Hey everyone! It’s been a while!
My squad is now in Romania, and we’ve been here for almost three weeks. All 24 of us are living in a mission house together in the city. We are serving alongside a pastor, Raul, and his family who have been serving the Lord in ministry for 23 years.
Each morning we wake up and meet at Raul’s office for 2 hours of intercession. We spend the time praying over all sorts of things like other missionaries in Romania, spiritual warfare, wisdom for Raul and his ministry, and divine appointments.
We break for lunch and all head back to the mission house to cook a meal together and have team time.
In the afternoon, we are split into different teams and head out for ministry. Ministry changes everyday but can include street evangelism, visiting a church in the gypsy community, putting on a program for kids in the gypsy community, administrative work for Raul, karate ministry (I’ll talk about this later!), and leading a Bible study for people in the city.
This month has been beautiful, but also very challenging. I am learning through experience that spiritual warfare is very real. The first two weeks here I experienced an oppression unlike anything I had experienced before. Sometimes it was so heavy, I physically felt like a massive weight had been placed on my shoulders making it difficult to breath. I was exhausted all of the time, and knew it had to be spiritual warfare because the exhaustion was so unreal and absurd. For the first couple weeks I did street evangelism every day. Some days I would be ok up until it was time to go out share the Gospel and then it felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was often so overwhelmed and confused by it all that I held back tears all day. I also began having super disturbing and terrifying dreams at night. Some nights I lay awake for hours too scared to sleep.
One day we came together as a squad, and several other squad mates admitted that they were experiencing similar things. It became so apparent to me how the devil loves isolation. I felt so weak and vulnerable I hadn’t wanted to let my squad know how much I was struggling. That was all the devils doing. During the meeting with my squad I never shared what I experienced. I was ashamed about it, and felt I had to act like I had it all together because I am a team leader.
After the meeting, Wesley, one of the guys on my squad, came up to me and said, “So, I guess you are just doing perfectly then?” I was like, “What are you talking about, Wes?” He said, “I can see that you are struggling with something, but you didn’t share it with the squad.” I then opened up to him about everything I had experienced. He listened and then prayed over me. This is the funny part – Literally the second he started praying, a platoon of mosquitoes swooped in out of nowhere and began biting him ferociously. It was wild. He just continued praying as we swatted the crazy, demon mosquitoes away. He declared in the name of Jesus that the devil has no authority here, and this is the Lord’s land.
Since that night we have been a lot more intentional as a squad about praying and proclaiming the name of the Lord. We told Raul about the things we were experiencing. In the beginning of the month Raul mentioned that our location has been dubbed the “missionary graveyard”. The spiritual warfare is so prevalent here and it usually sends missionaries running back to where they came from, or even causes them to leave their faith. Raul mentioned that every single day he enters into spiritual warfare. It it exhausting and sometimes he feels absolutely crushed, but he holds onto his faith and hope in the Lord.
Each day I feel like I am preparing for war. I have started praying Ephesians 6: 10-18, where it talks about the armor of God, over myself and my squad every morning. I ask the Lord for awareness, and that we would be able to recognize a spiritual attack immediately. I proclaim the Lord’s name, authority, and power over every inch of this city. We serve a mighty God.
All that to say, there has been a lot of learning this month, a lot of battling, but also a lot of beauty. Some beautiful things have included:
- Handing out free Bibles at a huge gorgeous park with lakes and trees (God knows how much I love being in nature).
- Living with my whole squad. I love each one of them to pieces, and it is a PARTY.
- Karate ministry! Some of us have had the opportunity to participate in a karate class once a week and get to know the instructor and students! It has led to other opportunities to spend time with them and share the Gospel! A BLAST. Also Karate is no joke.
- Finding a bakery that makes these ham and cheese roll things that are out of this world. It’s popular with the locals, and the line is always wrapping around the store. They are unbelievable.
- Getting to share the Gospel in Spanish on multiple occasions! Romanian is very similar to Spanish, and many people here also speak Spanish! It’s encouraging to know that my Spanish hasn’t left me, and the Lord has been able to use it in cool ways!
- Evangelizing in a fruit market where a vendor gave us a free cantaloupe that was out of this world.
- We are hosting a women’s beauty for ashes event this coming Tuesday and have invited hundreds of women throughout the city. Super stoked to see how the Lord moves!
If you are still reading, thank you and congratulations lol! Thanks for keeping up with my journey! My squad appreciates your prayers! Less than 7 weeks left of this incredible journey! WILD.
Karate Pics!
Wes in action!
