pre-English Camp

Tomorrow (Wednesday), Paul and I are taking our first trip to Bucharest --- not to get on a plane and come home, but to pick up the American Team! They will be arriving after 20 hours or so of traveling, to get in a van and drive another 4 hours to Craiova. We can't wait to see everyone! After arriving in Craiova, and cleaning up, we will go out to dinner (ordering from a Romanian menu is quite entertaining if you aren't from here). Jared Holbrook and Jonathan Chapman are staying with us and we have already planned to take them to get pastries on Thursday morning. I would encourage everyone to eat as many pastries as you can, especially Romanian pastries (and go running)!

On to more serious things... The American and Romanian Leadership Teams will leave on Thursday morning to travel to camp and get everything set up for the students, who will arrive on Friday, early afternoon. English Camp begins with the students taking an English test (written and verbal) so we can appropriately place them in the six levels of classes. Paul is in level 6 with Tara and Jeff. I am in level 4 with Zach and Ashley.

A typical camp day goes as follows: devotional in the morning (mostly for the leadership, but students are invited and encouraged to come), English teaching, English discussion (incorporating the Great Gatsby and Jacob & Joseph from the Old Testament), a little free time, afternoon activities (art, swing dancing, apologetics), and an evening activity (movie night, Starbucks night, Mystery Dinner Theatre, Gangsta' games, Banquet). The days seem full of fun activities, but the heart behind English Camp is to create an atmosphere where students can come, be comfortable, and discuss issues and beliefs that actually matter.

Please pray for camp:

• That God would be glorified in all that we do
  
• That students would be open to talking about God and about the gospel of Jesus Christ
  
• That Paul and I would be able to build relationships with the students so we can follow up with them after camp ends
• That we would have divine appointments with people as we share the gospel
• That God would fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we are sensitive to Him while sharing and that He would lead our conversations
• For the American Team - safe travel, empowerment of the Spirit, boldness in sharing
• That the American Team would be able to encourage the OSCEC team and build relationships quickly

"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ..." (Colossians 4:2-3)

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Faith

I want to have faith in God. The God we see in scripture is an awesome God. He is powerful, mighty and He takes care of His people. I was inspired today by a very familiar story in Daniel 3 about Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego. For those of you who may not be familiar with the story, King Nebuchadnezzar had arrested these three men and demanded that they fall down and worship a golden idol that he had set up. Here is what they said in response.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18

These men were men of faith. They were standing looking into the eyes of the most powerful man on the earth at the time and saying, "Our God can deliever us from both the furnace and you, so we will not bow down and serve your god." I want to believe that even if the armies of the world arrest me, the Lord is able to deliver me out of their hands. Is there anything that our God cannot do? Is there anything beyond His power? Oh to actually believe that God is a God that can DO things for me that I cannot do!

This is the trap I fall into often. I say to myself, "I know that God is powerful, and I know that He can do great things," but then I go and live my life as if God is capable of nothing, because I am trying to take care of absolutely everything by my own efforts. I try to save people with my intellect, I try to bring people to Enlgish Camp by giving them an invitation, I try to not sin by exercising my willpower, all while scarcely uttering an earnest prayer from my lips. I pray, but so often I pray because I am supposed to, and not because God is powerful to do everything. Where is my faith in the God who moves? In the God who can do everything? I want to have the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego when I am before kings, and when I am before college students. I want it in a firey furnace, and when I am fighting my own sin. I want it when I am confronted by spiritual darkness as well as when I am speaking to Cris. Lord Jesus, give me faith in You that goes beyond what I could probably do by myself!

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Bobby & Raluca's Wedding Photos

Go to this Link:

http://www.pixagogo.com/3891444230

Enjoy!

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The Blog of Steele: Limited Atonement

I posted a lengthy post on the Blog of Steele about why I feel like I must (from scripture) reject the doctrine of limited atonement. If you are interested, I would love to hear feedback. You can find it at:

http://theblogofsteele.blogspot.com/2008/07/limited-atonement.html

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The adventure of the pillowcase

One pillowcase from our bed decided that it didn't want to be part of our lives anymore, and we are sad. We always tried to show it love and respect, but apparently it wasn't enough. The pillowcase decided to leave us.

Here is what happened: Cris was hanging our laundry out to dry on Friday. She didn't know that the pillowcase was hiding in the corner of our fitted sheet, just waiting to make the jump. She strectched the sheet out to dry, and I saw the wily little guy leave us, and fall out of sight.

