Precious (a Romania story)

Some moments burn into my memory with the depth of realizing something… like why we place a high value on certain things.

It was day eight of our ten days on the outreach in Romania. We were back in Pitesti after being in the villages and we had just led much of a Wednesday night prayer meeting at the church. There were about 20 people there, in addition to our team. After the service, one of the ladies in the church, a dentist, gave us each a beaded bracelet in the colors of a wordless book: black (sin), red (Jesus’ blood), white (forgiveness), blue (righteousness or the Holy Spirit), green (growth), and gold (heaven).

I’ve seen such bracelets before… usually made for children with cheap plastic beads and easily discarded … but this bracelet was more beautiful than the usual kind.

(unfortunately, I did not pick a sunny day to photograph this)

One of the girls noticed how sparkly the beads were and asked if they were crystals.

Yes, the woman said, they were Swarovski crystals. We all recognized the name as something valuable and began to look at the bracelets differently, thanking her more and putting them on with more honor than we would have given the plastic variety. She noticed – and what she said has stayed in my mind ever since:

It is precious – but not because of the value of the crystals. The value of the bracelet is in what it represents: Christ’s sacrifice to bring us into right relationship with God.

The value (and the cost) of that sacrifice is beyond our understanding.

I was humbled to realize how much stock I put in the value of something material… as if that value could increase the honor or beauty of what it represented. On the contrary, the high value of the materials should serve as a reflection of how valuable the message of the gospel is.

It struck me later when I observed the way prisms spilled out from the bracelet onto everything around in the bright daylight that that we should also be like that – allowing God’s light to pass through us and create something beautiful.

Our first kids' program (Romania)

 After we arrived with the bikes, the kids (and some parents) started coming

 And we headed into the village to let more people know we were doing something

And they came... (Raluca here is helping a little one)

 We played volleyball

 and soccer (futbol!) where the bright vests came in handy to mark teams

 and Duck Duck Goose

 A little one with the moms who had gathered on the side to watch

 Some of the little ones just wanted to play "house"

 Mike and Chorong did a skit

After we taught them some songs, Edme shared the gospel 

And a verse

And we all prayed together

The photos are all from Sarah Freemantle or Bit Cho Rong Gang.

Biking in Romania

Here are some pictures from biking in Romania.... 

all of them were taken by either Sarah Freemantle or Bit Cho Rong Gang, who were on the outreach

The roads started out pretty good - paved and shared by wagons and cars

 Eventually we were on unpaved roads

Horse-drawn wagons have been here 

(Thanks for the great photo, Sarah!) 

Here we are setting up for a children's program that was held at an old camp site near a gypsy village 

 The kids started gathering....

They liked the bikes too (more on the kids program in the next post) 

And us chilling out back at the church 

A lovely roadside view

The Scale (an explanation)

Someone asked me recently what it matters what someone believes about salvation. Why do I care if they want to work their way to heaven?

Perhaps this will make it clearer:

There was a man who really wanted some coffee. He had no way of getting coffee because they didn’t sell it in his town or even his country. You had to be perfect to get coffee. Someone else who had access to coffee (because he was perfect) obtained some coffee for him and wrapped it up in a gift basket with a coffee maker and a mug and set it on the man’s porch as a gift. But the man who wanted the coffee wanted to earn it… so he did all kinds of good things. He kept his porch clean and swept all around the gift basket every day. He was usually kind to his neighbors and  tried not to do bad things. Most people would say that he did a pretty good job of being good… he only failed in little things, like sometimes fudging numbers on his taxes or the one time he dropped leaves into his neighbors yard because he didn’t want to clean them up himself. He was a good man. The day finally came when he could stand in line for the coffee shop and be examined for perfection. The examiner looked over the man’s good things and said, “you have done well in these,” but then looked at his bad things and said, “but there’s no way you can ever outweigh these because even one bad thing means you have failed to be perfect.”

