Our month here in Transnistria hasn't been so much about the ministry, but all of the relationships that we've built. A lot of the time our morning has involved painting a trashcan or pulling some weeds. Occasionally, there is a bit more, but not often. The afternoon is our after school youth program which is incredible. Like I said though, it's the relationships which have made this month special. God has just brought some incredible people into our lives at just the right time when as a team, we probably needed them most to pick us up, push us, and challenge in just the right way at the right moment.
So I want you to meet Dema. He attends the Baptist church which we've partnered with for this month of ministry. We had a desire to do some home visits with some folks who for various reasons don't have many opportunities to attend church. So one morning earlier in the month we were given the apartment for Dema and went to visit. We knew next to nothing about him when we arrived, but after 2 hours, he'd had a crazy powerful impact on our team. Here's part of his story.
He's an incredible man of God who is inspiring on so many different levels. He's faced adversity head on without so much as even a tiny waver in his faith. He is a divorced father of 2 girls (early-mid 20s) and a boy (14). He has the strongest desire to have a good relationship with all three of them, however his former wife tends to make that difficult. Rather than fight with her and run the risk of alienating everyone, he trusts in God to open doors which he cannot into the lives of his children. Several years ago he was hit by a vehicle while out working. The resulting injuries involved some crushed discs in his back which lead to him having pain 24/7 and most of his time spent in a wheelchair. He has special cructches to use otherwise. If he wants to go to something like church at noon, he must wake up at 3:00am to take painpills in order to do all of the moving he needs to do to actually get there. After his accident, when in the hospital, his apartment was broken into and essentially everything that he owned was stolen. Because of his injuries he is unable to work. Because he can't work, he can't earn the money needed for an operation that would fix his back. See the problem here? So most days he spends in his apartment with the exception of getting out on days that have good weather or when he visits his mother.
Did he complain once during the time we spent with him that first day? Nope. All he could do was thank God for the things he had and look at his struggles as opportunities to rely even more on his Loving Creator. After our first meeting, we prayed for Dema before leaving. God placed on our hearts a desire to go back and visit him again before we left.
So last Thursday we made that second trip back, making dinner and taking it over to his apartment to share. We stopped by the day before to make sure it was okay. He approved and apparently spent the whole day cleaning preparing for our visit. The second visit was good. Real good. A lot of the talk focused on him and his desires for the future and his belief that one day he would be healed. We strongly believed that that "one day" could be right then. So we prayed again. This time more fervently and intentionally that God would just bring him out of the wheelchair right in front of us. That the pain in his back would be gone. More than anything we desired to see God heal him right then and there and answer his prayers and unwavering faith.
It didn't happen however. When we finally left that night, Dema was still in pain. He didn't miraculously jump up and start running laps around the apartment. It really doesn't matter though. Something happened in that apartment that night. It can't be put into words, but we all left with that feeling that God still has some incredible things to do within Dema's life.