I assumed that the pillowcase had fallen from our fifth floor balcony to the ground. I underestimated the pillowcase. If it had fallen to the ground, we would be able to easily rescue it and bring it home. It decided to stop one floor below us on another apartment's clotheslines.
How are we supposed to get the pillowcase? It is still four stories above the ground. It is more difficult to ask for help from someone you don't know here, because we don't speak Romanian yet. This called for an engineer.
I have two trekking ploes in our apartment. My idea was to move the pillowcase off the line with the trekking pole and make it fall to the ground.
This wasn't the most comfortable position, but we did succeed in moving the pillowcase a little bit. Cris and I wondered, do we have anything longer than the trekking pole? It turns out that we did - our shower curtain rod. We lowered it off the balcony to try to rescue the pillowcase, and were able to move it even more. In fact, we moved it so far to the edge that it got hung on a bolt on the edge of the clothes rod.
Now we needed a hook to pick it up. I fastened a piece of metal bent like a hook to the shower curtain rod...
but we were unable to really grab the pillowcase. We tried one last time by attaching two trekking poles together with a rubber band, but to no avail. Our pillowcase got a really good grip on that bolt, and we couldn't get it off.

Today we tired what any sensible person would do, go and ask. However, we got no answer. They weren't home. From the looks of their balcony, it doesn't look like anyone actually lives there. I have no idea if we will ever be able to get our pillowcase back. It has already survived a thunderstorm and still it clings to the bolt. We are sad. We always tried to care for it, but it seems that the pillowcase does not want us in its life anymore. The end.

P.S. We are hoping that Zach Varnell brings his fishing pole so we have a chance of reeling it back in. (hint hint)

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Discussing the gospel with Catalin

Today I met with a close friend here named Catalin who became a Christian less than two years ago. We were discussing God and the gift he has given us in Jesus Christ. Cata said, "Think about this, would you send your only son, whom you love, to go into the river and die to save a mosquito? Or if you saved the city of mosquitos through sending your son to die, what would you do if an ungrateful mosquito landed on you and started sucking your blood? Would you love it? Would you still try to save it?"

This analogy he makes is sticking, because we won't do these things, but it is not strong enough. There is a larger gap between God and us than there is between us and a mosquito. We have offended God much more than the mosquito who sucks our blood. So God sent His Son to save us. His love is incomprehenisble.

What I liked about Cata's analogy is that God's love is an incomprehensible love. My answer to the question of would I send my son to die so that I might save a mosquito is "Of course not." If a mosquito that I had already sacrificed to save started sucking my blood again, would I love it? No! I'd smash it in an instant. I hate mosquitos. I am currently covered in bites from them. They have offended me. However, I have offended God much more than the mosquitos have offended me. I am more worthy of an abrupt end of my life as punishment for continued sin than the mosquitos who continue to bite me.

God is love. He has loved us with a love that is beyond comprehension. Let us worship Him and thank Him for His grace and His love for us! Think about how undeserving we are of the cross. Let it amaze you. How could God have done something like this? How incredible is it that I receive life from this amazing love!

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Handing out invitations again

Hey everyone, Cris and I are going to help OSCEC hand out invitations to English Camp tomorow at 10:00am (3:00 am in America.) We would appreciate prayers. We still need to have around 20 more students to attend camp. Pray that those that the Father wants to come will be at camp with us! We want divine appointments as we go out tomorrow.

**Adendum**

We just got back from actually hadning the invitations out, and it went well. We invited over 100 students that we have never met before to camp, and quite a few seemed genuinely interested. Hopefully they will get back to us and actually come. Please pray for that!

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proDeo

We went to proDeo on a Sunday morning for the first time yesterday. The external appearance of the church service and church body looked like a smaller version of Cornerstone. Perhaps it resembled the 1992 version of Cornerstone with about 60 people and only a few children, almost all of them five and under. The entire service was from 10 to 12 in the morning and started with about 40 minutes of worship, a few announcements, a 10 or 15 minute break and then Doru (the current senior pastor of proDeo) preached a message that was around an hour long.

For those of you that don't know, ProDeo was formed from the student ministry OSCEC in 2002. The church formed primarily because the other churches in the area were not specifically focused on reaching students, and the students in OSCEC were seeking a church that had a student ministry. OSCEC, the campus ministry, began to fill a void for the students that were looking for a church home. This was a problem because OSCEC was not a church. After much prayer it seemed that the best option was to start a new church, proDeo Baptist, where they could minister as a church to the students who needed a church.

Six years later, here we sat in proDeo. The leadership has recently changed. Doru is currently the senior pastor because Adrian Lauran, the founding pastor, has been on a sabbatical since January, that is supposed to last for one year. Doru began a series on the spiritual disciplines this week, encouraging the church that we do not become godly by chance, but that it takes work. In the coming weeks they will look at specific spiritual disciplines that might serve the church to walk though.