The man was very sad and he remembered the gift basket on his porch, but while he was in line to be examined for coffee, his house had been destroyed and there was no way for him to go back there and pick up the gift of coffee someone else had given him. It was too late.

 

"There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.  This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness.  If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness* even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” John 3:1-21 (NKJV)   

*See Exodus 21:4-9 where those who had complained against God and been bitten by “fiery serpents” from God looked upon the bronze serpent that God told Moses to make and were healed – because they looked to God for their salvation.

The reason what we believe about salvation matters is because the Bible is pretty clear that good works are great… we are called by God to walk in them – but we are called by God first to be made alive. The works we do when we are still “dead in trespasses” are worthless, because no amount of good works can wipe out the “dead in trespasses” status we have. 

Only God’s mercy and grace can do that.

Ephesians 2 says:

“But you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Grace is so important – grace is “unmerited favor.” It’s different than mercy, which says, “I’m not going to punish you for what you’ve done.”

But the thing is, mercy implies that there is a code of justice (that we deserve something else) and indeed God is also a God of justice. Our good things can’t outweigh the sins we have committed. Sin leads to death – and in our sin nature, we are spiritually dead. So Jesus implemented justice for our sins – He “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” because by His “stripes you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

The book of Colossians speaks about believers in Christ being “qualified,” not by their own righteousness, but by the God who has given us an inheritance (Grace) and “delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love – in whom we have redemption though His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Mercy).

Grace says, “To all who received Him, He gave the right to be called children of God.” (John 1:12)

So why does it matter what someone believes about salvation? Because (as C.S. Lewis said) it is something that can’t be “moderately important.” If it is true, it is of utmost importance. If it’s all a lie, then it doesn’t matter at all.

But it breaks my heart to meet people who believe in God, who believe in Christ, who believe that He died and rose again – and who also believe that they have to be good enough. They reject the gift of God because they want to earn it.

But the thing is, it can’t be earned. Isaiah 64:6 says that “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” – the Hebrew word used for “filthy” is associated with menstruation… and it reminds me of the first apartment I lived in, which had some nasty aspects to it actually and what I’m about to say is also pretty nasty. Someone dropped a bag of garbage in the hallway and there was a used tampon that spilled out. It lay there in the common hallway of the apartment building for weeks. Everybody saw it, but nobody wanted to touch it… because it was disgusting… it was filthy – and THAT is what our good deeds apart from God are when it comes to earning salvation… a used tampon laying in the hallway. Our good deeds apart from God may be nice… they may help people. But they do nothing to reconcile us to God.

For that matter, our good deeds in God do nothing to reconcile us to God. Reconciliation is His gift, apart from anything good we can do. The good that we do is meant to be a reflection of God in the world.

I do not have a problem with saved people being in the Orthodox church… what breaks my heart are the ones who are in the church physically, but in their hearts have actually rejected the gift of the God the church is all about and chosen to keep on living as dead men.

The scale (a Romania story)

The ten-day outreach in Romania was divided into three parts: preparation, ministry in the gypsy village, and outreach in the city of Pitesti (“Pih-tesht”).

During the city outreach, there were groups of us who would prayer walk through the main square in the city – a street that was about a 20 minute walk each direction. We were praying for the people we passed, the city in general, and for people who would visit the bus we had parked on the far side of the main square. The bus was full of books – Bibles, books on Christian living, theology, and also fiction and children’s educational books. We had free tea and coffee and were also offering blood pressure checks. People from the church in Pitesti were there to talk with people – which is, of course, much easier when you speak the same language. Most of the team could only say the most basic Romanian phrases by this point and either talked with people through an interpreter or spoke with people who could speak English.

But that is all backstory for what I want to tell you…

Oliviana, our interpreter, and I were prayer walking. The city square is really two squares connected by a walking street – there are shops on either side and little outdoor restaurants, trees, and fountains in the middle. It’s a beautiful, very European city square.

