(Location: My house in the village of C., Romania, at 3:00pm on November 1st. Our time changed yesterday for Daylight Savings. If yours has not changed yet, make sure you know when it does!)
Do you ever wake up in the morning dreading the day that is coming? Very rarely does that happen to me, though I know others feel that way many mornings. However, when I woke up today, I was kind of feeling that way, because I was feeling ill. A teasing sore-throat that came and went a couple of times last week almost made me lose my voice yesterday, and by this morning it had sunk into my chest and was joined by a headache.
What a blessing! Today is my day off, so all I had to do was get through a French lesson and and English lesson, and then I could rest. I have been praying all day, and the Lord pulled me through the teaching hours, and now I feel much better. Moreover, I have been able to work on the computer tasks I wanted to tackle anyway. It has been a great, relaxing day! I moved up a notch in my village survival plan, too, for I purchased a pot with which I can heat water or food on my wood stove, and I have been nursing my body with tea today. The LORD is faithful!
You see, nearly losing my voice yesterday did not stop me then either. I prayed and prayed, because I needed to preach a sermon before I lost my voice. The Lord taught me powerful things from John 6, and I needed to be able to share them. Of course, the Lord was faithful, and I was able to preach in Romanian in the Gypsy church I was visiting alone. I recently heard a great sermon on this story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, but this weekend God gave me new insights. He showed me that there are three types of people in the story: Jesus, the disciples, and the people. Since we are not Jesus, we are either disciples or people. If we are disciples, we have two choices. We can look at the world from a human perspective, like Philip did, focusing on the impossible, on what we do not have, on our need. Or, like Andrew, we can give everything we have to the Lord, small though it may be, and trust Him to do the miracle! If we are not disciples living with Jesus, then we are of the people, and we, too, have a decision to make. Either we spend all of our days begging someone to give us more bread that we eat today and is gone tomorrow, or we turn to Jesus, the Bread of Life, and live eternal life with Him. If we make the latter choice, we are choosing to become disciples.
That Gypsy worship service made my day yesterday, but it was not the only highlight in that village of V. last week. (This is not the V. where I hope to live, but the other one that our ministry team works in each week.) As we are trying to make a roster of the kids and families we work with, we have realized that V.'s layout and population is overwhelming; there are not real addresses or roads. So, last Thursday, I climbed a great hill with fifteen or twenty of the kids, and we sat together in the sinking sunlight drawing a map of the village from above. It was so much fun! The map may not be great, but it is a start, and it was fun to be with the kids. Would you believe they were sledding without snow? They had a small cart with four wheels they had built, and they were also using empty two liter bottles to sit on and slide down the grassy slope! What a great idea!
As far as the other village of V. goes (where I hope to live), I got to visit there again last Wednesday. I had thought we had agreed that I would not preach every time, however, word was out that the "pope" was coming back to preach at 5pm, so again I presented God's Word in the five-hundred-year-old church building. It was a very nice visit, with some promise for the future that I will describe more if it pans out. Please continue to pray for each of these communities. The pastor in the community above is quite ill, and in this village, not a single person could tell me that "King David" was the greatest king of Israel when I asked! There is a great need for the living Word of God!
So many blessings! I wish I could write more often so you do not get swamped with everything in one post each week. I hope to post a picture with this, showing the village of C. as I came home last night. I have not spent much time in C. since my return to Romania, which has been nice from a commuting standpoint. By the way, that is something else the Lord is working out; I will fill you in as it becomes more concrete. I do, however, enjoy my time in C., like last night when once again I went to the neighbor's to buy milk, or like when I get a good fire going in my wood stove and find embers still glowing in the morning.
Another picture I want you to imagine is the following. After our last program on Saturday, several of the children were still milling about as we waited for one of our collegues who was talking to a parent. As they were already climbing on the back of the truck, I organized an activity of trust falls, where you fall on command into the waiting arms of your peers. This became popular very quickly, and we did it with all of the kids (I would say that all the kids who remained were twelve or under; the bigger kids were all gone). Naturally, my Belgian coworked decided that she, too, wanted to fall, surely more trusting because my adult arms would be among the first to ensure that her petit frame was caught securely. After that, we convinced our other Swiss collegue to fall, and though she was much taller and thus a little heaver, we had no trouble catching her, either. By now you can imagine what the children were chanting--my name! Now most of you know that I am about 6'2'', and a formidable weight for any ten-year-old to catch. My Belgian collegue voiced her concerns about catching me, which of course did not reassure me much, but how could I not do what I had convinced everyone else to do? So yes, I, too fell . . . and they caught me! No problem at all! It just goes to show; we are stronger when we work together. Remember that, Church! If we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder, we can bear anything for the glory of God!
