Pray For Romania Part 1

Last weekend we went to the movie theater to watch a documentary about Romania titled "Hand Held." It is the story of a man who traveled to Romania shortly after the fall of Communism in 1989 and what he found here. It was a very moving film and it made me think about why we are here and what we are doing. Many people wonder: why Romania? Out of all the countries that we could have gone to why did we chose to come here? Aren't there people even in America that need help too, and isn't Romania already a Christian nation? Well yes of course, there are people all over the world who need help, even in America, yet we ended up here. First of all, we know that God called us here, we would have gone anywhere but we felt him calling us to Romania.

It all started when one girl from our church wanted her parents to adopt, but they didn't feel it was the right time for them. Instead they searched for a way they could help children in great need, and found out about mission trips to Romania. We went with them on their second trip and after that we felt God pulling us there more and more, to the point when, after our second trip we felt that he was telling us to leave everything that we knew to work there full time. I'd like to share some of the recent history of Romania so you can have a glimpse of what these people have gone through in the last half century.

Romania has been a largely rural and agricultural country for a long time. They were in fact quite prosperous, their capitol Bucharest was called "Little Paris" because of the prosperity and architecture in similar style to Paris, France.

Then world war two happened and it all went wrong, Romania was originally allied with the Axis powers and it wasn't until near the end of the war that there was a coup that changed the leadership so they changed their alliance to the Allies. It was too late though, as Romania was given over to Russia which led to the rise of communism.

The communists took everything good in the country for themselves and didn't leave much for the rest of the people. They constructed block buildings and forced most of the people to move in so that they would all be equal and so they could build a huge industrial work force.

I've always wondered why the plumbing is always so bad in the block buildings, and I heard the answer in the film: when they were constructed the builders said "If they don't have indoor plumbing in their houses in the country they don't need it here." Imagine living in a 5 to 12 story building with no bathroom and no elevator. The conditions were horrible in the winters especially. It was all really a method of control. Thankfully plumbing was added later and this puts it in perspective: any plumbing is better than no plumbing at all.

Another method of control of the communists was to take over the Orthodox church and install priests who worked for them. Priests who wouldn't agree to be informants and to only talk about approved things were put in jail and badly mistreated. The communists took the truth that faith in Jesus is the only way to be with God and instead said that someone would have to be stupid to believe in God. This lead to a whole generation of lost people who believe that they are OK because they are Orthodox but they don't have a relationship with Jesus or even believe that God exists. The evil one really used this to bring a veil of darkness over this country and to create a place where people are very resistant to the truth and are very oppressed.

So I ask you to really pray for the people of Romania. Pray that God will soften their hearts and prepare them to hear and receive his gospel. Pray for God to bind the evil one so he can no longer oppress these people and that they will revel in their freedom by turning to God. Pray for a true revival here, and pray for the faithful people here to make a big impact on their society. Pray for those working here including us who are trying to bring God's kingdom here by sharing about Jesus Christ and how he died for our sins so that through faith we can come to God.

The last few weeks have been bitterly cold here and there has been lots of snow, up to 12 feet in some remote areas. Please pray for the people who are too poor to heat their homes and are struggling to survive this winter. Many people have died not just here but in many other areas of Europe too. Please pray that God will give some relief from this snow and cold and that when it starts to melt that there aren't floods.

Thanks for your prayers, they are so important! In the next couple weeks I will finish this story by talking about what happened to the kids of Romania under communism and how they and the country are doing today.