I had just finished reading Acts going into Romania, and the last verse in Acts says that Paul went, “preaching and proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness and boldness, unhindered and unrestrained,” (Acts 28:31). I wanted to do this, to proclaim the Good News with boldness, openness, unhindered and unrestrained. I knew that in Romania we were going to be doing a ton of ATL (ask the Lord) and evangelism. This verse was my deepest prayer, that I would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to step out in boldness, completely unashamed to share the Gospel.
In Romania, my squad and I have been helping a church called Hope Church. My team and I have been in Craiova with a church plant stemming from Dragonesti, Romania. Our ministry schedule from Tuesday to Saturday was 9-12pm intercession and administrative work for the church. Then at about 3-7pm evangelizing, making connections in the city and planning events. Evangelism consisted of going out on the streets and meeting people (mostly youth), talking to them, and making friends. Meeting people on the streets consisted of passing out flyers inviting them to youth events, making sweet conversation, sometimes asking to hang out at a different time and day (scheduling a one-on-one), and praying for them. Street evangelism would also consist of ATL (ask the Lord) this is a very common time to have on the World Race, it's time devoted to asking the Lord what you should do, highlighting people to talk to or asking Him where to go or even what to pray for over the city (we also had the stadium march during this time which you can read all about in my last blog post).
Yes, this time was challenging for me, but it's also where I had to trust God to do the talking and the work the most because I was uncomfortable with just going up to people and talking to strangers. God was so cool though because He provided help in my growing to teach me how to be less awkward and more relational. My teammates, especially the very gifted relational people helped a lot with this and were fundamental in teaching me to see people and meet them where they were at. It became so much fun for me because I wasn’t alone doing it, but also the Lord was softening my heart for His people and helping me see them. I made so many friends here in Romania and had the honor of planting seeds, praying over them, fighting for them, and loving on them the way that Jesus loves them. Every single person I met I will never forget, and I will always be praying for. Every single one of them matters and has such a beautiful and free future ahead of them under the grace, kindness, and love of their Heavenly Father. I will miss every single one of them, but I know that they are in the Father's hands, as they always have been.
While serving with the church, we also participated in a ton of events for the youth. We helped plan their youth nights every Saturday night. We were also involved in their yearly youth event planning and inviting youth on the streets to come. On Saturdays, my team and I also helped with English class for adults as well as a Christmas kids event that was so fun to be involved in and help with.
The second week of December my whole squad started to flood back into Craoiva to help with Christmas shoebox events in different villages and in the Roma communities. The Christmas season was extremely busy for us and so much fun! We helped with food bank donations, then went and handed out food to communities and people who were in need. My squad even got to participate in a flash mob carol in the city center and a huge mall, which was so fun. We learned a song from Romania and sung it so much in many different areas, and communities (trust me when I say I will never forget this song). Burn out and pure exhaustion due to the heaviness of the city and people hit my squad hard in this season, but the joy of the Lord and in the Christmas season helped keep us going. I personally loved serving during, and on Christmas so much it just reminded me a lot of truly serving the reason for the season, and it was such a blessing.
During this time one of my squad mates was having back and neck issues and we all gathered together to pray healing over her. One of the team leaders asked me to anoint her as we all started praying. This was a huge deal because God had been constantly giving me visions of a re-alignment of a vertebra, and so I've been asking the Lord who needs that kind of healing. I have been literally praying over every person in Romania who expressed having pain in their back, hoping for healing, nothing usually happened after these prayers. So in this moment, I was trying to have hope, but there was doubt
within my heart and I remember asking the Spirit to help my unbelief. Then I anointed the back of my squadmate's neck and prayed for realignment of her spine and over and over again the vision God gave me was on replay in my head. A couple of hours later, my squadmate said she felt no more pain. How much of a miracle that was because she’s always had pain there because her C1 vertebrae has been crooked. At that moment, the Lord gave me the vision again and a comforting reassuring spirit said ‘It is complete and whole and I started crying and rejoicing with so much joy! The Lord re-aligned her vertebrae and healed her. It was absolutely incredible and that night of ministry was filled
with so much wondrous amazement and joy for me and my squad.
The next day of that week my squad was asked if anyone would be willing to share a teaching/testimony on youth night and the Lord called my name. As I raised my hand in complete fear, but trusted in the Lord, I asked God what the heck I was supposed to teach. That night I sat with the Lord ready to be there all night to plan out this message and within fifty minutes the Lord preached to my Spirit the salvation message He had placed on my heart to receive and to teach that had me crying and that’s all I needed. In the past, I spent weeks and sometimes months gathering up all I needed to preach a sermon or do a teaching. This was the easiest and most peaceful I’ve ever felt preparing for a message. That same peace followed me all the way to talk in front of my whole squad and the many (mixed of unsaved and saved) Romanian youth. The Lord really blessed my heart in that moment because what the Spirit was saying through me, softened my heart and ministered to my soul. It was such a beautiful gift that I was blessed with sharing and proclaiming with openness, boldness, unhindered, and unrestrained.
Romania was a gift. It was indeed spiritually heavy and so insanely challenging. Our ministry was extremely straining and I felt like there was never a moment I didn’t feel the weight of exhaustion and heaviness creeping around the corner. But God is so faithful and so good, and even here in this dark place my God is my Light and the source of my salvation life (read all of Micah 7:7-10, so good) and when I am forced and in that Light, nothing the enemy has can come against it, darkness can not extinguish the Light (read John 1:1-5). I saw the Lord work in miraculous ways, more than I can honestly put in a blog post and a lot in which I am still processing. He showed up in the darkness and made a way through the depths of the valley of death (Psalms 23). When we cultivated an atmosphere of praise in the midst of the heaviness (Isaiah 61:3) everything changed, the Lord was able to clearly pierce through the darkness and bring things into His light. He was so present and I could feel Him with me in every step and in every move. I could feel His angels protecting and camouflaging me, my team, and my squad. I could see His promises
being fulfilled and feel His goodness following me. My Lord, my Father, and my love gave me all I needed to be a bright and fiery flower breaking through the hard places of Romania, the darkness, the spiritual heaviness, spiritual blindness, and the hardened hearts. He made a way for my whole squad to do that and proclaim over the entire city of Craiova, over the entire nation that it is God’s Holy ground that He has claimed. Now we stand in the victory of everything that God did through us there. Indeed, there is still so much work that needs to be done there, but we serve a faithful God who plants His heart even in the darkest places to bring to Light and Life. There is hope and there is victory in His name!