What else? Well, I voted by absentee ballot this weekend. Please do not forget to vote on November 2 if you are an American. I am as cynical as anyone when it comes to politics, but I promise you that your vote will have NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER if you do not vote. Pray, do some research and cast a ballot. I hated the time an energy that was required to vote from Romania, but it is my privilege and responsibility as a Christian American. This is an important election for several reasons, both on a congressional level, as well as a local level. Our prayers and our actions go hand-in-hand to create the values that shape the laws and the land of the United States of America, which in turn influences the ENTIRE world.
I hope you smile to learn that when I scanned my ballot onto the computer at my neighbor's house, the door latch broke when I went to leave, and I was trapped in his house for an half-hour or forty-five minutes before we managed to get the door open. Sure, I could have climbed out the window--he did several times to work on the door from the outside, but I was enjoying the fellowship with my friend and trying to help open the door. It reminded me of life, in fact. Do you ever have a "door" in your life that you really want to go through, but no matter how hard you try, it just will not open? I have learned that it is always better to wait until the Lord opens it for you. Forcing your way into something usually means you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, for a lot of headaches and heartaches.
Oh, and how could I forget? I had an unexpected but wonderful trip to Cluj-Napoca last weekend. Maybe I already wrote about it, but I am still enjoying the memory of it. (We took one Swiss visitor to the Targu Mures airport and then picked up another Swiss blessing from the Cluj airport.) The Lord has given me the privilege of living near several wonderful persons in a very beautiful land, and I have enjoyed high-quality conversations with several of those persons this past week. In fact, I have been blessed beyond measure since my return to Romania, and I am riding high on a wave of the joy of the Lord.
Please pray for a youth program we have started doing on Friday evenings. It is a huge challenge for us, as we are having trouble finding the time to prepare for it in the midst of all of our children's programs. Besides, several of the youth who come enjoy acting like knuckleheads, which requires extra grace from the Lord on our part. Nevertheless, there is a great need and lots of potential, so if the Lord taps you on the shoulder, come lend us a hand.
Hopefully this gives you enough to read until next time I write. I am happy to report that not only have I now caught up on my blog, but also on my emails. Soon I will try to catch up on posting my photos, and that means that everything should be accessible for you. By the way, in case you were concerned, the protests in Bucharest were a long way from me, and they were pretty normal for a European country. Please do continue to pray for me though, and for the Church in Romania and the Church in America, and for the persons and peoples I mention in my blog. I hope you can tell how regularly I pray for you, and if you have specific prayer requests, please do not hesitate to email me.
The LORD is faithful! Cling to that! Know that! Live that!
I bless you in the Name of Jesus!
Do you ever wake up in the morning dreading the day that is coming? Very rarely does that happen to me, though I know others feel that way many mornings. However, when I woke up today, I was kind of feeling that way, because I was feeling ill. A teasing sore-throat that came and went a couple of times last week almost made me lose my voice yesterday, and by this morning it had sunk into my chest and was joined by a headache.
What a blessing! Today is my day off, so all I had to do was get through a French lesson and and English lesson, and then I could rest. I have been praying all day, and the Lord pulled me through the teaching hours, and now I feel much better. Moreover, I have been able to work on the computer tasks I wanted to tackle anyway. It has been a great, relaxing day! I moved up a notch in my village survival plan, too, for I purchased a pot with which I can heat water or food on my wood stove, and I have been nursing my body with tea today. The LORD is faithful!
You see, nearly losing my voice yesterday did not stop me then either. I prayed and prayed, because I needed to preach a sermon before I lost my voice. The Lord taught me powerful things from John 6, and I needed to be able to share them. Of course, the Lord was faithful, and I was able to preach in Romanian in the Gypsy church I was visiting alone. I recently heard a great sermon on this story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, but this weekend God gave me new insights. He showed me that there are three types of people in the story: Jesus, the disciples, and the people. Since we are not Jesus, we are either disciples or people. If we are disciples, we have two choices. We can look at the world from a human perspective, like Philip did, focusing on the impossible, on what we do not have, on our need. Or, like Andrew, we can give everything we have to the Lord, small though it may be, and trust Him to do the miracle! If we are not disciples living with Jesus, then we are of the people, and we, too, have a decision to make. Either we spend all of our days begging someone to give us more bread that we eat today and is gone tomorrow, or we turn to Jesus, the Bread of Life, and live eternal life with Him. If we make the latter choice, we are choosing to become disciples.
That Gypsy worship service made my day yesterday, but it was not the only highlight in that village of V. last week. (This is not the V. where I hope to live, but the other one that our ministry team works in each week.) As we are trying to make a roster of the kids and families we work with, we have realized that V.'s layout and population is overwhelming; there are not real addresses or roads. So, last Thursday, I climbed a great hill with fifteen or twenty of the kids, and we sat together in the sinking sunlight drawing a map of the village from above. It was so much fun! The map may not be great, but it is a start, and it was fun to be with the kids. Would you believe they were sledding without snow? They had a small cart with four wheels they had built, and they were also using empty two liter bottles to sit on and slide down the grassy slope! What a great idea!
