Aren’t We On the Same
Side?
The other day we went to a nearby village with one of our
contacts, George, for what was seemingly a normal day of ministry: to help him
pass out tracts. George picked us up in
the morning and we headed to the village. We split into two groups and began to hand out
tracts to every person we passed. George
and I walked along the main road, and he told me how he was called to southern
Romania from the north; which is home to mega-churches, while the south is
lucky to have a house church with five people.
He told me of his passion to preach the Word and tell others about
Jesus.
During our walk, we passed an abandoned gas station on the
side of the road. He stopped to tell me
to look at it.
“That abandoned gas station?” I asked.
Holding a vision, close to tears in his eyes, he tells me to
look again and think of what it could be.
“This would be a perfect place for a church” he said, still dreaming of
what God has placed so deeply on his heart. “What a beautiful church this could
be, even with a parking lot.”
We kept walking and he told me a little bit about the
village, and how he disagrees with the Orthodox theology that dominates this
village and the majority of southern Romania. Up until this point, I considered people of
Greek Orthodox religion as Christians, until he shared with me how he has
gotten the police called on him by an Orthodox priest for spreading the Gospel.
Further down the road, we passed the other group walking
back to their car. They told us how they
were just kicked out of the village by the Orthodox priest, after being
threatened to call the police on them if they didn’t leave. George told me that they were hiding from the
priest, because they didn’t want to risk a Romanian jail cell. I thought they were joking. Why would a PRIEST kick them out? Aren’t we supposed to be on the same side?
We decided to keep walking where they came from, in the
hopes of seeing the priest and being able to talk to him. We walked, but decided to turn around because
we didn’t see any more people outside.
A little bit later the same group passed us in their car
because the priest was following them in his car trying to chase them out of
the village. We continued passing out
tracts and talking to every person we passed unharmed from the priest.
Later the other group’s
contact said they were the bait for the priest so that we could share Jesus
with the people.
There is freedom of religion in Romania. Nothing we did was illegal. We were just sharing Jesus.
We ended our day there and our contact was extremely
excited. Our mission there wasn’t a
failure, but a great success. An older
man in the village told George he wanted to meet with him to talk about Jesus
and get a Bible. And our contact now had
a reason to talk to the priest.
