Romania is a hard place to be. Many of us are having trouble writing blogs this month because many of us are having trouble even getting out of bed this month. Granted, our beds are probably the most comfortable beds we've had yet on the race (bunk beds, goose down pillows, duvet covers…it's a dream). It's cold outside, and dreary, and gray. But I think there's more going on than the temptation to stay cuddled in our personal clouds all day.
[photo cred: Beth Barron]
The pastor we are serving under this month told us that Draganesti-Olt is located in the one county in Romania where pastors and missionaries flee from after they get out of seminary school. It is known as the "cemetery for Christian missionaries." There are 700 Christian believers in a county of 350,000 people, and it includes a very prominent witch community.
Yes, you read that right. There are witches here. And here, they don't live on the pages of storybooks. They practice divination and look out for missionaries to cast curses on. The pastor told us a story of a missionary family who was working here who was bringing many families to Christ, until a witch cast a curse on the man. His family soon fell apart, him and his wife divorced, and now he's further from the Lord than you could possibly be.
I've come to realize that these aren't just folktales that people tell to scare us–the more spiritual the community is (especially non-Christian spiritual), the more I see stuff like this happen. I've seen these things with my own eyes, and normally it sets a fire in me to fight against it. I've personally gone against and looked people in the faces that have demons in them and spoken the truth of Christ over them. I love it–it turns into a black and white thing that I'm not afraid of, but that I know I'm already on the winning side of and I'm here to fight.
But here? The fight's out of me. In the beginning of the month, I felt nothing but tired and depressed. I had no desire to go to battle this month–I just wanted to sleep and drink hot chocolate and watch movies. I would trudge my feet going to ministry, and all I wanted to do was escape to the Pinterest world on my computer screen that awaited me back home.
On the way to a village last week, I passed by so many dreary and desolate fields, and a couple huge industrial factories. I imagined being one of the people who work in those fields or in that factory every day. It felt so hopeless, so miserable. In that moment, I knew God was having me feel the weight of what these people feel every day living in this country. So I started praying–"God, I know you're having me feel what these people are feeling. But I need you to change my heart so I start feeling some joy too, because I'm supposed to be here showing them that you're different and that there's hope in you."
I didn't feel it right away. It wasn't like a miracle fix-all prayer. I was still tired and weary walking into the town, and especially when I found out we would be splitting up and going up to random people giving them pamphlets about God. Hello awkward. I have a new-found sympathy for Mormons now. But I know God works in crazy ways because of the conversations we end up getting in. So Ryan and I split up from Em and Stefanie and started talking to anyone we saw.
As we walked up to a group of old men drinking beers and smoking cigarettes in front of a market, I turned to Ryan and told him that he could talk for this one, thinking I wouldn't have much to say to them. He started talking to them about why we're here and about the World Race, and the Gospel, and this one older man was talking back and forth to him that my heart just broke for. I started adding things to the conversation about God's love and how He's worked in my life. The man then turned to me, and asked the translator to ask me something I haven't been asked yet on the Race: "So tell me, you've been to seven countries so far, and what's it like to be in a country as ugly as Romania?"
I was almost speechless–but suddenly I had an answer. I told him about how in the city I'm from it rains ten out of the twelve months of the year, and how it looks a lot like Romania, and how I know how easy it is to feel that hopelessness and how you can feel stuck living in a place like that, and that I feel it and I've felt it before. I told him that I used to try to find any way to not feel those things–that I tried everything and that the only thing that truly satisfied me was when I gave my life to Jesus. I prayed for him, and as he touched his chest, he told the translator that he could feel my heart. That he could hear in my voice that I was a genuine person, and that I spoke truth from my heart. I told him that wasn't me, but I thanked him.
[Ryan, me, and the old men we shared with. Photo cred: Ryan Graydon]
God answered my prayer, and under the weight of depression I've felt this month, He reminded me that He is the one that will restore to me the joy of my salvation. That He gives me the peace that surpasses all understanding, and that He lifts and carries the weight of our sorrows and our burdens. He's teaching me so much about how He carries my burdens and protects me and how He's the one that fights for me when I don't have any fight left in me. I'm feeling more and more like myself each day, but it's only because I'm diving deeper into His word and relying on Him way more than I normally do. This month is going to be hard, and sometimes it feels like we're trudging through muddy waters, but I know God's going to teach us so much about endurance and perseverance through all of it. Please keep praying for us though, we need it more than ever!