We enjoyed the service on Sunday morning. It was strange listening to a message through translation, but we are getting used to that. Sorina served us yesterday by translating the whole message for Lance, her husband, as well as the two of us. We are looking forward to the time here where we get to serve this church. It will be a great time to trust the Lord!

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Update on Invitations

Hey everyone! Thanks for praying for us as we were in the Center last night! We were able to hand out about 70 invitations and explain camp to those who may be interested, but would still like to do more than we were able to do last night. The crowd was actually younger than we were expecting (most of them were in high school and we are aiming for college students). Marius, one of the OSCEC students, suggested going to the University next week during registration (we didn't know this was even possible until he told us), and going to a local park that is quite popular. Marius said, "We must do everything possible!" Paul and I were really impressed with his heart to reach the students and to ask them to sign up for camp. By us handing our fliers, students will learn about this opportunity, and hopefully come to camp where they will hear the gospel clearly proclaimed! We want to do all we can to work hard and be faithful to inform students of the camp so that the Father can draw them to come!

Thanks for praying -- the plan is to do something similar early next week.

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Handing out Fliers

One huge prayer request on this end is that more students would sign up for camp. There are only 12 who have officially paid. This is fairly typical for late sign-ups, but we need more people than usual this year since the American team is larger (yay!). Anyway, tonight & tomorrow night at 7pm (12 noon your time), Paul and I will be helping the Romanians pass out fliers and spend time talking to people in the Center and a local park.

Please pray for this time:
1. that God would direct us
2. that we would have divine appointments
3. that students would be interested and sign up!

We already know the Lord will call those who He chooses to camp, so pray that we would be open to the Spirit and follow His directing!

Thanks!!!

***Update***

Our graphic designer, Robbie, had a computer problem and he lost the file with the invitations before we printed them. Robbie is going to try to remake them and hopefully we will be able to hand them out tomorrow. However, we are not able to do so tonight. Also now 13 have paid, and 5 more will very likely come, but haven't paid yet.

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Our Apartment!

Sorry it took so long, but here are photos of our apartment!

The Living Room:

The Kitchen:
The Bathroom:
Our Bedroom:
The Views from our Balcony:

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Bobby and Raluca's wedding

Hello everybody! Cris and I had a very interesting cultural experience yesterday when we went to Bobby and Raluca’s wedding. For those of you who are not aware, Bobby is the leader of OSCEC, the campus ministry we are working with. We have also gotten to know Raluca over the last two summers, so this was a wedding of two friends.

Romanian weddings are not very much like American weddings. Although this wedding was not totally like the Romanian Orthodox weddings that are more common here, it still was very different from any wedding in America I have been to. This is the case even though as Baptists their theological positions and worship styles are similar to ours.

First, the ceremony is long. It was right at two hours, which is quite a lot longer than our 45 minutes or so last December. We enjoyed it. We had the vast majority of the ceremony translated by one of the pastors’ wives. She is a servant! We were thankful we weren’t totally lost for two hours. The message delivered by Adrian (the pastor who founded proDeo) was very similar to what Cornerstone would have said about the same subject. He preached that men and women are equal in the sight of God but have different God-given roles in marriage. It was a great sermon. The ceremony started at two and was over by four and the reception began two hours later.

At six, we were at the reception. If this were in America, it would probably be over by nine, or maybe even ten if it were a rockin’ place. Well, this reception was quite short by Romanian standards. We left at 12:30 am. Seriously. Cris and I were tired. And I’m serious about the reception being short by Romanian standards. We were told that most Orthodox receptions last until four, five or even six am! Radu, a good friend of ours who is getting married in October, told us that his reception will probably last until 4am. His will not go later, because the restaurant said that they will close at four.

You may be wondering what we did during a six and a half hour reception. We ate food. We ate lots of food. This was a five course meal, and that does not count ice cream or a table appetizer. It really could be called a seven course meal. And that doesn’t count the big pile of fruit that started on the table. In between courses there were table competitions, live music, and games for the bride and groom. But my favorite aspect of a Romanian wedding reception is when the bride is kidnapped.

Catalin, Marius, Serafim, Sorina and Lance all conspired together and took Raluca away from the restaurant while Bobby was in the bathroom. Serafim came back to present the ransom demand. The only ransom Bobby had to pay was to sing a song performed by a female vocalist. This was an easy ransom to pay. Typically, the groom is asked to do something he is very uncomfortable with, mostly to embarrass him in front of a large group of people. It is hilarious.

