small town in Mountains of Armenia. We had to commute an hour and a half every morning to get there. It was quite a scenic drive. The mountains and countryside here are quite a site. The homes that we were working on are for families who were displaced by an earthquake that took place over 20 years ago. It was sometime in 1988 when a huge earthquake hit the region and left families displaced and children parentless. There are still people displaced and affected by this today. These homes are put together in a pretty unique way. It is put together by Styrofoam bricks that you fill with concrete and rebar. It is a new technology and it is cheap. It only cost $22,000 to complete one of the duplex homes. Thursday through Saturday we did drywall work and painting because the Styrofoam bricks had not arrived yet to start on some more of the homes.

The weather has been starting to get a little chilly outside. The crew we are working with there is different than anything we have worked with in Moldova. Usually, we worked with churches to help build but this time it is with a crew of workers from the town. A lot of them seem pretty rough around the edges and don’t come from very much. For Halloween we just went over to the Puccini’s home for some good food. They are the missionaries we are working with here. They have a little 3 year old son named Oliver. He was a pirate for Halloween. Nick and Olivia have been over here for 5 ½ years and are great. They have learned a very difficult language and have done some great work here. Saturday we went out to get something to eat in town at night when we got done working all day. Sunday, we got up and went to church in a small town another hour or so away. We did a few songs and Zac gave a message at the service. For lunch we went to the Pastor’s house and had a smorgasbord of food. We sang some more songs and left to relax for the rest of the day. On the way back we went took a chair lift at a ski resort to check out a cool view. That pretty much wraps up that week.

Chris

Hebrews 12:12-13

We are here in Armenia

Dear readers,
I just wanted to let everyone know that I am here in Armenia and that I am doing good. We arrived here early Sunday morning after spending all day in a Ukraniean airport. We have been here a few days in Yrevan doing our training for our Community Health Evangelism project that is starting here in the villages. We don't have much access to the internet here so I will try to update as much as possible. In fact, I only have a few minutes to do this blog. On Thursday we head out to help build a house with Habitat for Humanity. Also, we are spending 3 and a half weeks here in Armenia, then another 3 weeks in Georgia to help refugees there. Our sleeping situation is at a house of a missionary who is out of the country. It has a cool view out over the city and I went on a run this morning and saw Mt. Ararat. It has been cloudy over it the whole time we have been here but not this morning. Our sleeping situation is on air mattresses and the good news is I am on the big queen size air mattress. The not so good news is that Chad and I have to share a bed again. Somehow we are the only guys that end up having to share a bed. Also, I hope my work jeans hold together for me this week. They have ripped not once, but twice right by my zipper. I ripped them first by stepping up on something to drill a hole. It was repaired then I was laying a box on the ground and that old familiar rip sound came along. These weren't small rips by the way. They were repaired again so hopefully they will hold up. I miss all of you guys and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us here. Keep us in your prayers. Take care y'all.

Chris McCulloch
Hebrews 12:12-13

The Last week in Moldova

Dear Family, Friends, and anyone else who is listening,

It is official I am entering the world of blogging. This is my first official blog. The decision was tough but this will make it easier on me. I will be able to share all my stories with everyone without having to send out a bunch of e-mails. Plus, I can post all my photos on here so that part will be cool. There hasn't been an e-mail update sent out to anyone for about a week and a half now. Sorry it has taken me so long to get out another update but I am trying to do my best. And I think when I wait a little longer it adds a little more suspense. I am just trying to keep you all captivated. Or I just decide to fall asleep at night instead of send out an update. Over the past two weeks we have worked more at the Home of Hope for trafficked women, spent about a week in the small town of Straseni, and a few days in a town called Orhei. Also, our flight got cancelled to Armenia so that is why I am still in Moldova. But we are set to leave this Saturday on our new flight out of Odessa, Ukraine. Here is a review of the past week or so.

