Support Update: I still need support.  I am still in need of $1410 to finish the race, and I need $400 of that immediately.  Sorry I haven’t written much lately… seems to be the month eight writer’s block that is going around… I’ll be posting a couple of blogs a week this month, the first week or so which will be playing ‘catch up’ from Romania.   
 
Pavel sat in a chair in the center of
the room, surrounded by his mother (Mihaela), Becky, half a dozen tweens and
teens and two World Race teams (Lunchbox and Banah). 
 
He prayed passionately: Jesus, you can heal me.  I am asking you to heal me.  Take my pain away.  Your blood was shed for me.  Your blood was shed at Calvary for me.  I trust in you, Jesus, to heal me.  But not just so I will live.  I trust you to heal me so I can go back to my village and be a witness.  I will go back to them and tell them that Jesus took my cancer away.  That is why I know you will heal me.   


Pavel is a fifteen year old gypsy boy, and he has faith like none I have ever seen before.  His faith isn’t in his head; it is in his heart.  He doesn’t sit and recite bible verses all day long, or talk about why would God do this, or why would God allow that.  He just believes, and he does so with incredible trust in God and passion.  

He has bone cancer in his right leg, and a few months ago, he had surgery to remove it.  The doctors took out a chunk of bone by his knee and replaced it with a piece from his hip.  But something went wrong.  His knee was swollen, and he was in a tremendous amount of pain.  So he was staying at Casa Shalom for a few nights before going back to the hospital for more tests.  More tests to see if the cancer had returned.          

Becky asked us if we minded spending a little bit of time praying for Pavel (heck, one more opportunity to bring Kingdom and witness a miracle… we are World Racers, of course we don’t mind!).  Which brings us to the scene I mentioned above.  This fifteen year old boy crying out to the Lord for healing, surrounded by two dozen people praying on his behalf.  I don’t know what it was, but whatever I’ve been holding on to that has been holding me back… well… I guess I just let go, and let God throw a switch in me.  I began to understand what ‘Standing in the gap’ really means, and in this moment, I finally felt like a warrior.