November 15th, 2017
The day started with a 4:05 am alarm which was snoozed until 5 am. My team and I started walking for the church at 5:45 am to print testimonies that people sent from all over the world. We wanted these testimonies so that we could place them in New Testament Bibles to be passed out in a neighborhood here in Romania. We spent the next three hours stuffing the 600 New Testaments.
After praying as a group, we set off for Craiova, Romania where the Hope Church is starting a new church plant. It was a bitter, cold day and we Americans were not the most prepared for the climate. My group walked down neighborhood streets, placing these New Testaments in every mailbox we could find as well as speaking (then translating) to anyone walking down the street. What’s interesting about this type of ministry is that you will most likely never see the fruit that it bears. You place New Testaments in mailboxes, leaving the Lord to do the rest, and it was hard not knowing if they would change peoples’ lives. Would people read them? Would people throw them away? We won’t ever know, but what we do know is that the Lord is worthy of all of our trust, so we walked away from the mailboxes trusting the Lord would use those New Testaments for His glory.
After a break for lunch, we started the part of the day that most scared me: street evangelism. I was dreading this because it is something I don’t have much experience in. Quite frankly, I am not very good at it, but I promised the Lord that I would be willing to learn how to do the things that I am not confident in, so I dragged my feet along next to my translator and evangelized. Some teenagers laughed while others were somewhat interested. Some people rejected our invitation of prayer and some were open for a discussion. After the conversations, some waved, some shook my hand, and others hugged me. What I said was imperfect, but I did it. I took a step knowing that Jesus would not expect perfection. He only expects obedience. If I want people to know who Jesus is, I have to be willing to talk about Him to others, whether strangers or friends.
The next part of a day was spent in prayer, specifically a Joshua prayer. It comes from Joshua chapter 6 when Joshua led an army in a march around the city of Jericho. They marched for six days and on the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times. On the seventh time, the walls of Jericho fell to the ground and the army seized the city. To practice obedience like Joshua had, we met at the university in the city to walk around the building. We prayed for students and faculty, we prayed for a revival within the walls, and we prayed for people to ultimately know Jesus. We walked around the building three times, praying aloud. You could feel the power of the Lord the more we walked. By the third time around, there was no doubt that the Lord was going to break down walls in the students. I am confident that the Lord set a fire within that building among those people.
As I was reflecting on the events of the day, I could see where the Lord was in all of it. The Lord was there when we were passing out New Testaments, when we were street evangelizing, and when we were praying. I felt the Lord. I felt His strength overcome me when I was fearful, I felt His peace when I was anxious, and I felt His guidance when I didn’t know what to say. Jesus showed up. Frigid weather and all.
