Remember how I said it’s weird to walk up to strangers and start talking to them? Remember how I challenged you to work your way up to that level of confidence? The Lord has such a sense of humor and really wanted me to eat my own words. Thanks, God.
Today was the 99th anniversary of the union of Romania, and our ministry host planned for us to travel to the city of Craiova for street evangelism.
Evangelism is not high on my spiritual gifts list. I’m pretty sure it’s in the bottom two. I definitely understand the importance, but I begrudgingly stepped on the van this afternoon. My mood was meh and the rain wasn’t helping. I prayed in annoyance that God would just meet me where I am at and not send me a bunch of people today. I love that God answers our prayers in His own way.
Kenadi and I paired up holding a stack of pamphlets with invitations to the church recently planted in Craiova. We did not have a translator with us because Raul wanted to see if it would be possible to send future World Race teams in the city to evangelise without any aid. So we were cold, wet, and alone in a strange city (I swear Mom, I’m doing fine).
The main square was pretty bare even though it was an important day. The rain was keeping everyone away and indoors. The first few people we approached didn’t speak English but still accepted our handouts. One man actually spoke English fluently and we were able to pray for healing for him and his brother-in-law.
Kenadi and I decided to leave the square even though we knew that was probably where we would find our main source of people. We turned down a street and saw three people–a couple and their daughter– walking towards us.
Perfect. They were the only ones there and the sidewalk was pretty narrow, so they had to cross our path. We greeted them and asked if they knew English. The woman indicated that her daughter spoke English well. We turned our attention towards her and started asking her basic “getting to know you” questions. Her name is Sophia…She’s attending the university for physics…She was born in Morocco and moved to Romania for university… Her parents decided this was a conversation best left for their daughter and walked away from us. We thought we were keeping the family from something, but Sophia laughed at our insecurity. She said they were just on their way home and that she had nothing to do today due to the holiday. All of a sudden, Kenadi and I knew that this wasn’t going to be a 30 minute conversation about Jesus, but an investment in learning all about this 17 year old’s life.
In the midst of our conversation, we asked if she knew anything about the religion of Romania. She knew it was Orthodox, but she mentioned that she did not like the idea of religion. However, she does believe in God. In her experiences, religious people only caused division and outcast people. She was raised in a Muslim country, but she never felt a connection within that faith. She started to avoid the subject, but was still willing to spend the next hour and a half with us.
Sophia showed us around the town explaining the effect of communism on the city. She is so incredibly smart and knew so much about pretty much everything we asked. We started to get really cold, so we opted to spend the rest of our time together in Starbucks. After building more trust with her, we felt that we could ask to pray over her. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Pray for me?” she asked. She knew people often pray–she sometimes prays herself–but not for other people. She excitedly said yes. She then asked how we pray in public. She knew Islamic prayers and knew that Christians fold their hands while they pray. Kenadi explained that prayer is about the communication with God, not the physical method. As we prayed over her, she watched us with such a childlike joy. I was struck with such an overwhelming feeling of love from the Father. I had to stop my prayer and just look at her with tears in my eyes. I told her that God was just so in love with her and was so happy that He created her. She started to tear up and thanked us for our prayers. She never had anyone pray over her before.
Sophia didn’t accept Jesus as her Savior that day, but she was curious. She agreed to read through the Book of John with us, and even downloaded a Bible app on her phone! A seed was planted today, praise God!!! I ask you at home to pray over my new friends and that this seed turns into a beautiful fruit.
Look how cute we are!!!
Thank you!!!
