Romania Newsetter 2016

Adding this newsletter it is long and daunting. Mainly due to images. I was/am still growing in how to write a GOOD newsletter. That being said, this newsletter is detailed to the point that, when reading it today, I would have marvelous flash backs. I hope you enjoy this newsletter as it is.

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Thank you so much for supporting me with my missions trip to Romania, wither that be through funds or prayer it was all important. This is a detailed account of what all happened so you can skim or read deeply.

”You have crossed the threshold. The door was opened and I (God) carried you across the threshold into your destiny. Don’t quit dreaming your dream because I’m breathing into it. There is provision for the vision.”

I have flown several times before, I actually like flying. But I had a spirit of fear attacking me about my flights the whole entire time. This fear was not mine. I prayed that on my longer layovers that God would send me somebody that needed my light—He so did. My first flight was delayed almost 4 hours, which caused me to miss my following connection flights, to which they had to get me on different flights. I was supposed to be in Romania at 2pm but because of this I ended up having to get there at 8pm. This was all God’s timing. As I flew into Paris it was like a thick blanket of clouds covering the earth. I couldn’t even see a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. I was baffled by this as I have never saw clouds this thick, let alone when you’re flying and you can usually glimpse some of the land. God then dropped into my spirit “These clouds are like religion. A little will shield you from being burned, but a lot will keep you from growing, and will in fact, shield you from my Son. Religion started as a good thing, protecting against my wrath, but now it has overpowered and is shielding away from my Son.” Wow. I ended up making a friend in the Paris airport (where I had a 5hour layover and wasn’t allowed to leave because I would miss my flight D: ) He was from Whales and he recently started to follow the ways of Buddha. He knew I was a Christian and I believe he could see my light. My last connection flight from Paris to Bucharest was an adventure. The further East I got, the less anybody spoke English. They had screens with maps on where we were going and I noticed that we were getting close to the Romanian border. Then turbulence hit. I’m used to a little turbulence, but this wasn’t normal. This came out of nowhere because normally the pilot forewarns that there’s turbulence ahead. There was orange juice and wine on the ceiling, and the stewardess had to get on the floor. I immediately grabbed the seat in front of me and started taking my authority and praying in tongues. I commanded the evil spirits to leave and I was given a vision of the outside of the plane. I saw perfectly the angels and demonic spirits fighting over the plane. I thanked God for His marvelous protection as I told the evil spirits to leave my flight alone. After five minutes the turbulence subsided. I knew in my spirit that if I did not take my authority in Christ that the turbulence wouldn’t have stopped and we would have potentially crashed—I wouldn’t have even got to Romania, I would have been on the outside of the boarder. God is so incredibly good to me. I can go through anything as long as I am on His side. I’m a warrior and I’m glad I can fight. As I was landing in Bucharest He said “at the end of this trip, you will see clear skies here.” As it was very cloudy there too.

I got to the airport at 8pm, I found my leader and on the bus we went! It was 2-3hours drive from Bucharest, Romania, to Dragonesti, OTL, Romania. If you have ever been to Mexico and taken a taxi, this is how this guy drove. We swerved and sped, and it felt like we went 90mph. However, an hour into the ride home and our bus driver started saying how he could only drive 5-10 more minutes as the sun was setting and his license wouldn’t allow him to drive at night (What??? Seriously???). Instead of going straight to Draganesti like he was supposed to; he took a different detour to avoid the main roads and go through the mountains, this made the trip 4 hours long instead. We finally get to the house, go through a gate to the backyard, and up the rickety stairs to our rooms. We were exhausted and finally at our temporary home.

This is just outside on the side of the church that I visited Sunday morning to give my testimony.

This is the church I visited that Sunday, it was still under construction when we were there but coming along nicely!