When we last talked our team was getting ready to head out to the small town of Straseni for 6 days. But before we left on that Tuesday the 14th we went to Chisinau days in the morning. This is a celebration of the birth of the city. It was a good time because I got to eat some more of my favorite dish here Shoshleik. Plus, I ate a few pastries. As long as there is some good food around I can have a great time. Here are some pictures below of the shoshleik and the festival.

That Tuesday afternoon we headed up to Straseni. Our goals for the 6 days we were up there were: Do activities at the orphinage during the week, put coats of concrete on the back wall of the church to repair it, bring supplies to individuals at their homes, do an outreach for the blind, run the youth service on Saturday, and be a part of the Sunday service. God is good and it all went great. When we first got there on Tuesday a few of the guys stayed back to work on the wall while the rest of us went to the orphinage. I would usually stay back to do the construction stuff but I wanted to play sports with the kids. Gloriann from our group is in charge of all of our kids programs. She does a fantastic job and was great with them all week with the program she put on for them. I am usually in charge of all the sports. Which all I do is just go out there and play games. That isn't too hard. But I was a part of the program on Tuesday that Gloriann put on. It was hilarious. She happened to pick me to play Goliath in her demonstration. She went through the whole story of David and Goliath and at the end she wanted to do a demonstration of David flinging the stone to kill Goliath. I got up on stage in front of the kids and growled and had to flex my muscles. Then the kids got to take cotton balls, dip them in water, and procede to try and chuck them in between my eyes. There was about 110 kids there that day and thank goodness I only went through about half of them. Those cotton balls in water don't feel good when kids are chucking them as hard as they can from about 8 feet away. I don't have the photos or videos my team members took but I will try to get them soon to upload. The funniest parts were when they would hit me in the place of the zipper on my pants. I think some of the kids forgot that Goliath was between the eyes and not between the legs. At the end I started throwing back. After that, we played games with them and yes, I even played soccer. First time since about 6th grade or so. During the week, I stayed at an apartment of one of the guys from the church with our interpreter Tudor and Chad. Don't worry there was no weird cheese I had to eat this time. On Wednesday, I stayed and work on the concrete wall. We used a technique in which I have never seen before. I worked concrete for a summer so I thought I was ready. So far, all the construction work we have done has gone great but this was challenging. In America we have things called forms we pour concrete into when we do walls. But here, they don't have the luxury of concrete trucks or forms. They build the building out of stone and then literally sling concrete on the wall. Rebar is set in wall with concrete at different points so you can properly level off the final coat. It takes about 2 coats of slinging concrete to finish the job and this was a big wall. We worked with two great Moldovan guys Sergi and Peter. The first couple days working with them they probably didn't think much of us. When they would sling concrete on the wall they would throw these huge blobs that would stick to the wall. Yeah, well that didn't really work out so well for us. Chad and I stayed back and worked on the wall while the others went to the orphinage that Wednesday. By the end of the day we were just in charge of mixing the concrete. That is how bad we did. But we eventually got the hang of it. That night we went to a 25th wedding anniversary of one of the leaders of the church. 3 of the girls from our group were staying with them during the week and they were great people. They weren't christians when they got married but the wife gave her life to Christ and the husband then soon followed and have been happy ever since after starting off rough. So we sang songs with them and at these things filled with cabbage, rice, and chicken. I think I ate about 8 of them. Then we watched a slideshow of all of their pictures on a dvd. They put an r&b song along with the pictures. The song was in English and I don't think they understood the words. It was a song that probably would have fit better after everyone left and it was for them when they were alone. That part was quite funny. Thursday, we got up in the morning and I worked on the wall for the first half of the day while others from our group did house visits. They took groceries and cut wood for a lady. We ate lunch then I went to the orphinage. We put on another program then I got to play some games. The first game we played dodgeball. I got to get some redemption on some kids for the cotton balls. Then we played