speranţă.

Currently I am on my bunk listening to a Francis Chan podcast. My team and I have officially made it to Drăgăneşti-Olt, Romania! Where is that you ask?

here:

in the blue is Olt county- where I am. In the green is Mures county- that is where Dan was when he was in Romania in July… that part is more of the Transylvania region.

For some of us it is the first time we have had an actual bed since leaving the states 3 months ago, plus we have the internets, hot water and a washer and dryer. God has blessed us this month already!

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A little background on Romania: it just fell out of communism only in 1989. Out of all the Eastern European nations, Romania also has the 3rd largest group of evangelical Christians. However Olt county is one of the least reached parts of Romania. Only 0.2% of the population here are born again Christians. The largest church in this area only has 80 members (ha very opposite of Texas) and roughly 500,000 people in Olt county alone do not know Christ.

We are working with a missions church planting team that is spread out all throughout Olt county. We are the first race team to come here. Most of the missionaries with this group are couples or families that have all individually been called to spread the Gospel in this area of Romania. I cannot wait to hear all their stories! There are people from Romania, Canada, England and Germany. We are living in Draganesti, which has a population of about 12,000 I believe, but will be doing kids ministry, street evangelism and visiting church homes in all the nearby cities :]

Their primary goal is to spread the Gospel and plant churches throughout this region. Christy is one of our contacts here in Draganesti and is the worship leader for Hope Church. Hope in Romanian is speranţă. This is what we want to bring: hope. In Draganesti alone, the unemployment rate is 70-80%. There are many broken homes, HIV and witch craft practices. There is also a big gypsy population here. There is a huge need for not only spiritual hope, but emotional and physical hope as well. It is so weird how different the hope in Haiti was compared to here after what all Haiti has been through…

Dwight, team Z’man’s contact who we stayed with a couple of days in Timisoara, had warned us of the spiritual climate here. He had told us of a lot of spiritual battles the teams faced daily. Unexpected sicknesses, unanswerable inconveniences, nightmares and just an overall dark presence. Well since the second we got here, there has been not only an overall gloominess, but our whole team has been attacked with stomach and cold viruses- we are physically exhausted more than normal too. unexplainable things -yet small- are taking place and so we ask for your prayers. Something about this place is eerie. The enemy knows a lot of people here need to hear about Christ and is trying to block us, hes trying to do anything to keep us from praying and doing. But he won’t win. He has already lost with Christ on the cross. Pray for not only health and energy, but that my team will be in constant prayer. This is what it is going to take to hear God’s word for us to spread. This type of battle is new for most of us, but we are not scared, we are really excited to
be here and begin spreading His HOPE throughout Olt!

hope is centered.
hope is a longing.
hope is a desire.
hope is to believe.
hope is to trust.