The home stretch

I'm sitting at the desk in my room at the Hotel Galati in Galati, Romania. It's Sunday morning, and we're getting ready for our final day of ministry before we head home. Only a day ago it seemed, we had five more days to go. Now the end is very close. I have to admit, I sure am ready to see my family! Ten days is along time to be away, no matter how supportive ones family is.

We arrived in Galatia on Friday night. It is one of the ten largest cities in Romania and sits on the Danube River in the southeastern part of the country. It has the largest steel factory in Romania (the 5th largest in Europe) and the second largest shipbuilding yard. The population of the city is nearly 340,000, but the people to church ratio is 16,515:1. We spent yesterday meeting with Mihai Dumitrascu, the pastor of Emanuel Christian Church, and Ovidiu, a Baptist pastor.
Both are members of the BIG Impact group that we became familiar with last year and are dynamic church planters. Mihai's church especially is fantastic in this regard. They have developed some great programs to plant churches and then disciple, equip, and train believers for doing the same. Our meeting with him was very profitable, and God led us to several concrete ways that we can connect with them and provide
specific areas of training next year.

In the evening, we went to the Baptist church where we talked a little with the pastor and then shared at the youth service. There were about 30 youth present, and while they weren't nearly as responsive as the Sinaia youth, we felt like four or five of them were really penetrated by the worldview definitions and Bruce's exhortation to them. Darin was disappointed in the outcome, but Bruce and I really
saw it as a successful seed-planting night that will pave the way for follow-up. Plus, we had some really good dialog with the pastor that will almost certainly lead to future training opportunities.

Between lunch, after our meeting with Mihai, and the evening youth service, we had a few free hours in the afternoon. Darin went back the hotel to take a nap while Bruce, Paul, Florin, and I visited a 15th century Orthodox cathedral and the local history museum. In the cathedral, a wedding was in progress, and we were able to watch and take pictures. The priest crowns both the bride and groom as a symbol
that they are the king and queen of their marriage and must rule over it. Interesting. The fascinating part of the afternoon, though, was the museum. We took about an hour-and-a-half to walk through, and the history of Romania was presented from Paleolithic time through WWI. It gave us a real sense of the flow of people groups through here and how the country has come into being. The museum encompassed 13 rooms over two floors, and it cost us a total of $2.40 to go through!

I finally got my shaorma! Those are the fabulous wraps with pickles, french fries, roasted meat, and sauce that I've been craving. We stopped at a stand to get them after church an then walked along the Danube for a while. The funniest thing happened down there, too. Darin was determined to touch the river so that he could say he had touched the Danube. In the process of trying, however, he stepped right into the mud, and his dress shoe-clad foot sunk up to the ankle in mud! We all screamed with laughter! So, he tromped along the riverwalk among the hundreds of people with a muddy foot and pants leg. What a memory.

Today, Bruce is preaching at the Baptist church and then we share at the youth service in Emanuel Christian Church. God's going to work again. I know it! More to come...