The next morning we were up and at the church by 8am (1am Central Time). To get to the church was a short walk, but an interesting one. We would pass several homes, old buildings, several stray dogs, lots of gypsy homes, and a gorgeous house that had every type of flower in their front yard. At the church the Pastor’s wife (Ana) would make us breakfast, lunch, and diner. She was such a sweet lady. I helped her a lot in the kitchen and I probably knew where most things went within the first day or two. Our group was then split up into two. One stayed at the Draganesti church, and the other (which included me) went to the church in Command that has been recently built. At this church, I gave my testimony. It was really interesting to hear that their term of “believer” was different than ours, I think theirs is probably more accurate. Our term of believer is that you believe in Jesus and that you go to church, often enough. Their term of believer is that you accept Him as Lord and Savior, are baptized, go to church, and are living for Jesus. Wow. This morning, they explained, the church would be full of believers—not so much on Sunday night. That morning I told them my testimony, and also that God took me all this way to tell them that God is so in love with them. We sung old hymns that were translated to Romanian, some songs that I didn’t recognize, but I loved it.

This is the Orthodox Church we drove by.

We drove by an Orthodox Church (this is not the same as Catholic, it’s the Eastern version of Catholic more or less). We were told that they are very ritualistic, very traditional, and very religious. One of the American ladies that worked in Romania for Adventures in Missions explained that when someone dies they have to do all these rituals and says “it’s almost like they worship the dead, that’s how bad it is.” They do not let them read the New Testament because they have lied so much about how to get saved that they don’t want anyone to know better. This sounds terrible, but it creates a guilty pleasure to read the Bible. I believe by putting a restriction on the Word of God it has indeed created a hunger for God that I have never seen in America. In this way, I believe Romania is better off. There is no way that I could say that we have it better when it comes to religious differences. I would rather see open bondage and a hunger for God like I did there, than see a secret bondage and a Scripture-hardened heart like I’ve seen here way too many times.

This is Hope Church where we were stationed at. We had breakfast here every morning. The leaders of this church are Raul and Anna. They are so lovely! I can’t wait to see them again!

Sunday night we had service at the church in Draganestii, which, they said, was half believers and half non-believers. I asked how that could be, and they replied that the non-believers come because of a sense of community. They have friends that are believers. We worshipped and prayed. There were several missionaries from different places (specifically there was a girl from Germany, Manuella, there was the Nigeria Team which came from an international community so you had a family of Americans, a family from the Philippines, and an African), on our team we mostly had people from the Midwest but our leader has lived in Thailand for the past few years.. The Pastor (Raul) asked each person that could speak in a different language to please pray over people in this other language. This was absolutely phenomenal as there were about 7 different languages represented. (Fun fact: Our leader, Amiee, which lived in Thailand was freaking out because there’s high Tai and low Tai, she only knew low Tai, you speak High Tai in church because you are speaking to the King!). I flew my new flags for them downstairs after church let out and they were so amazed. They had never seen anything like that. After I was done and I laid them down, a wonderful lady asked if she could fly them, oh to see her fly them was amazing! She had such a heart of worship, I only wished I had a grown set of flags to have given her. The people were very interested and very impressed with this new form of worship. And so was I.

Our daily schedule looked like this: Get up at 7am, get to church at 8am, eat cereal and/or eggs cooked my Ana, clean up, have God time for an hour, meeting/worship at 9:30, have lunch at 12pm, go out and do whatever is planned for the day, dinner at 6pm, clean up at 7pm, and go home for a debriefing.

