I wanted to post another update quick. As I mentioned yesterday, we were invited to speak and present at a conference organized at the only evangelical university in all of europe. We shared the vision of reaching government with the message of jesus christ and christian involvement in government. I presented on the biblical basis for christian involvement and what that looks like. I used 2 Cor. 5:13-20 to lay a foundation for our ambassadorship in christ and what that means for christians and government. it went over fairly well…
As I mentioned yesterday, our appearance at this function was suppose to be big and, according to Peter the leader of the orphanage, was the reason we were brought to Romania. Well, God moved and did some amazing things! Apparently, this was the first meeting of its kind in Romania. The meeting brought together several political factions within the government and several different levels of leadership…ie Members, mayors, city councilmen, etc…One of the most significant things that happened was a reconciliation between two of these waring parties, for the first time they came together to sit and speak to each other. Unlike in the US when differing leaders from the dem or republican partied have arguements, they are civil and they speak to each other and can be friend somewhat. This is not true in Romania, even among evangelicals. So this is one example to the huge significance of the meeting.
Another big thing was a committment by the leaders to begin to mentor and train the younger evangelicals to get involved in their society and government in particular. They are planning on starting a camp for this interaction, it was an exciting time of vision casting for this at the end. Also, as I mentioned it seemed like everyone was encouraged by our dialogue. One of the very intriguing things about the interaction is how much they were trying to learn from US as 20 year olds! The thing is, they have only been free from communism as a society for 15 years. More interesting is that evangelicals have been largely discriminated against by the Orthodox church and prevented from being involved through various policies. That is starting to change, which is why these leaders are so eager to learn. They were very humble in asking us of our opinions on a range of things and how they should approach being evangelical leaders in their government in Bucharest (the capitol) or other cities.
At the end we spent a good 30 minutes praying together, in our own languages. Two groups of brothers and sisters came together in the name of Jesus Christ to confront the Enemy in their country and cast a vision for God’s kingdom movement within Romania. Two different languages, cultures, ways of life (they are SOOO layed back, flexibility is VERY key here…very different from US and especially DC!!), and yet we could encourage one another as brothers and sisters in Christ in the same fight. Very powerful!
Thanks for the prayers again and continue to pray for strength, health, and rest. I am starting to feel run down because I’ve gotten about 4 hours of sleep each night, but I’m hangin in there…Thanks again for your prayers and look for another update soon.
-jeremy
PS-another cool thing…we visited with Philip, the Mayor of Oradea, one of the largest cities, and he is getting us into a STATE orphanage…this is VERY unusual because they normally do not let foreigners into these things because they are trying to hide much of the system from the EU as they are trying to get inducted…this should be interesting!!
