"Spiritual" is a Lame Understatement

This week I took a little pilgrimage to visit the Cristos Pentru Romania "bible school" in Cluj-Napoca. The object was to make some new friends and to connect our young people with a fascinating and unique gathering of young Jesus people I had heard of.  I had hoped to take Alex and Nadia both, but Alex had job interviews and so she was left behind. I simply called and said we would like to visit, and they opened the door and gave us beds with the "students". I am glad we went.

To say these kids are "spiritual" is kind of a lame understatement. When their daily 6:00 pm worship began, at first they seemed to be a tardy and typically unruly group of 20-somethings. But gradually the kids began to worship. A spontaneous song with no words sprang up among them, here and there. Soon they were a fascinating, unscripted, vocal-but-not-verbal orchestra of sounds. THEN the music started. A funny little guy was leading everybody, but whether or not he was a "leader" I couldn't tell. It was like he could see a huge invisible musical score in heaven, and he was conductor. It was beautiful! Wow.

The 100+ kids appeared to be ages 20-24. About a third were typical european-looking kids, about a third were clean-scrubbed church-kids, and about a third were Bohemians with tattoos or dredlocked hair (more Bohemians than you will find in a typical sample of Euro-kids.)

I put the words "bible college" in quotes because the place seems more like a commune than a college. Yes, they have classes and teachers. But it is foremost a community of people with a shared mission and a shared commitment to Jesus and his kingdom.

Travel Visa for "The Wolf"

Vail is in effect the "operations manager" in Romania -- he gets things done. (I call him Lupul, "The Wolf", after the shadowy character in Pulp Fiction with a special knack for "making problems go away.")  More about him here.

Today I will travel with Vali to apply for a passport in the county seat of his home town (Judetal Nasterie.)  After a week he must travel there again to receive it. Welcome to Romania! Two days pay and two days work just to travel to get the passport, plus passport issue fees that will equal two weeks of his meager salary!

Vali and Nadia pose with five small children from
Centru de Protectie Copii Ion Creanga, our adopted
government orphanage. The big girl with a checked
scarf is Anreea, a 15 year old resident we may
employ in the summer kids' program.

That's the bad news. The good news is that he is applying for a visa to travel to the USA on behalf of NGO for a time of mentoring and preparation, some 6 -7 weeks. Most of all I am excited that he will experience the fellowship of the people who love and support the mission of NGO.

Mark Collins will host his stay until I return to the USA in February. 

• PRAY that his visa will be granted with the same ease as Nadia and Alex
• PRAY that God will prepare Vali's heart and life and circumstances to receive the blessing God has prepared for him. 
• PRAY that the peace of God will enter his heart and convict him of God's undying love. 
• PRAY for his recent girlfriend Alexandra to grow from the time of separation, and to be drawn into the circle of God's grace. 
• PRAY for the opportunities that Vali's presence will create for me to put our work in front of an ever-increasing circle of friends.

Alex's New JOB!!!!

Alex Leaving for her first day on the new job!!

Praise God for answered prayers! Thank you, you legion of prayer warriors. Our Alex returned from the USA facing a big crisis. She needed a job, badly and urgently. Now, there is a certain kind of job that is easy to get, and it pays about $500/month for minimal work. Or there are other jobs that pay under $200 that demand 6 days of hard work, and you have to compete for them. She decided to compete. 

Alex's prayer was granted today! She will work as a cashier in a gaming parlor full time, for $290 a month. And the work place is right across the street from home, in a fine, safe neighborhood! 

I want to applaud Alex's act of faith, beating the bushes for a month to find a hard job that pays much less than she can earn in a different kind of work, one that does not glorify God or edify her soul. I also want to ask how many of you have ever faced such a severe challenge? 

Have you ever been required to yield 60% of a subsistence wage in faith that you will have food and shelter? Would you submit to live on the US equivalent of $550 for Jesus?

Vertigoooooooooo...!