Monday we were up and at the church by 8am again. We set off for Craovia which was another large city in Romania. We passed out New Testament Bibles in the outskirts of Craovia. Most of the people hid in their houses because they did not feel like talking to others. We left the Bibles in the gates or the mailboxes. I was disappointed. I wanted to talk to someone, I wanted to minister, to pray, to watch God move. To which this didn’t happen. We ran out of Bibles and started walking back through to see people on the streets reading what was left on their doorsteps. They were actually reading it. They didn’t throw it away like I’m so used to in America. They didn’t discard it. They asked what it was, we replied “Noul Testament Biblias”, even when they found out what it was they STILL wanted it! This is something I have NEVER seen here in the States. They read it. And I believe due to the Orthodox Church their thinking was “I was told I couldn’t read this… What’s in here that makes it so bad??”. That sounds awful, but honestly it creates such a beautiful hook to get them to read out of a guilty pleasure. With religious rules and regulations that just shows me that the Bible cannot, and will not be hidden but will in fact be sought after. I rode with a man from Great Britain in his British car (I sat passenger, that was definitely different.) his daughter, Eva (pronounced Ava) was seriously the sweetest little girl I’ve ever met. And she was so smart! She ended up translating for me at one point. When we came home we invited her to the mission house and I told God that whoever was immediately drawn to my flags I would give them a set (I was given two sets of flags to give to whomever God laid on my heart in Romania). She walked into my room and was drawn to them. I let her fly them and mine. She loved the white ones (I always imagined they looked like God’s glory coming down) and after probably an hour they had to leave so I gave them to her. She was thrilled. I was given those flags by Nelda and she had a dream/vision of the girl that gets the white ones. I sent her a picture of Eva and asked if that was who she had seen and she replied with a resounding “yes!!” yay God!

This is the team around Eva!

Tuesday came along and our team was split into two. One went to Command and one was supposed to stay in Draganesti. However, I was on the Draganesti team but I’m pretty sure I went to Command that day. We did a bit of children’s ministry there. We set up a volleyball net, started playing games, and invited the kids of the neighborhood to come join us (to which they gladly did! Even the gypsy kids!) But half of this group was offered to go through the neighborhood and pray, to which I left with two translators: George and Sarine. I told George that I really wanted to pray with someone because I didn’t get to the previous day. I tried to talk to someone but they didn’t want anything to do with me and was “busy fixing the fence” (George: “can’t you see? He’s obviously busy.”) Um… No... He looked like he was just walking around outside. He didn’t look busy at all. So we kept walking and we were passing an elder couple getting blossoms off of a tree, I kept walking thinking they were too busy but George stopped me (Sarine walked ahead of us to go to the river). George and them talked for a little bit and they offered for us to go to their house to have some of the soda they made from the tree blossoms. George is asking if I wanted to. Of course I wanted to! But was it safe?? So we went to their home. They opened their gate to a huge garden. They gave us the soda they made, goat cheese they made, bread they made, and picked me tomatoes and cucumbers out of their garden. We sat and talked about their life, how they’re retired, their kids, etc. They asked why I was so quiet (um. Because they were going off in Romanian and I speak only English…) so I told them my testimony, told them that they are so incredibly loved. George asked if I wanted to pray for them and I did. The woman had issues with her teeth but it didn’t hurt so I couldn’t really gauge it. The man had some heart issues but he asked to be prayed for his legs, after all of the translations I feel like I’m safely assuming it was restless leg syndrome. I prayed for him and he felt and burning and an itching in his legs. He got healed from restless leg syndrome that day. We were walking away and I had to explain to George that I was given the gift of healing that year. He asked if I could pray for anybody to which I said yes. Of course I can. If God wants me to. (I also told another long-term Romanian missionary this, or George told her. I don’t recall. But this missionary, Florina, knew). Due to Florina finding out about this I was given an opportunity to step away from my team on Wednesday afternoon to pray for a blind woman. I wanted to go but I also wanted to be with my team to chat with the long term missionaries. But I knew I needed to go with Florina. And immediately my prayer was “Lord, I believe! Help me with my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) I knew that God wanted to heal this woman—to show her that He loved her. But this was something I haven’t come close to praying for in my prayer walk. (P.S. the other team ended up pulling weeds out of someone’s garden and was fed raw pig skin as a snack.)

