Neika Daniel to lead students on trip to Romania and Hungary to help villagers
By AMY ROGNLIE | Photo courtesy of NEIKA DANIEL
Instead of spending the Christmas holidays with her family and friends this year, Neika Daniel will travel 17 hours by plane and bus to reach Tinca, a tiny, impoverished town in Romania.
A senior at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Daniel is a social work major who is active in student leadership and passionate about serving others. Under the direction of UMHB’s Spiritual Life department, Daniel will lead a team of fellow students on a weeks-long trip to serve disadvantaged populations in Romania and Hungary. The team’s original plan was to work at a Ukrainian refugee camp in Romania, but the quickly changing war and political situation caused the Ukrainians to move out of the area. Instead, the students will head to a village of impoverished Romanian gypsies or, more appropriately, the Romani, where the team plans to spread the hope of the Gospel by providing daily church services and programs for the children as well as food, gifts and one-on-one visits with families.
“As representatives of Christ, we are there to look these people in the eye as equals and listen to what they have to say. We are well aware that we may be these folks’ only interaction with the Gospel,” Daniel said. “These shorter trips are all about serving others and listening. My education in social work has taught me how to listen and relate to others; how to establish rapport. In order to share the Gospel in the right way and at the right time, I have to know a little bit of someone’s story.”
In Hungary, the team will work with the Hungarian Baptist Aid, which is more or less the equivalent of the Salvation Army. Students will help collect and sort hygiene items, socks, small toys and school supplies, then pack them into boxes for the organization’s “shoebox” ministry to underprivileged children. Daniel and her team will personally deliver many of the boxes to the homes of the children where they plan to spend one-on-one time with the families.
No stranger to serving others, Daniel recently spent a month in Turkey, working with natives and Iranian refugees. She has also taught English as a Second Language classes at her home church, First Baptist Church of Academy, and has served in various outreach roles at her church and at UMHB.
“The global mission is an essential component of my faith in Christ. I believe that the purpose of all Christians, young or old, is to share the Gospel in your neighborhood, 14,000 miles away, and everywhere in between,” Daniel said.
Daniel’s service to her community in Central Texas includes a recently completed internship at the Area Agency on Aging. One of Daniel’s main roles at the AAA was in long-term care: helping people find a nursing home or other care for elderly parents, walking with clients through end-of-life anticipatory grief, and holding people’s hands and being there for them.
“There were so many days I left work and I knew I had done some good, but it still broke my heart because there was so much hurt and sorrow in these people’s lives. I chose social work because it was the only major that provided direct care to multiple facets of a person. While I respect all helping fields, I couldn’t help but feel that they always left part of the equation out. People are not only physical or mental, we are impacted by the social, emotional, spiritual as well as the physical and mental,” said Daniel. “When you approach people this way, you stop seeing them as clients or patients but as people with unique stories and circumstances that require an individualized solution.”
