Musing on Romania

As I write this blog our team is preparing to start our long journey back home. We have spent the better part of two days enjoying some great fellowship, eating some great food, and just having fun with our Romanian partners in this ministry. I have not watched any television since our arrival in Cluj last week. When you are not constantly in front of the TV it is amazing how much time there is to share in people’s lives. Our Romanian friends love to laugh and sing. They play some silly games but it is fun just to watch how people react. I laugh so deeply when I am hanging out with these precious people.

I believe our worship experience here in Cluj was a blessing for our team yesterday. We shared in the evening service with our Romanian partners who worked in the camps with us. Matt, Jennifer McCurley and Justin shared their testimonies. They did a great job. Then we attempted to sing “Our God is a Mighty God” in Romanian. That was interesting. I was asked to share a message about how important it is for us to build a strong Christian foundation into our children. They had so many children present and their children’s choir, praise ensemble (older children singing with microphones) and a young girl who played the violin blessed our hearts. They have so many gifted children in their church. It was a great service!

This is the time when my thoughts are dominated by evaluating the work here in Romania. I ask myself many times how long this partnership will continue and how much further the Lord would have me to go with it. When I am at home I get overwhelmed many times by the costs of taking these trips. This makes me think it is something I should stop doing. Then, when I am here I feel like the Lord wants me to go and share the vision with many of my Pastor friends and ask for their support. I would love to see more churches get involved in bringing teams here to do ministry.

Since my perspective is always different upon returning to the American lifestyle, I am resolved in my heart and mind today that God is in charge of the things that are unknown to us. As long as God continues to make the needs here known and continues to provide resources for the work that needs to be done, I will continue to do whatever He instructs. I have been to Romania enough times now that I can be assured that my motivation for continuing is not just to get the opportunity to travel and see the world (even though this is something I do love). God has spoken deeply into my heart while here in this great country. He has convicted me concerning my own personal walk with Him and the amount of time I am spending in His Word. In the past I would spend hours studying God's Word in preparation for preaching. This is something that has been neglected and I will be changing this.

I have also been convicted how accepting we are in our churches of things that are highly offensive to our Holy God. The more we compromise on His holiness the less of His power we will see. We need to learn a lesson from our Romanian brothers and sisters on praying both in our personal times with God and in our worship services. It is ironic that we are coming here to help them and in reality we are the ones who need to be helped.