there will be about a thousand typos in this because the keyboards are in arabic.
I am not sure what to say or where to ebgin or how on earth anyone expects us to, after 3 months of physical, emotional and spiritual exhuastion to adapt to a new culture. but that isok.Spain is exiciting,and beautiful, and asfor missions work....well to our utter shock God has handed us a country in which therewill be no brining people to Christ on the streets. Truth be,we maynot see a single person come to Christ. We are here trying to support 2 churches who will spend years (some have already) redeeming people´s concept of God. If I ever thought I neededto learn MORE about churches plants, I have come to the right place!
So as youmay remember, Spain is a catholic country...well, it was. Now, if you are under40, chances are you live a life of partying, violently opposed to Catholisicm.... which is the group to which all christians are sent. Evangelism takes friendship.You see,aswe learned durin ourweek on evangelism, you can´t feed people unlesstheyare hungry. The people of spain won´t stop long enough to realizethey arestarving. We need to get them questioning. To get them hungry. Thatwould be this week´s major prayer request. That good would give us strategies to make people hungry for him. Ok, I paying ot write thi sblog so i am gonna go. Hope this gave some insight,if only a little into what we are up to.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Packing fun!
We leave Tuesday, at noon....for Valencia! We are off to Spain. YAY! and we are excited! That leaves 60 very full days before we get home. I am still not sure whether that excites or saddens me. But I have got two months to find out. So, I bet you would like to know what we will be up to in Valencia, other than sun bathing (oh yes, days off are so being spent at the beach. but don't feel to bad, we only get 7 days off. great intro to life in ministry, ah?) There are two churches we are connected with at the moment.
One is a Spanish Vineyard Church, it is quite small with 8 people. All spanish. Thy are doing some cool stuff, like feeding the homeless and beach minstries. They are trying to reach out to valencia's youth, because, well, they are youth! At 17, I am the median age of the church and with 6 people on our team were doubling them! We hope to encourage their young congregation, by teaching them about worship and running some sunday nights services. It sounds like they are a very talented group. we are very excited to be with them and polish up our spanish.
The other is an older church (by older, I mean the oldest person in maybe 40 instead of 26) They are english, as in from egland. It's a Frontier International Church. So the congregation should be quite mixed of different nationalites. Making us feel quite at home! We will be doing some street outreach a week after we get there with them. As well as running some Alpha courses, which are for baby christians or people just interested in learing more about the bible. be praying for big results there. Past that, we are not totally sure. We are going as God leads. Listening to His voice, praying alot, and sharing his love with everyone we meet. Whether we tell them about Him, or simply exemplify Him.
While we are there, I am in charge of translation. katie and sam also know spanish. so you can also be praying for us that the langauge comes easily. you can also pray for some divine appointments to really get to share our faith. We really want to double these churches, not just by us being there. We want the churches to grow. Thank you for all your support! And patience. I will try and make a point of writing blogs on mondays (our day off) but if I miss a day, you'll have to count on waiting another week. Thats just how it works, cause we have to go all the way into town (we are staying in a village about 20 minutes out by public transit). Thanks guys! talk to you NEXT monday!
One is a Spanish Vineyard Church, it is quite small with 8 people. All spanish. Thy are doing some cool stuff, like feeding the homeless and beach minstries. They are trying to reach out to valencia's youth, because, well, they are youth! At 17, I am the median age of the church and with 6 people on our team were doubling them! We hope to encourage their young congregation, by teaching them about worship and running some sunday nights services. It sounds like they are a very talented group. we are very excited to be with them and polish up our spanish.
The other is an older church (by older, I mean the oldest person in maybe 40 instead of 26) They are english, as in from egland. It's a Frontier International Church. So the congregation should be quite mixed of different nationalites. Making us feel quite at home! We will be doing some street outreach a week after we get there with them. As well as running some Alpha courses, which are for baby christians or people just interested in learing more about the bible. be praying for big results there. Past that, we are not totally sure. We are going as God leads. Listening to His voice, praying alot, and sharing his love with everyone we meet. Whether we tell them about Him, or simply exemplify Him.
While we are there, I am in charge of translation. katie and sam also know spanish. so you can also be praying for us that the langauge comes easily. you can also pray for some divine appointments to really get to share our faith. We really want to double these churches, not just by us being there. We want the churches to grow. Thank you for all your support! And patience. I will try and make a point of writing blogs on mondays (our day off) but if I miss a day, you'll have to count on waiting another week. Thats just how it works, cause we have to go all the way into town (we are staying in a village about 20 minutes out by public transit). Thanks guys! talk to you NEXT monday!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Face to Face with Romania
I could spend days explaining to you in detail everything that was fermented in my heart and soul over the last few hours. The emotions rushing through me, the feeling of finally getting a heart for the country I must leave in 3 days. This might take a while, so you better prepare yourself, do some stretches or something cause you are about to do a lot of reading.
We walked on the bus exhausted. ready to get some serious shut-eye. But alas, that was not the destiny of this ride. A few minutes after getting on the bus, a group of several drunk gypsy/Hungarian men arrived and began "talking" to us. They yelled at us leave their seats (we knew they were drunk because when we sat down there were beers cans crushed on the seats.
As the Hungarian man spoke, we picked up on a few things. He asked us why we were in Romania. I told him, using my very small amount of Romanian, that we are in bible school. To the best of our knowledge, He began speaking about God. He told us how he is a drunk, but God loves Him. That God loves all of us. It was quite odd to see the denial in each of the men. They were all telling us about how the others were crazy drunks, each with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. Except for the Hungarian. He stopped drinking. He wouldn't take the whiskey from his gypsy "friend" and he no longer wanted to drink and smoke with the rest. He may have been convicted. I like to believe God used what little communication we had to reach the man. I have faith in it. Something interesting I have learned here, I do not need words to reach them. I just need God.
