The Hardest Month of My Race
- November 17, 2017
<For the sake of the church that hosted me I am not going to use their name in this blog. I am sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out what the name of the church is, but I’m doing this because I truly believe that they are doing good things in their area. They are changing a lot of lives for the better. I will do my best to not taint their ministry because of my one bad experience with them>
Today is Friday, November 17, 2017. Chances are I didn’t post this when I wrote it. The fact that I waited almost two full months to write about it is weird all on its own. I’ll explain at the end why I did that. Right now though, I want to tell you about my spiritual warfare in Romania.
I already talked about the conversation that I had with Raul and how his one question put me in a very serious state of panic. I also talked about how the conversation ended up being good for me in the end. It taught me a great many things about myself that I am glad to have experienced.
I also had some experiences that made my month in Romania the worst month that I have had on my race thus far. In this blog I am going to talk about my ministry, my hosts and how God carried me through it.
Ministry for Romania was very scattered to say the least. We did a lot in my first month, but by far my favorite part of ministry (and also the worst part) was street evangelism and house calls. This ministry at first was very scary. I had never done anything like this and didn’t know how to do it very well at all…this is how I explain it now:“It’s just like a normal conversation with a stranger, but at some point you got to sprinkle Jesus in there.” Evangelism is one of my favorite forms of ministry. Sure, It doesn’t work every time, but all you need is to have one good conversation with someone to make all those hours in the sun well worth it. Evangelism was also one of my least favorite parts of ministry in Romania because of the mission we had when we went out every day.
In Romania the majority of the population is in either of the Greek or Romanian Orthodox Church. The people we were working with were a group of baptists who referred to themselves as “Born Again Believers”. Their mission was to bring the people of the Olt-County (the place where we did ministry) the love of God by ministering to people’s physical needs (ex. Eyeglass Ministry) and spiritual needs (ex. evangelism). Their goal was to bring people to Christ in their own time. They knew that accepting Christ wasn’t something you could force on people. My only problem with all of this was the people that they were targeting.
Before I really get into this let me say that the orthodox church in southern Romania is very corrupt. It isn’t always the safest place for people to be in. I met a girl who had recently started smoking and her mother wouldn’t let her go to church because she refused to repent… for smoking cigarettes! We talked with her for a long time. She told us she missed God and wanted so badly to go to church but was not allowed. That is what I was going into. A church that was very conservative and even (according to my ministry host) corrupt.
Although it was never a verbalized mission it seemed as though our host had us targeting the orthodox people. At first I hadn’t realized that they we were indeed talking to mostly orthodox people till one of our house visits made it clear to me. Joel and I went to do a house visit to a man and his wife. The man told us his story about he had fallen three stories off of an electrical tower. He showed us his arms and the scars he had from attempting to brace his fall. He said that the bones stuck out of his arms when he landed. He told us about how he was in a coma. The one thing that was obvious to me and Joel was that he loved God and was thankful for all that he had done for him. He knew that he couldn’t have made through that time in his life without the grace of God.
At this point me and Joel were confused about why we were here. Prior to arriving, the host we were working with for that day told us that this man had not yet accepted Christ. From the sound of it this man had accepted Christ long before he even had an accident. So we asked our host after we left, if he thought that the conversation when well (me and Joel certainly thought it did). He said that he had wished that it had gone better. He said that he had been working with that man for a very long time and he still had yet to accept Christ. What Joel and I came to realize was that it was only because he was Orthodox that our host believed he did not yet accept Christ.
After this realization I could see who we approached. It did bother me a lot that what our host viewed as bringing people to Christ really only felt like asking them to switch from an Orthodox to Baptist church. I was especially bothered by this because of how much similarity I could see from the church I grew up in and the Orthodox Church. Even worse than that was that I could see that most of the people we talked to really did in fact have a fantastic relationship with the Father.
Yes, it bothered me that this seemed to be their mission, but I did my best to listen to the Father. If we did indeed find someone who did need to get out of the Orthodox church then we would meet them where they were and minister to them. If, however, I felt like they did know the Father and they loved him and got to know him right from where they were, then like any other person I talked to, I would pray with them and be on my way.