some cool variations of tag. I could tell I haven't really had a chance to exercise this whole time. Also, we made them balloon animals. That night we put on the service at church with a couple songs, Mikellah gave her testimony and Noah preached. On Friday, we took the day and completed the wall. Others from the group did the house visits and went to the orphinage and the ones who worked on the wall finally figured out the whole mud slinging thing. It ended up looking really good. When everyone got back from the orphinage we set up and packed 200 bags for the blind outreach on Saturday. This outreach is for the visually impaired in the community and surrounding area. We got the bags packed and just in time. The past two days the forecast was for rain. If it would have rained we couldn't have worked on the wall and finished it. I guess God had a different idea than the weatherman and we were able to finish the wall as well as pack the bags for the outreach. That Friday, Peter, the guy we worked with all week, had Chad and I stay at his house. We didn't have an interpreter but from what we could get from him he had such a sweet story. Peter now is a wonderful family man who is a hard worker and wanted nothing more than for us to come to his home so he could serve us in his home. 6 years ago he was in prison in Romania when he decided to let God come into his heart and completely change him into the man he is today. Before that time I think he was trying to say he was into some sort of racketeering. He was in Romania in prison because he had to leave Moldova because he was in trouble there. Then he got in trouble in Romania and was put in prison there. By the way he has 6 kids and on in the oven. Now his wife and him are believers and are wonderful people. Peter's brother is an evangelist in Russia and they hadn't talked in 6 years. A month ago his brother called him and found out everything that had happened in his life. It was such a good time there. We got to get water out of his well with him and he showed us how heated his home with his hot water heater. As a side note, Chad and I did have to sleep in a bed together again. This was a full size this time and we figured out that Chad likes to be against the wall, while I prefer the outside of the bed. That Saturday, we loaded up the bags and headed off to the arts center in town to do the outreach. I got up and introduced our team and spoke to the crowd about our mission and why we do what we do. Zach from our team also got up and gave a message and we did a few worship songs. We then handed out the bags and headed back to the church. In the afternoon, we put on the youth service at the town sports facility. A lot of volleyball and soccer was played. I played mostly volleyball and all I can say is USA 4 Moldova 0. Then, we sang some more songs with them and Bracy gave his testimony. Then we played a game of monster tag and went back to the church to hang out with some of the youth. It was cool because a lot of the kids at the sports complex never get a chance to go there and never go to church so it was good to see a lot of the kids there. Back at the church we had a round table discussion with the youth from there where we got to ask questions and they did as well. On Sunday we then had the church service. The musicians of our group got up and did some more songs. Don't worry I don't get up there and sing. I don't want to scare off anyone. Then Chad preached, as well as Andy Raatz the missionary that we work with here. Him and his wife are awesome and I have learned a lot from them. Sunday, we headed back to Chisinau. Our plan was to leave Tuesday on our flight to Armenia but it got cancelled. We didn't get another flight until this Saturday so we got to stay another week here. Plus, we found out that we get to help out refugees in Georgia for 2 weeks while in Armenia. But here are some pictures from Straseni.

After Straseni we came back to Chisinau for the next week. We worked at the Home of Hope another day then went to a church in Orhei to do drywall work. Also, we went and played a basketball game against a Moldovan select team. Troy Darrin, a missionary here with his wife and daughter, set up a game at the training facility where his daughter plays. We actually played against another team with jerseys and everything. I am happy to say we represented the USA well and we actually won. But now we are getting ready to take a bus to Odessa tomorrow and we are now going to be off to Armenia. I had a blast here in Moldova. I came here to try to help people and I probably got more out of my time here than the people I helped. I learn more and more about myself everyday being here, both the good and the bad. I want to say thank you to the Raatz Family for their dedication and great hearts. Sarah their missionary associate for putting up with us all this time. Also, the Darrin family for letting us hang out with them and invading their home as well. Until Next time, take care and God bless.

Chris McCulloch

Hebrews 12:12-13