Pillowcase: The Return

Around five minutes ago, a man came and knocked on our door. He told me in Romanian quite a few things, but the only things I understood were the words for "downstairs" and "balcony." He handed me a pillowcase.

He handed me THE pillowcase. This pillowcase has been outside hanging on his balcony since July 18th. It has been through sun, and wind, and rain, and thunderstorms. It withstood engineered attempts at its retrieval. (Read our post about that if you missed it, it can be found here: http://steeleromania.blogspot.com/2008/07/adventure-of-pillowcase.html) I'm not sure if the owner has been on vacation or what, but after 41 days outside, the pillowcase is home. The above picture is of our victory celebration. The pillowcase has been wrapped around a bolt, which caused its strange shape.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Only Christ Crucified

Chris Moore encouraged Cris and I recently with this scripture.

“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

- 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

I have been meditating on the passage off and on since Chris Moore shared it with us yesterday. I think it was the Lord that encouraged Chris to share this passage with us, because I believe it needs to be the motivation for all our interactions with both the believers and non-believers here in Romania. We want to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified so that the faith of those we interact with might not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The primary subject that Chris Moore was discussing with us at the time was evangelism. ProDeo evangelizes differently than Cornerstone does. Cris and I are considering which differences are good, which are not good, and trying to determine how we should act. This scripture answers our question. It is not about methods, be they Cornerstone’s or ProDeo’s. What is important is that we make what we know Christ and Him crucified, and forsake the wisdom of the world. Christ crucified is what we know. It should be all we know. I want to be an idiot in all other things relating to evangelism. All I want to know is Christ crucified. This glorifies God. It takes the faith off of the strategy and puts in onto the Lord. (I’m not advocating stupidity in how we share the gospel, because how we share matters. What I am advocating is that we put our eyes on our amazing God and not on any particular strategy when we share.)

It is a temptation for Cris and I to see differences between ProDeo and CCK and think, “It would be much better if ProDeo did this like CCK does it.” Sometimes we might be right. Sometimes we are probably wrong. Cornerstone is ten times larger than ProDeo and is in a different country with different challenges. There must be differences. However, that isn’t the point.

Here’s my point. If everyone here said, “Ok, we are going to start evangelizing just like CCK, and we are going to run our campus ministry exactly like VFC,” what would happen? Maybe they see growth. Maybe their campus ministry doubles, and their evangelism becomes more fruitful. If this happened, what would the result be? ProDeo could say, “Cornerstone and VFC really have good ministry ideas, and they were really helpful. We want to be sure that we use this wisdom to make our church stronger.” I could leave and think that I have done a good job. I supplied wisdom that led to the growth of ministries, and now something like Cornerstone Church of Craiova exists. Is this success?
No! It is not success. I don’t want to encourage a church to look to ministry methods for solutions to their difficulties. I want to encourage ProDeo to have faith in the power of God and NOT in the wisdom of men, or of churches, as wise as that wisdom might be. I want to see a faith in the power of God to yield increase to this church and this campus ministry. I want to encourage ProDeo and OSCEC to have faith in the power of God. I hope they encourage me to have faith in the power of God. I pray that it is both. I want to be an encouragement to the church that the gospel (Christ crucified!) is the power of God to salvation. This is how our time here will be fruitful. We have the opportunity to be an encouragement to a healthy church to continue to bank all of their hope and trust on one truth: Christ and Him crucified.

*To the Romanians: this is a temptation of ours, not a goal. We know Cornerstone’s methods, and we believe them to be good, and they are good for a church of ~600 in America. Some of Cornerstone’s methods would not work here. The above section is a reflection of a temptation of ours if everything worked perfectly. The point is that even if proDeo became the church that did everything the way we think is best, (which is based only on our experience,) the result is not the proper one even if it did work perfectly. Our faith MUST be in God and not in methods, whether it is CCK’s, “How Good Are You” tract, or ProDeo’s “3 ‘P’s of evangelism. Both methods are good and helpful, but they cannot be what we trust. God must be who we trust. I pray that my point has been communicated effectively.*

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Craiova vs. Oţelul Galaţi

I was able to go to my first European soccer game yesterday with my friends Stefan, Ovi and Emi. It was the hometown team Univeristatea Craiova vs. Oţelul Galaţi. Oţelul was in first place when the match started. They are not the best team, my Romanian friends tell me, it is just early in the season and they have played a few good games. It made for an interesting game to watch, and was a new and fun experience for me. Here is Stefan as he eagerly yearns for the game to start.
Ovi and Emi are here also before the start of the game.
Craiova's stadium can hold around 40,000 people, but it is under repair. As a result, this game was played in the second largest stadium in town, which only holds around 10,000 people. The enitre stadium was sold out, except for the visitor's section, which might have had 20 people in it.Many people prefered to sit on the hill side than in their seats.
Before the game started, fans were waving this banner. I couldn't read what it said from my seat. However, is was fun to be a part of a passionate fan base at a futbol game.
Here a member of Oţelul tries to tackle Costea (#10), the best player on Craiova's team.

A rush for the ball. (You can see the ball, it is just over the stands in this picture.)This is a foul on Oţelul that wasn't called and sent the crowd roaring, because they wanted a penalty.

In the end, Craiova won. The goal was scored on a header in the second half. I didn't have my camera out at the time, so there are no pictures of it. It was pretty. Anyways, we won, and the team played pretty well. It was a fairly slow game, because Oţelul was primarily trying to play defense. They rarely tried to attack. There weren't very many chances for either side, but we got one, and that's all that we needed.