When everything "calmed down" a bit. I had sometime to look around, and the Lord opened my eyes to the world I have been living in for the past 3 months. There was an 18 year old girl and what must have been a 35 year old man kissing behind us. Sad, but very Romanian. Many young girls marry and date older men here, because it is safe. The man has money, and that is what they are convinced will fix things, money. But with Money, they are going off and buying alcohol. at young ages. There was a boy sitting in front of us, must of been my age, a little older, taking slugs of the whiskey. His face was damaged and his arms scarred. I could not tell you what had happened. But he was associating with the Hungarian men, which means he may have grown up among them. Maybe it was his parents. That so often happens here with the poor. Parents maiming their children, because pity brings in more money when they beg. Next to the convicted Hungarian man sat a drunk gypsy. On his arms I saw another type of scar. It was a tattoo. A series of numbers and letters. Just like from the concentration camps in Germany. But these were from his own country, these were from a Romanian concentration camp during the communism. I could have cried right there. My stomach ached with pity and disgust. My mind raced with Questions.
"God, how could this happen?"
"Lord, why are you showing me now?"
"Father, what could I do? What can I do?"
"Jesus, why are you giving me the heart for these people I have been praying for for months, 3 days before I leave?"
"Is there hope?"
The answers were never quite revealed, but in God's incredible way, He showed me. Just because a country is no longer in war, or in poverty, does not make it saved, the work is never done. There is a way of thinking that must be changed to His own. A hopelessness to be overcame.
Before my mind could stop racing I heard a scream a few rows in front of me. "NO!" as Mary slapped the man's hand. He was attempting to kiss her hand. But as a Romanian man would, he simply grabbed instead of requesting. All the drunks had been quite touchy, but being as this is Romanian culture we dismissed it politely. Mary was not so understanding. Unfortunately, this is quite disrespectful and the man took great offense. We pleaded with Mary to simply allow it, but she refused (understandably). As he heard us speaking with her, he came up to us. As a signal of respect and friendship, he kissed our elbows. Yes, our elbows...actually, he came back later and did it again. Exhausted and shocked, we bust into laughter. A small relief, as awkward as it was. Things never seem to calm down around here. EVER.
See, Romania is shocking. i could learn everything about the country and its colorful past, and it's people will always manage to surprise me.
I ask that you pray against the spirit of hopelessness in Romania. That people would know there is hope, and His name is Christ.
We walked on the bus exhausted. ready to get some serious shut-eye. But alas, that was not the destiny of this ride. A few minutes after getting on the bus, a group of several drunk gypsy/Hungarian men arrived and began "talking" to us. They yelled at us leave their seats (we knew they were drunk because when we sat down there were beers cans crushed on the seats.
As the Hungarian man spoke, we picked up on a few things. He asked us why we were in Romania. I told him, using my very small amount of Romanian, that we are in bible school. To the best of our knowledge, He began speaking about God. He told us how he is a drunk, but God loves Him. That God loves all of us. It was quite odd to see the denial in each of the men. They were all telling us about how the others were crazy drunks, each with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. Except for the Hungarian. He stopped drinking. He wouldn't take the whiskey from his gypsy "friend" and he no longer wanted to drink and smoke with the rest. He may have been convicted. I like to believe God used what little communication we had to reach the man. I have faith in it. Something interesting I have learned here, I do not need words to reach them. I just need God.
When everything "calmed down" a bit. I had sometime to look around, and the Lord opened my eyes to the world I have been living in for the past 3 months. There was an 18 year old girl and what must have been a 35 year old man kissing behind us. Sad, but very Romanian. Many young girls marry and date older men here, because it is safe. The man has money, and that is what they are convinced will fix things, money. But with Money, they are going off and buying alcohol. at young ages. There was a boy sitting in front of us, must of been my age, a little older, taking slugs of the whiskey. His face was damaged and his arms scarred. I could not tell you what had happened. But he was associating with the Hungarian men, which means he may have grown up among them. Maybe it was his parents. That so often happens here with the poor. Parents maiming their children, because pity brings in more money when they beg. Next to the convicted Hungarian man sat a drunk gypsy. On his arms I saw another type of scar. It was a tattoo. A series of numbers and letters. Just like from the concentration camps in Germany. But these were from his own country, these were from a Romanian concentration camp during the communism. I could have cried right there. My stomach ached with pity and disgust. My mind raced with Questions.
"God, how could this happen?"
"Lord, why are you showing me now?"
"Father, what could I do? What can I do?"
"Jesus, why are you giving me the heart for these people I have been praying for for months, 3 days before I leave?"
"Is there hope?"
The answers were never quite revealed, but in God's incredible way, He showed me. Just because a country is no longer in war, or in poverty, does not make it saved, the work is never done. There is a way of thinking that must be changed to His own. A hopelessness to be overcame.
Before my mind could stop racing I heard a scream a few rows in front of me. "NO!" as Mary slapped the man's hand. He was attempting to kiss her hand. But as a Romanian man would, he simply grabbed instead of requesting. All the drunks had been quite touchy, but being as this is Romanian culture we dismissed it politely. Mary was not so understanding. Unfortunately, this is quite disrespectful and the man took great offense. We pleaded with Mary to simply allow it, but she refused (understandably). As he heard us speaking with her, he came up to us. As a signal of respect and friendship, he kissed our elbows. Yes, our elbows...actually, he came back later and did it again. Exhausted and shocked, we bust into laughter. A small relief, as awkward as it was. Things never seem to calm down around here. EVER.
See, Romania is shocking. i could learn everything about the country and its colorful past, and it's people will always manage to surprise me.
I ask that you pray against the spirit of hopelessness in Romania. That people would know there is hope, and His name is Christ.
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