Dreams Pt. III

This is the third of 3 dreams one of our girls had last week:

This is the setting of the dream: Nadia was in the garden (barnyard) of her foster home in the village of Pastraveni. This place was a place of great suffering, but it has become a place of great vindication since she came to Jesus this year. It is also the place where Nadia believes Jesus talked to her while as a little girl she worked in the garden, her "happy place."

In the dream, Nadia was standing in the front garden/barnyard of the village house that was her foster home. A "heavenly man" talked to her and said "Do you want to see some great things? Here, I will show you." She looked across the road from her house to see a scene very much like the photo. She walked across the lane and down into the field, where the white swirling cloud took her up into heaven. In the heavens she saw people worshiping God, singing, dancing, playing instruments, and laughing. Colorful fish were swimming about it mid-air.  She saw a variety of people there, all from her high school days. Her "wicked foster-mother" was among the people, and her face was full of peace. In the cloud she came back down to earth, and again she was taken up. She saw exactly the same scenes, then she awoke.

Dreams Pt. II

This is the second of 3 dreams one of our girls had last week:

Nadia and Joe were in a Romanian cottage type house with two men and two children. The children were miserable and sad. The men became sinister and mocking, and then evil and murderous, trying to kill Joe and Nadia. The children were involved, too. They showed Joe and Nadia a route of  "escape", a garden gate that Nadia recognized was rigged with explosives. Joe went back and killed the men one by one, one inside the house, and the other outside in the garden. He decapitated them, seemingly with bare hands. It was brutal and bloody. After the evil men were dead, the the children were free from the evil, and they were also no longer sad. They played with Nadia happily in the garden, laughing and dancing and singing. Everybody left the place together (well, the live people

Dreams Pt I

Maybe you will find this interesting. This is the first of 3 dreams one of our girls had last week:

This was Nadia's dream. It had an intense magical quality about it, and the dream was pretty long. She actually awoke in the middle, and the dream resumed when she slept again. But this is all she remembered of the dream, and it seemed like the whole dream:

Joe and Pam Cullison (she was ministering with Kendra here in Romania in October) were climbing a tree. At first it was a normal tree, but then it just became bigger and bigger, up into the clouds. When they reached a certain height, they climbed aboard an airplane -- a military airplane that was very very long --where Alex and Paula and Ryan and Vali A and Vali S and Florin and Ana and other familiar faces were riding. Kendra and Nadia were tending to their safety and comfort...

The dream felt very special, but Nadia didn't see any particular meaning or message in it. Do youuu??    :-)

Ana B Goode

My heart is really heavy for Ana B today. 

Her story is so typical of so many: Her parents left her in Romania 8 years ago, at age 12, and she has not really talked to them since. 

She is very bright, but very dark, and her life is dominated by the deep sense that she is alone in the world. Loneliness is now her friend, and pessimism is her hobby.

I plan to visit her this week. I have a deep sense that God put us together.

• PRAY that the light of Jesus will fill Ana with hope. 
• PRAY that the conviction of the Holy Spirit will breathe life on the flickering embers of her soul. 
• PRAY she rise to new life, to the glory of God AMEN!
• PRAY she will accept the hand of friendship and join the NGO crew

"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?