Every so often, we would see an older person sitting along the walking street with a bathroom scale. Their sign generally said “50 bani.” These unconventional street vendors were charging the equivalent of 15 cents for people passing by to weigh themselves.

Oliviana and I were passing one particularly elderly looking man with a scale and a sign and she grabbed my arm. “I feel sorry for him,” she said. “Do you have a leu?” (100 bani = 1 leu). I did have a leu, so we stepped onto his scale… and Oliviana, who is a gifted evangelist, started talking with the man.  She asked him his age – 87 – and about his beliefs and what he thought about heaven. They talked for a while and she explained the gospel. I understood a lot of it, and she translated the rest for me. The gist of what he said was that he’d done good things, so he hoped that he would go to heaven. From what I understand, that’s the essence of many Orthodox believers’ theology of salvation… good works and the hope that the scale weighs heavier on the good side than on the side of their sin.

The verse that came to my head while we were talking was Titus 3:5:

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us…

Oliviana translated the verse and asked if we could pray for him. He said that she could… but while we were praying (Oliviana was praying aloud in Romanian) he pulled out his cell phone and started calling someone.

So we finished praying and said goodbye to the man with the scale.

And that’s the end of my story… not the most uplifting one, but a response that was quite common during our outreach there.

Would you pray with me for the Orthodox believers in Jesus – that they would understand the grace that Jesus has for us, and have assurance that they can be saved?

Reflections on Romania

I have had a difficult time processing my time in Romania, a time that so many of you prayed for the work and prayed for me to find direction. I appreciate your prayers, so much, knowing that our Father is faithful, far beyond what we understand or even what we can see.

           

I went to Romania in August with expectations – the hope that my heart would hear a little better from the Lord about that country while I was actually in it and also that by seeing firsthand what that organization was doing, I might have peace about applying to join them for a couple of years or more.

The trip was not what I expected. Everything seemed very serious to me, while I was there – I was making important life decisions and I had to be very serious about it. Mike, another American on the team, kept asking me “Are you excited to be here? – because you don’t seem excited.”

Well, I’m not 21, I kept thinking… I’m a little older, a little wiser and a little bit more serious about life.

But Mike had a lot to teach me.

We talked a lot during some of the evenings and I learned more of his story…. That he’s been through tough things too and had to let go of expectations.

And I realized how tight I was holding the things I love – both Romania and home. I was holding onto the heart-breaking thought of leaving behind my family and everything I’ve known my whole life. I was holding onto the fear of working in an environment so intense that I lose my stamina (as has happened before). I was holding onto the dream of a simple life in which I get to marry somebody and raise a family while planning on someday sitting in twin rocking chairs on our front porch.

By going to Romania, I think I was telling God, “show me what you have for me and I’ll decide if this is worth the trade. “ And at the same time I was mourning the loss of my small dreams and all that I hold dear, before God even asked me to let it go.

Holding it tight and weeping over it – I don’t think this is what God had in mind for me.

Because it was me focusing on… me.

Mike, the ever-excitable Mike, had lost some things in his life. But he had allowed God to shape his focus, to give and to take away each in their own season. And the work of God filled him with joy.

I don’t want it to sound like I had a miserable time in Romania – quite the opposite! But it was a heavy time for me, even as I enjoyed working with the kids and getting to know our team.

A friend today encouraged me that our feelings are not wrong – they are what we are experiencing. What we do with them is a whole other matter, but God can use our feelings to teach us things… for me that might be that it’s ok to set aside the plans for the future – to trust Him with the future – and just enjoy today, whatever He has set before me in this day.

So, Mike, yes, I’m excited. Whether or not I’m showing it very clearly, I’m excited for the plans of the future and the steps of today, because I know who is directing the path. And He’s teaching me how to wait patiently for Him.

I had a fantastic time in Romania – but much more importantly than that, our team got to see people come to the Lord, got to encourage the believers there, and got to learn a lot about following God in the context of another culture.

I will be posting some Romania pictures and stories over the next week.