As I looked down upon the New Orleans area marsh the summer of 1999, I asked God, “Is this really what you want me to do?” Eighteen hours later our team from New Orleans Baptist Seminary landed in Bucharest, Romania, for a two week evangelistic and medical mission trip. I had no idea what God had in store for me during those two weeks.
The New Orleans team joined with other members of RAM (Romanian American Missions) and was sent out from southeast to northeast Romania. Our team composed of six Americans went to Iasi (pronounced “Yesh”) in the northeast. The map showed the distance to be about 200 miles and I thought it was a 3 to 4 hour drive. Nine hours of constant travel later we arrived. In rural Louisiana where I am from, we would describe their major highways as parish roads that needed repair. The bus would have to stop or slow down for sheep, cows, horse drawn wagons, and the like. The countryside is as beautiful as can be imagined; rolling farmland with thousands of acres of sunflowers, wheat ready for the harvest, and vineyards.
Iasi is a beautiful city. It is considered the cultural center of Romania. The people there are amazing artists. Fabulous sculpture, fine painted pottery, and magnificent paintings were available nearly anywhere. I could see this magnificent castle-like building out of my hotel window. The city was rich with heritage. With a population of approximately half a million, we thought there would be a great evangelical Christian presence. There were three Baptist churches 1st, 2nd, and 3rd which ran approximately 400, 50, and 150 respectively in worship services. Then there was a large Brethren church which normally had about 600 in worship. The vast majority of people “belong” to the Orthodox church. In this magnificent city, God had prepared a people, a place, and given one of his men a plan.
The pastor of FBC Iasi had been praying three years for Dancu, a suburb of Iasi with a population of 7000 (5000 of which were children). Pastor Florin and his wife Denise, a couple in their early thirties, (two children David, 7, and Andrew, 2) are wonderfully faithful servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. They radiated the love and grace of our Savior that caused you to love the God they serve. FBC Iasi had two families who lived in Dancu. The suburb looked like a village of large block-style apartment buildings, with the old village hidden in the back. Dancu had not only been prepared with prayer for three years, but just prior to our arrival, it had been prepared with many visits to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and relatives, by these families. Two ladies, Mrs. Sylvia and Mrs. Lyddia made the majority of the appointments and were our guides.
Pastor Florin’s plan to reach Dancu involved one-on-one witnessing emphasizing personal testimony, daytime VBS for the kids, and open-air worship services in the evening on the street. The Romanian team involved a Godly group of young people (teens to twenties) that were fluent in English and were our primary translators. I was teamed with Pastor Florin for the majority of the week in household visitation and preaching opportunities. We quickly became good friends and found that we had many things in common, both of us being young pastors. The team saw God move miraculously! There are no other words that can describe what happened. Children flocked to hear about Jesus by the hundreds at Bible School. People opened their houses with indescribable hospitality to hear the Gospel. In the evening street worship services, people came from all over to listen to the singing and the preaching.
These people had never heard the Gospel. The Orthodox priests were teaching them they had to pray to icons for salvation, trust the priest for their salvation, do good works for salvation, and keep certain rules to have salvation. The majority of people we asked had no assurance of salvation. The Bible clearly states a person can know for certain they have salvation (1 John 5:13). They had been taught not to trust the Bible, it was not the truth, but whatever the priest said was the truth. They acknowledged that Jesus was the truth (John 14:6), but when they heard God’s Word was the truth (John 17:17) and the Scriptures are sufficient to show a person the way unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15), they were taken aback completely. It was as if you were being told, your whole way of life has been built around a lie and here is the truth. But they were open.
We told them of the love that God has for them and how He has demonstrated His love to us in and through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:8). We told them of God’s requirements of faith and repentance for a person to have salvation (John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9-10, Rom. 2:4.) A person must place their faith in Jesus Christ’s finished work upon the cross. Jesus took the wrath of God, the punishment we deserve upon Himself that we could be forgiven. God’s forgiveness only comes through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7-9, Rom. 3, Hebrews 9.) God requires persons to turn from their sin and turn to Jesus Christ as their Lord (Rom 1:8-10.) They had to surrender their whole life, turning their back on their sinful selfish ways. Some said, they couldn’t live that kind of life on their own, and we showed them that God would give them the power to live that kind of life (Ezekiel 36:26-27). They gladly received God’s word!
They asked how they could have God’s forgiveness, eternal life, and heaven. They asked how they could be saved from their sins. We told them to “Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13). They did, others did, and still more did! I remember whole families, engineers, home-makers, teenagers, factory workers, and farmers praying to receive God’s salvation. As many called out to Jesus, their hearts overflowed toward God, and tears of joy from receiving God’s forgiveness flowed from their eyes.
By the end of the week, we saw over 250 people come to salvation. There were 98 people in one-on-one visits, over 100 in four nights of street evangelistic worship services, and between 40-50 children come to salvation in Bible School. I had the privilege of leading 17 to the Lord in one-on-one witnessing in one day. I was amazed after the first day and numb by the end of the week. I am still in shock to some degree over the response to God’s salvation. Never have I seen so many, totally sell out to Jesus. When they became Christians, they not only gave up the ways of the world, but they were ostracized from their Orthodox families and neighbors. There was a cost to pay and they looked beyond their little cost, to the Great Cost, the Sacrifice of God’s one and only Son, Jesus Christ upon the Cross of Calvary. They said, this is the answer we have been looking for, thank you for telling us about Jesus.
As we were leaving Iasi on the bus, I saw a massive wheat field, at least a mile long and a mile deep. On one side of the road was a man using a scythe and the other side a combine that had not gone fifty yards into this massive field. The Lord spoke to my heart, saying the harvest has just begun. Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. (Luke 10:2.) There are people and places being prepared. God may be calling you to be a vessel of service in His hands, in a country like Romania. There are many opportunities of service in short two week mission trips all over this world. People are receptive to the Gospel. Are you receptive to the Great Commission? (Matt. 28:18-20)
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” (Matthew 28:19-20, NKJV)