Anyways, it was fun. The climax of it all was what Cris called the “parade of cake” at about 12am, when we had our last course. They dimmed all the lights, played a Romanian song that everyone but us sang along with, and rolled out a five tier cake. We really did enjoy it and enjoyed sleeping in this morning!

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House Church

Everyone is wondering how church was....it was great! The way proDEO does it is that they have typical Sunday morning meetings one week, and the next they have house church meetings, which are basically small groups. There are three groups and we went to the one with mostly college students, led by Razvan. It was smaller than a typical house group meeting because a lot of people were preparing for Bobby's wedding (in the afternoon), but the people in attendance were: Razvan, Oana, Marius, Catalin, Stefan, Serafim, Paul, and myself. I was so excited because we are actually going to be able to go deeper and get to know these people we are serving alongside! There was so much humility on display as people were sharing what the Lord was showing them or where the Holy Spirit was convicting them of sin. And, we were able to encourage one another. It reminded me of the verse that says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near" (Hebrews 10:25). The group was the perfect size and for the most part, everyone was able to share and we were able to pray at the end. The thought kept going through my mind, 'this is what small groups are supposed to be like!" My temptation is to hide in "small groups" because of fear of man, but there is no where for me to hide here! It's good for my soul!

FYI - Typically, what they try to do is use House Church like we would Care Groups back home in Knoxville. There will typically be questions pertaining to the sermon and how we have been seeking to apply what we have heard and also time to be able to share what the Lord is revealing to us throughout the week.

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Prayer Requests

Hello everybody. Cris and I would be blessed if you could spare some time to lift the two of us up in prayer in the following areas as we go through our time here.

1. That we would have rich quiet times.

We will be weak if we are not communing with the Lord. We need His grace to enable us to see His face, and if we cannot see Him, we will not be able to show Him to others. So please pray that Cris and I might establish our lives here in Romania with rich fellowship with the Lord.

2. That our communion with the Lord would overflow to our relationship to each other.

We want our relationship with each other to be marked as a relationship between two people who know the Lord, and not merely two people. The Lord needs to be around us and the effects of Him need to be discernable in our interactions with each other.

3. That we would be more God-focused.

We have spent most of our time here either trying to learn Romanian or taking care of details with the help of our Romanian friends. Often in the midst of secular activities We loose our focus on the Lord. I want to be more aware of Him throughout the day!

4. That we would not learn Romanian motivated by either pride or fear of man.

This has been a struggle for us either fearing people because we are not progressing learning Romanian or being proud because we are learning so quickly. We want to learn Romanian because laboring to learn this language will help us spread the gospel, and I think will glorify the Lord.

5. That Cris and I would not lack fellowship with each other.

This is similar to #2, but Cris and I desire to be having intentional fellowship with each other. We desire God-focused conversation, not merely conversation. Please pray for special grace for me to lead in this area.

6. That the Lord would give me favor in my first evangelistic opportunity here in Romania tomorrow.

Some of the guys are going to play soccer with some non-believers tomorrow evening at 7 (noon EST) with the purpose of building relationships with the guys that we meet. I ask that the Lord might give me favor with those that I meet, so that actual relationships may be formed.

Thank you everyone.

-Paul

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We Arrived in Romania!!!

We are officially here in Craiova, living in our cute little apartment in the center of town! We'll put up pictures once we have our bags unpacked. It is wonderful! We are really close to the University, the church, and little shops that we may need from time to time. It is perfect and came furnished so we didn't have to buy anything, and will be great for hosting people, especially students in the future! Oana was very kind to clean for us and buy some essentials we would need in the first few days.

Yesterday, we arrived in Craiova in the evening, got cleaned up, and were invited out to dinner with our close friends, Radu and Olivia. Then, after catching up on two night's worth of sleep (13 hours...) we woke up today (Wed.). We are still trying to get settled in and unpack everything, as well as get acquainted with where we live, how to get places, and speak Romanian. That will probably be the case for quite some time.

One crazy adventure Paul and I had tonight was cooking for the first time in our new place. Haha. After spending more time in the supermarket than we should have (because we didn't know what anything said or where anything was), then came home and realized we had a gas stove that needed lit, but weren't able to bring our lighters on the plane. As we were walking out the door to buy lighters, Paul had a brilliant idea to check around the apartment first and see what we could find. Thankfully, we found matches!!! After pouring in the "oil" to the skillet, the aroma omitted smelled much like vinegar. It is vinegar....we can't read Romanian (yet!).

So, now we are cooking and plan on buying vegtable oil sometime soon.

Romanian word for the day: oţet (vinegar)

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