Somewhere over the Atlantic

After a dynamic and blessed ten days, the team is headed home. We are just south of Iceland aboard a Lufthansa A340-300 and have about five hours to go. Yesterday, Sunday, was another day of ministry in Galati, Romania. We started the day at Holy Trinity Baptist Church with Pastor Ovidiu. Bruce preached the morning message and brought his Watchman on the Walls Godly wisdom sermon. It was the same church where we taught the youth on Saturday night. The people were a little hard to read but a few approached us afterward and told us how encouraged and inspired they were. Of course, this is a big vision we're casting and it's not really fair to expect everyone to leaping from their seats in immediate agreement. The pastor was very receptive and encouraging, though. He is a member of BIG Impact with Mihai of Emanuel Christian Church, Adi Stanciu from last year, and Isaac Matei. There are definite possibilities and tentative plans for some broad training next year for both pastors/church leaders and youth.

After the morning service, we did our best to entertain ourselves for the afternoon. We did a little shopping for Florin's daughter and got her some shoes, bought ourselves some blanks DVDs to burn pictures from the trip, and got some chocolate for our wives and children waiting for us back home. The afternoon really seemed to drag on as there wasn't a whole lot to do, and we knew that our journey home today was waiting for us just a short night's sleep later!

Our final event was a youth service at Emanuel Christian Church. It was the group's standard Sunday meeting that we were invited to. Darin crammed his "Four Questions to identify one's worldview" lesson into 25 minutes and did a great job (as always). Of course, he again felt that he did it no justice. Bruce followed that with his exhortation and "you are the hope" of Romania message. The youth were very receptive and encouraging with their responses both during and after the services. During the entire message, Pastor Mihai was listening very carefully and taking it all in. I could tell that he was really checking us out, not in the sense that he was looking for something with which to disagree but really just to figure out our hearts and vision for his country. Can you blame him? Afterward, he was so complimentary and gracious. I really think we have some opportunities with him. He is a leading figure in the church in the southeastern part of the country and garners a lot of respect. I got the impression that if Mihai gives his stamp of approval, others will fall in line pretty confidently. God definitely blessed us with contact with him. If was a chance thing really as the trip down to Galati instead of Deva was not planned until just a day before we left Sinaia and was one of those unknowns that tend to face on these adventures. Should we really have doubted, though, that God would deliver? (Plus, the worship at the youth service last night was tremendous and so ministered to me after this long time away from
home.)

Immediately following the youth service, we piled in the car and drove back to Bucharest for a short night's rest at Florin's apartment. We slept for about three hours before having to get up and go to the airport for our 6:00am flight to Frankfurt from Bucharest. Ugh! We're all pretty tired, but it was a good end to the trip. It said a great deal about the trust that we've built with Florin that he would invite us to his house. We've found that the people we're working with in eastern Europe are typically very hesitant to invite us to their homes, simply because they are so very small and modest compared to the riches of the U.S. Praise God that Florin was so comfortable with us! The ride back to Bucharest was a hoot, too. We were doing our best to keep Florin awake, and so we spent much of the ride giving him various American idioms for various categories of words. Hilarious! Our favorites from him were "Home, James" and "Put down the crack pipe!"

Another great trip, another set of miracles following miracles. God is simply too good to us. Over the next few days, I'll try to think about the bigger picture that came from this and analyze a little. More to come...