Well this is it – Day Seven. It’s the last day of the trip. We spent the day doing some shopping in the market, visiting a Hungarian Catholic Church, and then back to the first village we visited earlier in the week. There we got to dedicate a finished home worked on by several teams that came in this summer. We had a short devotional, Bro. Dan sang a hymn, and then handed the keys over to Ibolia and her family. She was in tears and speechless. You can tell genuine gratitude in her eyes. We only hope this serves as an example to the others in the village. There is talk of maybe building a pavilion or actual building to house a church for the Gypsy village. We pray this can be built in the near future. We also fed the village some hot dogs we cooked over a fire we built. It was in true Baptist form with everyone gathering at the mention of food. Faces often seen with sadness and a loss of hope instantly changed to smiles. After we ate, we spent some fellowship time with the families there. Most of us chased kids around or had kids piled on top of us. The lucky few just held the babies. Leaving this village was truly difficult. We each became attached to the village – mainly having a little group of kids that stayed with each of us. Waving goodbye was VERY hard to do. There is so much work to be done here. The harvest truly is plentiful, even just here in this corner of Romania.
Now we say goodbye and begin packing. The question is where do we go from here? Each one of us had different reasons or motivations for coming here. I do not know if those reasons were met. I can say each of us in this group have grown both as people and as Christians. In just a short amount of time our faith has grown. I speak for myself in saying God has used this experience to clarify many questions I’ve had with my purpose. With my own calling to missions, I have seen God’s work, God’s fulfillment, and God’s vision taking place here. This was a guide and an encouragement to me. My own doubts and fears have really been overcome. Before this trip, I was looking at an endpoint of ‘training’ to be a full time missionary. Now I see we as Christians cannot wait. We cannot put things on hold. We cannot put the priority and command Christ gave on hold for some endpoint scenario. There is work to be done. There is work to be done in my family, in my neighborhood, in Monroe, Loganville, Walton County, etc. Christ gave us a command that involves sharing, witnessing, and discipling. It does not take money, a building, a bus, literature, etc. to simply share His good news. Words that come from our mouths are free. But an addition to that is building relationships with people. Christ gave us this example seeing how He walked the cities and villages. He went to weddings, dinners, or just told stories to people based in the Word. Seeing this firsthand here in Romania shows how love, that is spoken of so much in the New Testament, is the greatest resource and commodity we as Christians have. It tore down walls. It tore down cultural divides. It tore down bigotry here. It tore down poverty and oppression.
As I mentioned before, we are accountable for what God has revealed to us here. I am praying so hard that this powerful message and example is taken by our group back home to our little corner of Walton County and is continued to be used by God to do HIS will. I am also praying so hard for the Bruski family for what they are doing through God’s guidance here. We all have much work to do. This family has given their lives to live for Christ and to serve others through Him. They face obstacles at every turn. But they persevere in Christ who gives each of us strength to overcome ANYTHING. We have seen much overcome here. Now we go back to those who are materially much better off than Romanians and Gypsies. The question we now face is are those back home in our area SPIRITUALLY better off? It is now our calling to test that. We come back ready to continue serving God in the ways He guides us. Isaiah 6:8
Craig
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