I enjoyed it. I've wanted to go to a European futbol match for a long time, and I got to yesterday. This isn't the English Premiership, bu it doesn't matter. I really enjoyed myself, and this still was a high level of play.

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Greatness of the Lord

Psalm 145:
1 I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever.
2 Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.
4 One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.
5 I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works.
6 Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness.
7 They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness.
8 The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy.
9 The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
10 All Your works shall praise You, O LORD, and Your saints shall bless You.
11 They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power,
12 To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.
14 The LORD upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season.
16 You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways, gracious in all His works.
18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them.
20 The LORD preserves all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh shall bless His holy name Forever and ever.

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Funny Faces

These are some funny faces from camp, and I think that they all pretty much explain themselves. However, for the first one, you need to know that we were having an event at proDeo, and one of our neighbors popped his head over the fence and started hanging out with us for a while. It was hilarious.

Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars?
Becca got sleepy.

Jeff provided so much material, but this was my favorite.

This is our friend the frog. He was very big and scary.

My wife...

And yes, we are totally gangsta.

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What God was doing at camp

English Camp 2008 was a time where we saw the Lord mightily at work in students’ hearts! Thank you all for your faithful prayers. The American Team arrived one evening and by the next day, we all arrived at camp to prepare for the students. As soon as the students arrive, things are quickly rolling and there is non-stop action until departure for home.

The English discussions, apologetics activity, and drama at the camp conclusion all seemed to be key areas that served to spark discussions about the gospel with these students. There were various in-depth conversations about the gospel that took place as a result of these activities. Some students were affected more than others. It seems that the Lord is providing fertile soil here for seeds to be planted. Please pray that as seeds are planted, the Lord would bring forth a harvest and would regenerate hearts for His glory!

One thing we are very grateful for is the American Team and all of their preparation and hard work throughout the past few months. We were specifically encouraged by how God sovereignly drew each of the Americans to come and how He used every one of them individually and as a whole. Individually, they were able to have conversations with students that we simply were not able to talk to because of time or because we were in a different group from them. As a whole, they were a shining example of Jesus Christ and how He laid down His life to serve. This is also a perfect example of how the various parts of the body work together to serve the church! Every year, I am amazed at how everyone loves serving together and does whatever possible to make the activities enjoyable for the students. Thank you for laying down your lives for the sake of the gospel!

Along with what is evidently spiritual in nature, we are thankful to God for the many relationships He blessed at camp. One week is not nearly enough time to develop deep relationships with everyone we met, but thankfully we have the whole year to meet with and share the gospel with these students. The Lord especially blessed two friendships for Paul and a couple for me as well. We anticipate how the Lord will grow these friendships in the coming year.

If you would like to know more specific details about what happened at camp, please provide us with your email address and we will add you to the prayer update email list.

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EC 2008 summary

Hey there everybody!

We just got back from English Camp a couple of days ago, and I wanted to share a little bit about what actually happened by taking you through a typical day and showing pictures of the activities.

Every morning would start off with devotions where we would worship and hear a short devotional from one of the leaders.


Afterwards we had breakfast. (I only mention the meal because Thorn’s sausage man, held here by Daniel was hilarious.)

At 10am the English classes began. The first half of the class consisted of games and more of a grammar teaching focus. The second part of the class was a reading and discussion time where we discussed themes associated with the stories of Jacob and Joseph found in Genesis.

We finished the classes in time to break for our three-course lunch. After lunch we had free time, which was supposed to be used for sports, but there are a lot of sports that are hard to play when there is no flat ground. One of the main attractions during free time became the zip line, which was headed up by Razvan, Dash and Thorn. I got to help a little bit with it as well, which was great, because that meant I got to ride it an extra time.

At 5pm we started our afternoon activities, which were apologetics, dancing and art. The apologetics discussion this year was led by Ryan. He propsed an idea for the discussion which was to ask the students at the beginning of camp, “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?” We took the student supplied questions and discussed them during apologetics. I think this yielded more fruitful discussions than in past years.

In dancing, Jared and Naomi taught both regular swing and the Charleston to the students. We used the Charleston several times during the week, and I always felt like a loser because I was never in class to learn how to do it. One night Cris and I were supposed to dance the Charleston in a skit, but it wasn’t working so we did swing instead.

Art was led by Michelle. The students were decorating simple composition notebooks to make them into something that the could hold on to, and that they could use to sign a the banquet at the end of camp.

After dinner we got back together for evening activities, which were different every day. The first night we played lots of games, like this game wher ethe object is to smash the other people's ballons while keeping yours intact.

On movie night we watched “The Great Gatsby.”

The “Gangsta Games” consisted of various fun events thought up by Thorn, Chapman and Kati. This is the game prisoner escape."

We had fun at the Starbuck/Open Mike Karaoke Night. This is Julian, Florin and Aurel singing, "It's My Life."

There was the first ever mystery dinner theater, “The Cat’s Pajamas"

And finally we had our banquet.

However, my two favorite parts of camp were the Amazing Race, and the hike we took on the last morning. The Amazing Race was a very long scavenger hunt up, down, and all around the mountains that the lodge was located around. My team came in second after returning first, because the other team had a time bonus to win. I would estimate that we walked 12 miles in the 4.5 hours of the race. It was long, but it was also very beautiful.

The morning we left 13 of us woke up and met at 5am and climbed to the top of Dilham, a small mountain in the Bucegi mountains, and saw some beautiful things. I really enjoyed this hike, and it really makes me want to do more hiking here, because these mountains are much more intense than the Smokies.

Finally, the camp conclusion featured a testimony by Catalin of how God worked in his life, along with this very well done drama that a large part of the American team put on.

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