I’ve been an awful blogger. The last two weeks have been filled with travel
from Ukraine to Romania (35 total hours on two trains), 3 days spent with the
entire squad reunited in Bucharest, a weekend birthday celebration, and a week
now of ministry here in Bucharest with gypsies. It’s been a great stretch that
I’ll hopefully blog about soon, but this blog is going to encompass a lot more.
My blogs so far have been filled with crazy stories that only the World Race
can offer, but I’ve tended to neglect the spiritual side. The World Race is
about bringing God’s Kingdom to wherever we go and loving the unloved, but it’s
also a personal journey where we are stretched, grown and changed into greater
followers of Christ and better leaders of our generation. So here’s an update
not about the cool things I’m doing like hot dog eating contests in the
Bucharest mall, getting interrogated by Romanian transit police, having slip
and slide contests or playing soccer with gypsies in an alley. Those cool
stories will come later, but this blog is about the cool stories of what God’s
doing in me. More of these to come in the next few days.
I’ve actually talked about this a little before. I’ve praised God for the peace
He gave me to people on this trip, and I also mentioned it a little in my first
blog from Ukraine. But I’m mentioning it again here: a) because it’s so awesome
God deserves more praise for it b) there’s even more examples of it now and c)
I found the perfect verse to describe it.
Philippians 4:6-7 reads “Do not be anxious about anything, but in
everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to
God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus“. I’m sure
I’ve read this verse many times before but I read it again about week 2 of the
trip as I was trying to find sermon material before I preached the next day in
the village which is ironic considering I was covered in total peace as I gave
my first ever sermon on less than 24 hours notice. I don’t think I’ve ever
related so perfectly to a part of Scripture in my life. My life has been
covered in peace for months now, and not ordinary peace – peace that transcends
all understanding.
God gave me peace to leave my family and friends behind. I expected this to be
unbelievably difficult and even though I still love the people at home and love
hearing from them God has mostly eliminated homesickness to this point. I can’t understand that.
The first night I was with my team we boarded a train from Kiev to Odessa. I
had tried my best to get in touch with our contact to let her know our arrival,
but my phone ran out of minutes so I couldn’t call her and every time she tried
to call me I either couldn’t hear her or the call would drop. I thought maybe
she understood me once when I gave our arrival time, but honestly if I had to
place a bet I thought we’d have nobody awaiting us when we arrived. So here we
were possibly about to be dropped off in Odessa, Ukraine alone and knowing
nobody, and I realized I was surprisingly calm. Lying in a Ukrainian sleeper
car that felt 100 degrees alone with 3 Ukrainians and not knowing if anybody
would be waiting for us when we arrived in the morning is probably one of the
last places I ever thought I’d find peace. Yet sure enough, I did. I can’t understand that.
It was my job to take the tram into downtown Odessa, Ukraine to find train
tickets for 13 people to get to Bucharest, Romania. I had been given mixed
information and wasn’t even sure if we’d be taking a bus, train or combination
of the two. I knew that English speakers would be a rarity and that the fact
the Russian alphabet is totally different than ours would only increase the
degree of difficulty. If you had told me 6 months before this I would ever have
to do this I would have laughed at you and totally flipped out. Yet, as I was
tramming into town I was completely calm and at peace even though in the back
of my mind I knew I had plenty of reasons not to be. I can’t understand that.
Praise the Lord for doing things that transcend our understanding!
mention the name of the place I’m staying at this month in Bucharest.
It’s Casa Shalom. Translated: House of Peace.