My battle in Romania was not over yet though. Next I would meet my new ministry hosts from England. <For the sake of this post I’ll call them Luke and Fiona.>
One day I was told I was going to a different ministry site because they needed some serious construction work done and of all the people on my team I was one of the more experienced people. First our host invited us in for some tea and coffee. I knew from the moment I sat down and talked with Luke that he had an extremist point of view. He talked about everything from the government putting fluoride in your water, to the titanic being symbolism for Revelations.
There was one thing that he said that sent me over the edge, though. First he said that The Pope was the anti-Christ and followed it up with saying that all Catholics are Satan worshipers. I won’t lie, I got some serious tunnel vision and my world turned red for a few moments. I was mad. I don’t remember what he said after that last comment. What I do remember is Zac kicking me under the table and distracting me long enough to realize just how heated I had gotten. I realized my breath had quickened and my hand had an iron grip on the table. I suppressed my anger long enough to let Luke keep talking and for him to finally start our work for the day.
I kept my mouth shut for most of the day. I don’t remember the last time I was that focused. I did my work and that was all I did. Luke would try to talk to me and I would give him very short answers so as to end our conversations as soon as possible. That night during our team time I flat out said to my team that I was not going back there. Naturally they understood and tried to make arrangements so that I would end up somewhere else the next day. However, Zac asked me to come back. In truth we had gotten a lot done that day and we still had a lot left to finish. The only way that it would end up anywhere near finished was if Zac and I went back the next day. I almost laughed him off, but in the end told him I would pray about it. After a good long chat with the Lord and a couple of good friends I realized I was going back to Luke’s house. In truth I didn’t even fully decide to go to Luke’s till I was getting into the car to his house. What I realized was the one thing I could do to prove him wrong was to serve him. If I really was the person that he said I was the most powerful thing that I could do to show him differently would be to serve him.
I won’t lie, it was by far one of the hardest things I have ever done. I had never felt so physically exhausted, but spiritually filled. I left that house that day feeling filled, but as if I had fought a battle. I didn’t argue with Luke, I didn’t even avoid him. I acknowledged him when he talked and conversed about lots of random things. I served a man who thought I was his enemy and he never knew who I was.
Our last day of ministry Joel and I had decided that we just wanted to flat out know what the people we had been serving with thought of the Orthodox people so we asked a lot of very direct questions and got some very direct answers. In the end we gathered that the people whom we had been working with thought that God did not exist in the Orthodox Church and the people there might as well have been pagans.
My heart felt so divided this month. Although we did good ministry I always had very conflicting feelings with the people we worked for.
- January 19, 2018
My heart breaks for the church. A couple of days ago I had a really good conversation with Joel about the division in the church and how much we were bothered by this division. Only in the last couple of days have I begun to understand why I couldn’t finish this blog. It is because of the walk that the Lord has put me on now, that I’m able to verbalize what was so hard about my month in Romania.
In my last letter I wrote about how divided the church was even just a couple of years after the death of Jesus, and how the two parts of the church accepted each other and lived harmoniously, since God did truly exist in both parts of the church. How is it that we can live in a world where every single part of the church uses and accepts the truth of the gospel, but is too stubborn and bull-headed to think that God can exist outside of their church?
If you are honest with yourself, you’ll see that God doesn’t only exist in the way that you see him, but he truly is everywhere and everything. Believing that God only exists in your church is idolatry. Not the worshiping of a statue, but the idea that God is only the one fixed thing that you make him to be.
Since I have left for my race I have found few people that don’t have some sort of stigma towards some part of the church. It is for this reason that my heart breaks for the church. If my race has taught me anything, it is that no one people, group or church has a monopoly on God. He exists in all, can be found anywhere and is for everyone. I learned a lot while I was in Romania and one thing that will never leave me is the love I have for all parts of the church.
This was the hardest month of my Race.
If you happen to be reading this Luke and Fiona I hope that you take my words to heart. Or don’t, I suppose I’m just a Satan worshiper anyway.