Wednesday knocked on my door like any other day. Walking towards the church with my leader (Amiee). There were two guys (I believe they were gypsies. They were dark like them) walking in-between a pack of dogs (now we’ve seen packs, but this was a big pack, and it seemed like the two guys were shepherding them). I got to the church and I realized that my phone was missing. Are. You. Kidding. Me?? I walked back to the house—nothing. I walked back to the church. Nothing. Nowhere. What a distraction! I refused to let my missing phone distract me from the work God had cut out for me that day. After breakfast and God time Florina came to pick me up. We drove to another village to this woman’s house. It was beautiful. The colors of Romanian houses were bright. We took our shoes off at her door and came in. She was so sweet. She was fully blind in one eye and in the other she could see only enough to get around. She could not see colors. She said for the past few days her completely blind eye had been getting better and in fact she started to see light out of it. I and my translator (Florina) both prayed for her to be healed. I prayed differently on this trip. My prayer wasn’t as authority based as normal, but of compassion, I prayed “Daddy, show her how much you love her…” I asked if there was any difference. She said yes but my translator informed me that she wasn’t sure if she was being sincere or polite (I appreciated this but maybe this made my faith falter a little.) She was across from the table from me (this room was small but it was probably diagonally across a queen sized bed that she stood). She told me that I was wearing a blue bandana on my head, that I had a green tank top under my gray shirt. She told us and explained to us the colors of the intricate rug on the floor without the need to bend down. My translator and I didn’t think this was progress because she was getting better in the first place. So when we left we walked away disappointed. We went to pray for another woman who was probably in her 50s. She had a whole list of everything that was wrong with her. She wasn’t a believer. We started to pray for her and my hands got hot! They were burning! Like I put them over the stove. I told Florina and she told the woman about my hands. I prayed for her back, I got on the floor and kneeled in front of her to pray for her, I asked God to show her that He loved her. I saw anointing oil flow over her and pool at her feet (I’ve never seen it pool before). It pooled and came up to her knees. Then I hit a wall. I knew I did. There was something there that was blocking everything. I tried to ask what it was. I couldn’t figure it out. The healing was obviously here but it wasn’t getting any better. Florina then asked if we were ready to go and I replied with a yes. There was nothing more to be done here. We got in the car and Florina explained that she felt the wall too. She told me that there is not much of any job opportunities in Romania so the men leave their families to find work in other countries and promise to send home money only to forget about them and get caught up in other woman and alcohol. She then told me that the woman we prayed for probably was tired of being sick but she knew that if she was healed that she would lose her pension. And for that reason she wasn’t healed because she wasn’t willing to be. After not being able to get ahold of any of the people with my team she resulted to leaving me at the church, to which I helped part of the Nigerian team take down a wall (they are still in the middle of construction with this church). My team came in an hour later and off we went to see another missionary in another village. This missionary just recently built a church and was running it. The village was beautiful. We talked with him about what all he is doing and then prayed for him and his family. We also went to where Rachel (a long term missionary from America she just got engaged after we left) leads a woman’s group in a small home in this village and also where her now fiancé did kids ministry. This village had a lot of witchcraft involved because of how heavily the Orthodox Church was dominant (I still didn’t understand how they related but they did some way). We prayed for them, gave to them, and was on our way home for dinner. Later that evening as I was meditating on what happened with the (once was blind) woman I realized that she did get healed! And then I wondered if she even knew her colors before? (She lost her sight at age 6). Then I started really regretting not praying over her again. I wonder if she’s fully healed now? But I do know she’s no longer blind! God is so good! And His love for others is so wonderful. We ended up going to Florina’s because she has a ministry called “A fishing rod not a fish” which is teaching the women that their husbands have left them to make different crafts and jewelry and such to sell so that they can make a living for themselves. (They are found on Etsy their shop is called “SperoDesignsRomania“) I got my middle sister Janiece a beautiful shawl that was crying out for her name and myself a bracelet/anklet. I can’t wait to go back because I will custom order a ton of shawls to bring home!

