In a nutshell, Romania was a very intriguing time for me. For whatever reason, I never thought a European country would leave such an impact on me, but it did. I got to see the work of an extremely intentional church that has such an intense passion and vision for the lost. I got to work with missionaries who are reaching a village where there are no evangelical Christians. And as a sweet bonus, I got to see and experience the foundation of a successful ministry…prayer!
Each morning, we were able to “warm up” our spirits through an hour of worship and finish with an hour of intercession. As a squad, we worshipped and interceded for the people, projects, and partners of Hope Church every morning. As we broke into our ministry locations for the day, we spent even more time in prayer! It was very impactful to work with a ministry who believes that prayer is crucial, but even more impactful that they lived on it.
One of my squad leaders worked with our contact last year and was able to see many of her teams’ prayers answered. Since coming back, she got to see most of the church construction finished that they were praying for. They also prayed for the salvation of a local family and the weekend we arrived, the parents were being baptized in the church (more on this later)!
So with hearing and seeing all of these answered prayers, we began with strong expectations to see God answer more prayers through us. We figured that we might not see the fruit of our prayers right away, but we would pray in confidence and with expectation.
Within two weeks of praying, we saw God answer the majority of our prayers. We prayed for funding to come through so that the construction could continue in the church and it did. We prayed for money so he could buy a fishing boat and he had a boat in his yard before we left. Many of us connected with the ‘Hope for Maruntei’ project and prayed hard for more partners and many have shown interest in helping.
My faith was extremely encouraged and challenged because of this time dedicated to worship and prayer. The icing on the cake was a prayer that we said on our first day there. We asked that the son of the parents who were just baptized to come to know God as well and he accepted Christ within days. The awesome thing about prayer is that there is no pressure on us whatsoever, but the “pressure” is all on God to show up. And, as you can see, He is faithful to answer prayers…whether they have been spoken years and years before or just last week.
In other news, check out a short video I made to recap our last 2 months:
