This is another question I am asked often. Considering I’m a missionary the answer is yes, obviously. I am going there for a purpose and that is to bring God’s kingdom to earth wherever I go and that is the same job/calling you and all other Christians have. I’m also going to be entering into full time ministry once I get there, I want to be available to do whatever God leads me to. Having a full time job wouldn’t leave me with an open and flexible schedule for ministry needs. Also on a missionary visa, you’re not technically supposed to have a job in Romania.
All this said, I have desired a job somehow to work out so that I could be in the community more interacting with the Romanian people regularly. I’ve been taking a Teach English as a Foreign Language class so I can be certified to teach English anywhere I go. I will be finishing that class by the middle of December, I took this because I’ve always wanted to be a teacher and I feel like as a missionary God could send me to many different countries and being able to teach English as a foreign English will be a great skill to have to get into most, if not all, countries that He would send me to.
One of the other missionaries there has a teaching job in an elementary school even with his missionary visa, so I had hopes that I would get one if God wanted me to have one. I do want to honor the Romania’s visa rules, so I figured if God wanted me to have a job it would fall into my lap, I decided I wouldn’t go searching for one and live off of my monthly support that I’ve been raising.
Well everyone, a job has yet again fallen into my lap. 😀 God is really good at doing this to me! Earlier this month Jessie Stimpson messaged me about this after school program job that she had just begun working with. She told me that she had been hired for two days a week by one of her neighbors who runs the program. She had just finished her first day, and with the organizational structure not in place it was a bit chaotic for her and with the required planning before hand, being a wife, having five children, homeschooling three of them, running her household smoothly and being in full time ministry it seemed too much to add to her already full schedule so she offered it to me! (That’s right, Jessie Stimpson is superwoman by God’s amazing grace!)
This job will be teaching English to two classes of kids in the after school program two days a week for forty-five minute segments. The second time Jessie went to teach the organizational structure had been put in place to make the class sizes much smaller. She is finishing out the remaining days until I get there and once I get there I will be taking it over from there. Right now it’s an hour and a half on Mondays and Thursday’s for 100 lei per week ($30)! There might be a chance that the other two days in the week would be still open and I could take those as well, making 200 lei per week ($60). With two days a week I will make about 400 lei ($115) per month, if I work four days a week, which I’m still praying about whether or not I should, I would make 800 lei ($230) a month, more or less depending on if this estimate is correct.
Jessie has been using online lesson plans, which I will be continuing with and I’ll probably incorporate some learning activities from the class that I’ve been taking. Very exciting stuff!
Stay tuned to see how God lets it all play out and how He’s going to use this for His glory and His kingdom!
My Identity is Found in Him 