Hi friends 🙂
I wanted to tell you a little about my ministry here, and what God has been teaching us in it lately.
My team has been doing street evangelism. We pass out tracts (sometimes going to surrounding countries), put on events, and invite people to church. Sometimes we do Roma (gypsie) ministry, too. Our main goal is relationship. We want people who don’t know the genuine love of God to at least catch a glimpse of Him– we want people who think that Jesus is a religion to see that he’s living, breathing, and personal. We want to introduce Abba as Abba.
Sometimes it’s hard because there’s mega spiritual gray hovering over this place.
Many of the friends I’ve come to know and care for here in Romania talk about stress and mental illness, or even just the inability to express themselves without judgement. Talking about mental illness is taboo. There’s always an expectation to live up to. One of my friends even has a tattoo that says “Bitter”.
With the older generation, if we smile, they rarely smile back. Church here is just church. It’s a routine, if anyone has time for it.
They call this place “the missionary graveyard”.
People need hope. There’s gray everywhere. Even the sky has been, lately.
But Jesus is in full color 🙂
His shades ombre from joy to humility to peacefulness. His name alone brings vibrancy and life to an otherwise plain picture.
Days in Romania can get sluggish. Today my energy is drained. But it’s not the country, it’s the battle. The enemy fights with gray, but our God fights with neon zeal.
The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. Psalm 118:14
Jesus is strong enough to save. He’s strong enought to fight this battle and in fact, he’s already won. Jesus died as the ultimate checkmate against sin and brokenness. He’s already won Romania, so it doesn’t matter if smiles are returned to us on the street or not. The story always ends the same way.
My friend Kyle gave me a vision once. He said he saw Jesus and me going out in the city’s gray townsquare. As we went along and we layed hands on people they started to spring into color.
And that’s exactly what’s happening! Holy Spirit’s faint brushstrokes are everywhere! We haven’t seen the finished piece in all it’s beauty, but we’ve seen the START. People really are springing to life. I don’t get to witness everything that the Lord’s doing, but he has let me glance and WOW it is beautiful.
We’ve been discouraged about not harvesting the fruit, when all the while planting seeds is so so important. It takes a seed first to get the harvest. God has been asking me to pray for my friend back home for the last 3-4 years. It was only a few weeks ago that she told me she’s getting baptized. 🙂 Growing takes time, but everything has to start somewhere. And what an honor it is to be asked to plant.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6
So our job here is to have hope. Spread the gospel. Practice patience. And keep praying! God is taking care of all the rest. And He is so so faithful! We’re church planting, baby
Sidenote*****
I only have $1,875 left to fundraise!!! The deadline is January 15. If you feel lead to donate, you can do it right here at the top of the page!!!