Thursday hit me like a brick. I wasn’t ready to leave. The morning was normal. But in the middle of my Daddy-daughter time a man in his 40s came up to me and gave me a rose. I don’t believe he spoke English but I said “Mulțumesc!!” (Thank you) as enthusiastically as I could. This touched my heart. I have loved Romanians for 6 years now. And to see that they loved me back completely melted my heart. I cherished this rose. And as I was continuing my chat with God, He then told me this “I created that rose for you months before you even knew you would come here. I created it for this reason. For this man to give to you this morning for this reaction.” I cried. How sweet is our God?? He has wooed me this whole time with this trip and this was the icing on the cake. Today was kids ministry day. We went to the church in Command—the first church I visited. We had already planned so many games and such for them. To start off with a drama and incorporate Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (but really it was in Romanian so it looked more like this: “Dar Dumnezeu Își arată dragostea față de noi în acest : În timp ce eram noi încă păcătoși , Hristos a murit pentru noi.” We played a game that involved the kids racing to put together puzzle pieces and memorize this verse. We did crafts, I did face painting, games, all sorts of fun stuff until we lost their attention. But hey, we would rather over plan than underplan. It was so much fun. George was with me during the face painting but then he left and I actually really needed him to tell me what certain kids were requesting. I ended up having a little girl that could speak some english helping me out—telling them to point at the paper and point at which color they wanted. I flew my flags at the end and offered to a few of the girls that stayed behind to fly them with me. They really loved them and I had one more set of flags that I had left. Too bad there were two girls that stayed and wanted to fly them. Which resulted in me not giving them out at all. One more set of flags to go and I would only be staying in the village for another full day!

Friday. My last day in Draganesti. The morning went as per usual. I was leading a small group study this afternoon and the message was Prodigal Father—we were created for Love. (Those of you that have gone to DSSM knows this message. That God loves us and gives lavishly for us). We were in a group of 3. One to lead the message (me), one to pray, and one to lead worship—in Romanian (which didn’t really happen because we forgot/we don’t know any songs in Romanian.) I led the message with a translator and when we asked for any prayer request the woman that translated said that her baby isn’t doing well. That she birthed her and she was in a coma for three days and couldn’t eat or breathe by herself. That she’s doing better but she’s still worried about her. She’s 5 months old. I ended up giving my blue flags to this 19 year old woman that was worried for her baby so that when her baby grows up that she will have those flags to worship with. This lady cried. I encouraged her that her baby will live and grow to use them and that she can use them too. Serene (I mentioned him earlier) ended up talking to me about the Romanian history (I told him I was fascinated by it) and he ended up telling me about the real story of Vlad Dracula (which was quiet different than the textbooks) as we walked down the streets of Draganesti. That. Was incredibly exciting and made my day. Who gets to say that they’ve walked the streets of Romania and got to hear the story of Vlad Dracula that you’ve never heard before (and you’ve read/seen a lot of documentaries about him) by a Romanian?? We went home and packed our bags because we were leaving early in the morning and we had sports ministry with the village at a football (soccer) field. I ended up playing the last game and next time I won’t wait that long to get in the game!

