SOMETHING IS MISSING IN ROMANIA

After my salvation experience on New Years Eve in 1998, God began to prepare my heart to serve in missions. After several short mission trips to serve in Dominican Republic, I began to spend more time in prayer about how to make a difference in other nations. Slowly, the Lord began to reveal to me that my focus is to be on serving the rejected. As I began to pray about whom to serve and where, the Lord revealed Romania to me. In January of 2003, I spent two weeks in Romania seeking the place where God wanted me to serve next. In November of 2003, I headed back to Romania to serve the Roma ("Gypsies") ---the most rejected and marginalized people group in all of Romania. I felt that God had been preparing me, equipping me, and building me up for several years in order to be an effective servant in Medgidia. My purpose was to show the Romani people the love and light of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romania is a beautiful country, which has been greatly deceived. It has been plagued by corruption and devastation, and despite the fall of communism in Romania in 1989, there remains much poverty, much hopelessness, and much corruption. Medgidia is a town in the poorest region of Romania called Dobrogea, and is known for having one the highest unemployment rates in the country. This, of course, only adds to the poverty level. The point is this: Medgidia, Romania is in desperate need of light in the darkness. What is missing? The light of Jesus Christ in the hearts and lives of those living under the bondage of darkness. And I thank God that I had the opportunity to serve in Medgidia, Romania.