Having all 53 squad members temporarily gathering at
Casa Shalom allowed all 8 team leaders to spend some time with each other. We
were able to share our struggles, successes, and laughs throughout the day and
made a special point to get away to spend some quality time. We headed downtown,
passing the Romanian parliament (that according to the Guinness Book of World
Records, the Palace is the world’s largest civilian administrative building,
most expensive administrative building, and heaviest building.),
busy streets, ending up in a quaint covered ally in a circle of couches outside
a modern cafe.
We
were walking back to catch the bus and made a quick detour for bathroom
break/coke zero purchases…. One of the guys on the team reluctantly said he
felt we need to go and pray for a woman begging on the sidewalk that we had
walked past moments ago (I say reluctantly because he had commented earlier how
he was currently disenchanted with his ‘connectedness’ with God). Our group of
8 leaders praying over this old woman, bent over holding a sign displaying her
battle with cancer, caused an instant flow of tears to flow down her aged face.
She spoke Spanish and we were able to understand a little about her story: Her
name was Mariana, she had a son with mental issues, back problems, and very bad
cancer. She was scheduled for surgery the 13th or the 14th
and was sure she would die, absolutely sure. She believed in God and was sharing
her appreciation for the world, the trees, the sky, our group….life in general
(a viewpoint she didn’t have before she thought she would die). We prayed for
healing and comfort…actual healing, that is, a God Alone healing. After
promising our return the following day followed by more tears… we headed to the
bus buzzing from the awesome encounter we had just experienced.
The
next day three of us (that were still in town) made it back to where we had
found this woman, hunched over and begging, the day before. She wasn’t there.
As a matter of fact… nothing was there, no trash, debris, commuters, or beggars
were on the sidewalk where we had spent time with her the day before. What the
future holds for Mariana I may never find out while I’m in Romania, but feel
blessed to have met her, and know that at the very least we followed the command to “show sincere love to
each other as brothers and sisters”