Pray for my health. I had a strange event that I can only describe as vertigo. I was actually walking through a mall, and I was stricken with dizziness that drove me to the ground. I didn't improve, but when I could cope, I made my way outside. I realized that I was almost okay as long as I did not move my head, and so began the 30 minute, 500 meter grope, crawl, and stagger to Dormitory T1, where Nadia lives. She ran to the pharmacy and got me Meclizine and calcium (the pharmacist threw that in for the "probable meningitis ;-))

Of course we missed the train, so Nadia helped me over to Hotel T23, another 150 yards. I was feeling a bit better by this time, maybe 3 hours later. In the morning we caught the next train, and I was almost myself again. But the train was not nice.

I don't know what the problem was, but I know I don't want it again. I literally could not stand for about an hour. I missed meeting three people, had to buy a hotel room, and lost a day at the next stop, Cluj-Napoca. (See post Dec 1)

PRAY ... you know what! I don't like the dizziness! And it rendered me totally helpless for many hours...that could be bad. If Nadia had not been there to help me, I am pretty sure the police would have collected my carcass and stuck me in the drunk tank.

Our Church in Bucharest

The pastor is excellent, devoted, and constantly on the move all week long, herding sheep with his backpack on his back. He does it my way: He goes where are.

Today, pray for my church home in Bucharest. We love the pastor and his wife, Adi and Ana Caciula. he name means something like "Open Heaven" but in Romanian is is more like "Open Sky". (It is a quirky name even in Romanian.)

The church is a bit more needy. Like church people everywhere, they tend to show up and then go home. For 2 years he has asked that I pray for a warmer and keener sense of fellowship among the people. They need it. 

This Sunday we will have a fellowship dinner at the church. Alex, Nadia, and I will cook. We believe that building the intimacy of the fellowship is a gift we can impart there, even if we are newbies. LOL, most of them don't even recognize that we are newbies!

PRAY: Pray that on the suburban fringe of this city-of-strangers that the Gospel of Jesus will persuade people that we are not just adherents to one religion, nor one audience in the same theater, not viewers of the same channel. Let the love of God break forth and make us truly what our slogan professes: A Family of Disciples; O Familie de Uncenicii!

Innocent4U

RALUKA is a cute kid we met last spring, a high school girl from a not-too-distant village. A very ambitious student, she actually took a bus into Bucharest every day for a better education. She was also trying to stockpile some money for college using modern technology and the goodies that God gave her. If you know what I mean. She was the typical "good girl" in the bad business.

True to plan, she succeeded to be admitted to a top university. Now she is almost 19, and crushed with depression. She quit "the work" and spent her savings on an apartment, alone. She is failing school, and falling apart, and nobody knows.

She was always defiant that she "doesn't need any of our Jesus stuff" but she has softened now. Pray that Raluka will finally meet us in person, and that the light of Jesus will fill her dark little life. 

PRAY: Jesus, touch her little soul. Fill her with faith that she can start again. Let Jesus love and his people fill the loneliness of her life with joy and hope. May her fear of death lift her eyes to you, Jesus, Our resurrection- Our Life.

Wandering Soul

Most of you know that we've made many connections with people entangled in video-chat pornography. Sometimes the kids introduce us to customers they have met online.

So, let me ask your prayers for "Gary", a retired postal worker from Virginia. He spends every nickel from his pension chatting online with gay "models". From this obsession he has gained one real friendship, a sweet married couple in Bucharest. He came to Romania to attend their wedding, but stayed 2 months. He was here only for bad purposes, but we took the opportunity to befriend him anyway. He wandered about the country exploiting and being exploited. In the end he and his "friends" trashed the couples' apartment and he slipped away back to america, flat broke.

He is typical of the "demand side" of the industry, a guy whose outer layers are normal and intact, but inside he is obsessed and delusional. That thing which connects the inner man and the outer man -- his wallet -- is exhausted, along with all his human relationships.

Pray for Gary, and all the others like him. He is deeply pathetic. But he is no victim, he's just a poor predator.  Enigmatically fearful of everything, yet at midnight he prowls the parks in Bucharest, looking for boys to devour at a bargain price. The sex tourism industry is big here, and this is only one facet of it.