Draganesti – Olt
(pronounced Draganesht)
I’ve only been here two and a half days and God is already blowing my mind. That’s just the God we have though and I’ll praise the Lord for that! Just thought I’d give a quick insight on the ministry I’ll be doing this month and try to put up some pictures in the next few days.
This month we are working with a ministry called Hope Mission Church. When our contact, Raul, moved to the town of Draganesti, he was told that there would never be a church in this town. The people here thought that Christians stayed up all hours of the night killing babies and such. Every time Raul went to see the authorities about something, they would remind him that “you will never open a church in this town.” They even tried to start a petition to keep him from living in the town, but since he is a Romanian citizen, that was illegal. Raul and his ministry started here by cleaning up the streets, which allowed the people of Draganesti to see that the ministry was here for the well being of the community.
Eight years later, there are 19 missionaries serving in this area full time, Raul is praying for more constantly because he so desires for the people of Olt county to know the Lord. And the best news of all, the 25thof this month, the first church in this town will be opening its doors with a celebration!
So OUR job for the first two weeks that we are here is to help prepare the church and the mission house that we are staying at, as well as going to the surrounding villages and handing out invitations for people to come to the new church.
We are all so excited because this is such a big deal for our ministry partners here and such a story of truth!
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
-Romans 8:31
Our God has big things in store if we are willing to face the giants…Churches WILL be opened in His name, people WILL know the Father’s love, and grace WILL be received, if only His people will realize that He is a BIG and POWERFUL God, one that NONE can stand against!
