July 2019 Newsletter

We have just returned from 10 days in Romania after a 27 year hiatus. We could not believe our eyes at all the changes. While the old Communist blocs (apartments) are still in existence, they are in competition with newer edifices which in some cases could challenge condominiums in the states and small, mom and pop convenience stores are losing ground to megastores like Walmart and Meijers and Costco.

When we worked in Cluj (the second largest city in Romania) in 1990 everyone who had a car drove a Dacia. You could always identify a foreigner by the car they drove. It definitely wasn’t a Dacia which was only manufactured in Romania. Prior to the 1990’s, a person had to pay seven years in advance for a car, had only one choice and then had to wait for 6-8 years to take delivery. Today, almost every street is clogged with cars of every make and finding a parking place was a herculean task. When we were there this month, we found a McDonald’s, but KFC was the favorite foreign restaurant.

My friend that we used to work with in the early 90’s, (John Ianchis) desperately wants to rent a facility in order to plant a church in Cluj. Rental rates are through the roof-if he can find a place. Fourteen years ago, John and Fivi wanted to sell their apartment in one of the Communist blocs and buy a piece of property. God supernaturally supplied and then they bought two lots. One they built on and the other piece of property sold for 10X what they paid for it. Four years ago, a woman from the United States sent them the money to purchase a new car! God has been supernaturally supplying all their needs.

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Praise the Lord, they do not have payments on either the house or the car, however, as a recession draws nearer and nearer, they still barely make ends meet. Recently, John received an increase in his monthly pension but it put him $2.00 over the limit to receive reduced medical care and now he pays $80 more for insurance than he used to! Two of their children live with them as adults and contribute to the monthly expenses. Were this not the case, they would not have enough money to make their bills each month.

Philadelphia Christian Church, the church we helped them establish 27 years ago under John’s leadership, has planted over 20 churches, some of them gypsy churches, but because of the majority of the younger population of the small city where they exist moving because of the lack of jobs and other reasons, the churches have much difficulty paying their bills and being viable in their communities.

Why am I presenting you with all this depressing information? I wanted you to feel the despair that these Christians feel in the face of financial oppression. You have heard the expression, “spitting into the wind,” well, the situation there is so desperate that trying to just pay the bills is like that. In Romania, as well as many third world countries around the world, they know what despondency feels like because of the wind of oppression and spiritual attack. When a Christian knows and understands the Great Commission and the importance of giving to the church but can’t find even one coin to place in the offering each Sunday to fulfill the Great Commission, they feel like they are “spitting into a tornado!” Not many have the faith to tithe and give offerings.

We were made very aware of the hopelessness that the Romanian church feels as we sat down with John and Fivi at the end of our trip and talked about this problem. I want to say that even with the financial pressures being so strong against them, no one mentioned to us, or even hinted or begged us to help them. We did anyway, but it was our way of making sure that our trip did not leave them in a hole because of the gas we used in the car to go 1-2 hours almost every night to meetings, the food we ate nor the electricity we used in their home.

As we talked, I pointed out that the financial burdens on almost everyone in Romania appeared to me like one of the giants in the land like David faced in Goliath, or like Caleb in Kiriath-Arba. Giants have a way of paralyzing their foes with fear. They just come across as unbeatable and dangerous beyond belief. Goliath had the entire army, and their king, at a standstill. Because or their enormity, every Israelite was paralyzed-everyone but David.

Why was David so fearless? David had an intimacy with God’s word. He also had a history with a lion and a bear. Here was a young man (we don’t know for sure his age at the time he stood up to Goliath) who for many years had to face the dangers of the wilderness alone every day and night. Romania’s beautiful, hilly meadows are covered with flocks and flocks of sheep, and John used to be a shepherd when he was a young boy. He recounted how fearful he sometimes got when it was known that a wolf was in the area, or he encountered a poisonous snake in the rocky craigs. As a young shepherd boy in the 1950’s, he didn’t have an electronic tablet or a smart phone to keep him company during the long, chilly nights. No, he had to depend on Another Shepherd when he heard things that went bump in the night or heard a wolf on one hillside howling and another one answering from somewhere in the forest close-by. And then there was Saul and Absalom and Joab.

It was about this other Shepherd that he wrote the 23rdPsalm. He comforted himself and drew strength for the battle with the sounds in the night, the very real bear and lion in the hills of Judah and the fearsome giant in the valley of Elath with the words that the Spirit of God had placed in his heart.

I will have to admit to you that I felt overwhelmed with an oppressive spirit as John shared with us about the immense difficulty of planting churches in northern Romania. I remembered how I felt in Poland when we were presented with the $240,000 need for a church in a 3000 sq mile area served by only four protestant churches. We took on the challenge and God was victorious!

I remembered the burden of helping Pastor Mawussi as he planted one church after another in Togo, but today 33 churches exist there. I remembered meeting Pastor Elias in Bolivia and hearing the prophetic words come out of my own mouth that it was time to throw off the old and walk into the new-and there were no buildings to rent and no money with which to rent, but today a church of 250 has grown to over 500!

Why? How?

Because we have to face our giants. We have to throw off the armor of another and rely on our own five smooth stones. We have to replace the old wineskin with the new. We have to depend on the sure word of the Lord and know that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts much higher than our thoughts, our fears or the fears of others that say it cannot be done.

Giants need to be faced head on. Like David, we have to confront our giants with similar words as David used:

1 Samuel 17:45-47 (NKJV) 45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47 Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

When you are facing a giant, whether it be financial, relational, emotional or physical, run! Not away, but toward! Run with the sure word of the Lord that He has given you and take that giant down!