Saturday we ate our last meal in Draganesti for breakfast and I found out where my phone was! In a gypsy camp! I was pickpocketed! This whole time I was asking God why (I still do wonder. I don’t know what good came out of it). Raul (the pastor) was asking if I wanted to stay until Tuesday to talk to the police about it (the branch that dealt with these things didn’t work on weekends and Monday was a holiday. I didn’t want to miss my flight so I said no but they were so worried that I was saying no to be polite that they ended up really pressuring me to stay to get that handled. It ended up being a stressful morning. We left early to go to Bucharest. It was hot. This whole week was pretty nice weather, not too hot. But today…. 105F felt like 150F. The more we prayed the more the clouds parted and today was nearly clear skies (if you recall what I said towards the beginning of this letter you’ll see how important that small detail is.) The humidity stepped up all of the notches and we just wanted to enjoy the capital city. This. Was. Obnoxious. We left our stuff in the locked staff room of our hostel because they weren’t ready for us quiet yet when we got there and went off to eat. We ate at this classy little café off of the square. We all ordered frozen lemonade (I’m thinking like SDC frozen lemonade. I’m excited) the lemonade wasn’t even frozen and was minty. Each lemonade we found in Romania was infused with mint. This is good in theory and for every once in a while but I just wanted some frozen slush regular lemonade. We then went on a bus tour of Romania, this was interesting but it didn’t help that they drive like crazy people and being on the top part of the bus and seeing that the bus is about to run over a car. Haha. The city was beautiful. We went through a museum which was interesting and then we toured old town Bucharest. This was the most gorgeous place, pretty similar to old town Craovia. They had an exhibit outside where they have started putting some pieces of Vlad’s castle to present which really fascinated me and excited me because his castle was too far away for us to visit. I stopped by the souvenir shop and normally I really avoid the postcards but I HAD to get myself a Vlad Dracula post card! All week I really wanted a Bible in Romanian. Rachel told me it would be 200 lei ($50 USD). I passed a place that sold old books on the street and started looking, I asked if they spoke English and then asked if they had a Romanian Bible. THEY DID! The guy asked if I would stay there for 10-15 minutes because it was at his house and I told him I would and away he went! He came back with a Romanian Bible that was from 1932 (wow! Such history to have survived WW2) I got this for 100 lei ($25 USD) God so does bless me! I also went to go buy a new phone for the ride home. I got a burner phone and didn’t put much minutes on it—it didn’t even last me till I made it to the states. By the time we got in and settled at the Hostel it was 10 or 11pm… We had to wake up at 2am to get on the bus at 3am to get to the airport at 4am. We were exhausted.

Sunday morning at 2:30am we were walking across Bucharest and I was rather shocked at how many people were at (including a handful of elders!) we all said good bye to each other in the airport where several left at different times. I wasn’t ready to leave at all, but I boarded that plane anyway. I landed in Amsterdam where I had a 24 hour layover. To get out of the Amsterdam airport you must take a train. I wanted to actually go to Amsterdam so I was trying to get to Amsterdam Central… except… none of the signs made sense. I asked someone waiting for a train if it went to Central and he said yes, we started talking. His name is Yavos. He’s from Turkey going to Detroit also on a 24hour layover. We decided to spend the day together! So I feel like that was a divine appointment. We walked around to find his hotel (I voted on sleeping in the airport… which I later regretted) and I’ve never had my sense of direction so accurate. I can’t even drive around Springfield with that kind of direction. I knew exactly where I was at all times. It’s like I’ve lived there for years. We walked through the Red Light District. There was one girl passing out flyers asking for money to raise her two kids, I gladly gave her money. I don’t care if it was a scam. I’m glad she’s not selling herself. To tour the Red Light District is 20 euros, to buy a girl is 30 euros (I overheard someone asking). When I heard that, my heart completely broke as you could have the whole Red Light experience for 50 euros (around $60). My heart is not broken just for the girls, but also the men too. Both parties have no idea who they really are—royalty, an heir, a son/daughter to the Mighty King… I want to come back to Amsterdam and stay for a while. I’d love to be able to minister deeply in the Red Light.

I had to really process this trip. A lot of prophesies over me didn’t happen on this trip and I had to deal with disappointment and my questions. God gave me revelation that the country and I both needed to get our “feet wet”. The country would not be prepared for me, and as most cases when you go to minister to a country the country leaves a greater impact on you than you realize, and in that sense I guess I wasn’t prepared for the country. My heart lies in this country. I’m so excited for the opportunity to go back!! I’m staying three weeks in Romania this summer—Most of June (I was planning on not going at all this year when an angel visited me in my dreams to convince me to go). I’m praying into the prophesies God has given me about this country and I. Along with the specific words He has given me (I’ll download the language, etc.) I am wanting to impact this country. Not just bring healing to this country but to teach them to heal themselves. I’m wanting to give them a fishing rod, not just a fish. I am so stoked about this. Thank you so much for everything you do! Keep me in your prayers!!