As far as the other village of V. goes (where I hope to live), I got to visit there again last Wednesday. I had thought we had agreed that I would not preach every time, however, word was out that the "pope" was coming back to preach at 5pm, so again I presented God's Word in the five-hundred-year-old church building. It was a very nice visit, with some promise for the future that I will describe more if it pans out. Please continue to pray for each of these communities. The pastor in the community above is quite ill, and in this village, not a single person could tell me that "King David" was the greatest king of Israel when I asked! There is a great need for the living Word of God!
So many blessings! I wish I could write more often so you do not get swamped with everything in one post each week. I hope to post a picture with this, showing the village of C. as I came home last night. I have not spent much time in C. since my return to Romania, which has been nice from a commuting standpoint. By the way, that is something else the Lord is working out; I will fill you in as it becomes more concrete. I do, however, enjoy my time in C., like last night when once again I went to the neighbor's to buy milk, or like when I get a good fire going in my wood stove and find embers still glowing in the morning.
Another picture I want you to imagine is the following. After our last program on Saturday, several of the children were still milling about as we waited for one of our collegues who was talking to a parent. As they were already climbing on the back of the truck, I organized an activity of trust falls, where you fall on command into the waiting arms of your peers. This became popular very quickly, and we did it with all of the kids (I would say that all the kids who remained were twelve or under; the bigger kids were all gone). Naturally, my Belgian coworked decided that she, too, wanted to fall, surely more trusting because my adult arms would be among the first to ensure that her petit frame was caught securely. After that, we convinced our other Swiss collegue to fall, and though she was much taller and thus a little heaver, we had no trouble catching her, either. By now you can imagine what the children were chanting--my name! Now most of you know that I am about 6'2'', and a formidable weight for any ten-year-old to catch. My Belgian collegue voiced her concerns about catching me, which of course did not reassure me much, but how could I not do what I had convinced everyone else to do? So yes, I, too fell . . . and they caught me! No problem at all! It just goes to show; we are stronger when we work together. Remember that, Church! If we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder, we can bear anything for the glory of God!
What else? Well, I voted by absentee ballot this weekend. Please do not forget to vote on November 2 if you are an American. I am as cynical as anyone when it comes to politics, but I promise you that your vote will have NO IMPACT WHATSOEVER if you do not vote. Pray, do some research and cast a ballot. I hated the time an energy that was required to vote from Romania, but it is my privilege and responsibility as a Christian American. This is an important election for several reasons, both on a congressional level, as well as a local level. Our prayers and our actions go hand-in-hand to create the values that shape the laws and the land of the United States of America, which in turn influences the ENTIRE world.
I hope you smile to learn that when I scanned my ballot onto the computer at my neighbor's house, the door latch broke when I went to leave, and I was trapped in his house for an half-hour or forty-five minutes before we managed to get the door open. Sure, I could have climbed out the window--he did several times to work on the door from the outside, but I was enjoying the fellowship with my friend and trying to help open the door. It reminded me of life, in fact. Do you ever have a "door" in your life that you really want to go through, but no matter how hard you try, it just will not open? I have learned that it is always better to wait until the Lord opens it for you. Forcing your way into something usually means you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, for a lot of headaches and heartaches.
Oh, and how could I forget? I had an unexpected but wonderful trip to Cluj-Napoca last weekend. Maybe I already wrote about it, but I am still enjoying the memory of it. (We took one Swiss visitor to the Targu Mures airport and then picked up another Swiss blessing from the Cluj airport.) The Lord has given me the privilege of living near several wonderful persons in a very beautiful land, and I have enjoyed high-quality conversations with several of those persons this past week. In fact, I have been blessed beyond measure since my return to Romania, and I am riding high on a wave of the joy of the Lord.
Please pray for a youth program we have started doing on Friday evenings. It is a huge challenge for us, as we are having trouble finding the time to prepare for it in the midst of all of our children's programs. Besides, several of the youth who come enjoy acting like knuckleheads, which requires extra grace from the Lord on our part. Nevertheless, there is a great need and lots of potential, so if the Lord taps you on the shoulder, come lend us a hand.
Hopefully this gives you enough to read until next time I write. I am happy to report that not only have I now caught up on my blog, but also on my emails. Soon I will try to catch up on posting my photos, and that means that everything should be accessible for you. By the way, in case you were concerned, the protests in Bucharest were a long way from me, and they were pretty normal for a European country. Please do continue to pray for me though, and for the Church in Romania and the Church in America, and for the persons and peoples I mention in my blog. I hope you can tell how regularly I pray for you, and if you have specific prayer requests, please do not hesitate to email me.
The LORD is faithful! Cling to that! Know that! Live that!
I bless you in the Name of Jesus!
