It’s no coincidence that Dracula’s castles are all in Romania- it is appropriate that there be a gloomy setting for a gloomy story. Dragonesti-Olt, the city where our mission house is based this month in Romania, is also gloomy for many reasons. It’s not just because of the fact that we have had cloud-covered skies and drizzly rain in the middle of summertime. There is a deeper gloom, a deeper sense of darkness that looms over this place that is beyond grim fairy tales. Here there is a heaviness that rests on your chest at night and keeps you from sleeping. You feel the pressure as you cross the border coming from the light atmosphere of the country into a city weighed down by sadness and hopelessness. Teenage girls run up to you, steal the sunglasses right off your face, put you in head locks, spit on you, tear at your clothes, and harass you. Teenage boys stare you down and throw rocks at your windows yelling inappropriate things because they only see you as a sex object. Witches pace in front of where you live, chanting curses and leaving dead animals to send evil spirits into your house. Men beat their wives almost to death because they are full of so much anger and pain and the children come to you out of desperation, not knowing what else to do. Witches hold international conferences here to gather and collectively practice satanic rituals. Many attempt and many succeed at committing suicide because they see no escape out of the hell they are living in. Yes, there is a pervasive darkness here.
This is a battlefield of Spiritual Darkness. This is a place where the devil has come, fully equipped, sneaking into the cracks like a poisonous fog. He is armed and informed, knowing exactly where to strike, our points of weakness and our insecurities. We see it every day in the lives of the people we are ministering to, but we also see and feel it affecting ourselves. We see Satan sneaking into our exhaustion and exasperations- into the frustration and tension that is building up from living in a single place with your entire squad, into the tiredness from not sleeping that also makes you not want to pray or worship or go to ministry, in the longing for material things again like new clothes, your own bed and people. Because of this it sometimes seems like the joy of community gets sucked out, and the feelings of awe and being privileged to serve a good and loving God disappear in the gloom. We are told that long term missionaries don’t last long here, they aren’t prepared or expect to be so drastically influenced by the heaviness here. After having lived here only a little over two weeks, it is easy to see why. The devil is waging war.
But here is the truth about darkness, it can NEVER smother or quench out the light. Because Jesus is the light, the TRUE light, which gives light to EVERYONE. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness HAS NOT overcome it. And even in this “dark” country, as Christian soldiers we are armed, ready and protected with the Armor of God, marching as to war and coming together as a community: guarding one another, helping one another put on our breastplates and strapping on each other’s shields, bearing and bringing the Light. Another truth about darkness, as scary as it is, it that it has a tendency to draw people even more intently to the Light, to search for it and in desperation want more. In the battlefield, I am drawn to and am in awe of those luminous moments: when my team and the squad gathers together in prayer speaking light and life casting out the darkness and banishing Satan from having a grip on us, when a family stays strong in their love and faith for Jesus even though they are the only believers in the entire village and have no community to uplift them, when a man covered in self-harm scars and rope burns around his neck listens as we tell him that Jesus loves him despite his sins, when you are expecting maybe three or four kids to show up to learn about Jesus and God blesses you with more than twenty who are eager for the Word, when little wrinkled old grammas babble at you in languages you don’t understand but you see the joy in their eyes and speak the same heart language, when the same woman hands you secret notes (also written in a language you don’t read) writing about the glory of God and the beauty of salvation, when shepherd boys roaming the field overcome their fear and come close enough to kick around a ball and even give you high fives, when an overly affectionate man who shows up in your living room looking for a wife ends up finding a house full of people who want to comfort his lonely crying with Jesus. The truth is, the darkness has not overcome, it will not overcome and it cannot overcome.
And in this country where the spiritual darkness is heavy, the motto of my Race rings brighter and more encouraging than ever before, I am sending you so that you may open their eyes, to turn from Darkness to Light, and from the Power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness for their sins, and a place of inheritance with those who are sanctified by faith through Me. (Acts 26:18)
So help us rage this battle against Satan. Pray for us, continuously. Because darkness and the devil have no place here, and we have the power and authority given to us by Christ that force it to flee. Let’s overwhelm this dark place, saturate it with international prayer, because there is power in the name of Jesus.
