This month God has done so a lot of teaching me about boldness and authority. I am not usually the most outgoing person and in general would rather not speak to strangers, so to say the least I was not thrilled when we got here and found out that two days of the week would be devoted solely to street evangelism. The first day we got started and I was so frustrated because I could not speak the language we only had one translator in the group and I could not understand how it was that I was supposed to reach these people. I went and sat on a bench and was arguing with God about how pointless this was and how this was not the ministry that I wanted to be a part of and how could he put me in this position for the rest of the year this was not the kind of ministry that he has designed me for anyway, what was he thinking. I finally shut my mouth for a minute and heard God telling me to go over and talk to the couple sitting on the bench directly opposite of me. I continued my argument until I finally began what has been described as the death march over to them. When I got there I offered a weak “buna ziua, do either of you speak English?” and he did! I sat down and we started to chat in his broken English and my very limited Romanian. I learned that his name is Johnny. He told me he did not like to live in Romania because there is not a lot of hope here. I asked him if he went to church and he told me no, so I told him about the pastor whose church we were working with. I gave him the address, but he did not know where that was located so I went to get the pastor and asked him to come with me to give him directions.
This is when it got really fun. Pastor brought Stacy along to help him with translation stuff. Johnny and the Pastor got into a discussion about how there could not be a God because of all the pain and suffering of the people in Romania. They talked about the economic situation and Johnny voiced quite a bit of frustration but I was only getting bits and pieces through translation because they were speaking so fast. At one point as though he was realizing what was going on Pastor told me “oh his parents both died when he was very young”. I looked at Stacy and knew I finally had an in, so asked her to come along with me and translate with me. So I started to tell him my story about how my parents had also died when I was very young and that I have always struggled with loneliness and never feeling secure in relationships. Johnny told Stacy at one point that he knew I was telling the truth because he had felt the same way for a long time. I got to tell him about the hope that we have in Christ and the ever secure love of our Heavenly father. It was really cool to see him melting into that knowledge as we just continued telling him about his place in the kingdom of God and how he was loved by the most high king. Telling him that he was a son of God and that his Daddy loves him and will never abandon him was probably the coolest experience of the month for me. It was also really cool to see how God used me even when I was so frustrated how especially when I feel completely useless he will use me. Something we learned in teaching last night was the phrase, He is the word, I am the voice. God has something to say and all you have to do is open your mouth and say it. How is God going to use your voice today to build up the community around you? Are you opening your mouth?!
