Today we got to spend some time with the team during the VBS at Fanate. They were doing a wonderful job ministering to the children. Pastor, Johnny and I were able to meet with Pastor Claudu and Achim in order to discuss the possible future relationship between us. Afteraccessing their needs and the needs of their individual ministries we began to also encourage them to unite together in a partnership which will benefit both Claudu’s church and Achim’s camp. One thing about Achim, he has a heart of gold and is also a visionary with beig dreams to match his heart.

After the meetings were done our attention was turned to the Pastor’s conference. We were able to pour into 25-30 pastors who traveled a distance to listen to what two crazy Americans had to tell them. (I’ll let you figure out who they were) I was definitely humbled by the experience, but as pastor spoke about church planting I began to see some of the faces in a mode of disagreement. I believe that a number of them view their churches to be too small to plant another church, but the question is why. Why do we limit God by our own preconceived ideas of what is possible?

Luke 1:37 says, “With God all things are possible.” My challenge to the pastors was to answer the same way as Mary in this passage as she simply says to Gabriel, I am a servant of the Lord.

We then began to discuss church trends and throughout all of this discussion a reoccurring theme began to present itself, Making Disciples. At one point, I think I even heard myself say that it is better to make disciples than to make decisions. Now think about that for a minute. I explained my reasoning for this statement because on the surface it look like I am saying I am not interested in seeing people make a decision to come to Christ, but that is not it at all. I explained that as pastors, we are often tasked with the responsibility of reaching everyone, especially in a small church as many of these men serve, so it is better to make disciples who will also make disciples. It is at this point that the decisions being made will multiply rather than add up one at a time. Do the math. Imagine what our future will hold if we all began to think in this manner, that it is our responsibility to reach the lost and dying world around us.

I do not know what the future holds for the partnership between Kings and the pastors and churches here in Romania, but as Paul says often to the faithful followers of Christ in the churches, I from this day forward will always thank God for them, my brothers in service to Christ Jesus, for they are on the field fighting the good fight, being faithful to serve in a country where so many others have failed before them. Lord send a great Revival both to these people as well as to our own.

Amen!

For those who hung with me in yet another long post, I have included some more pictures at the link below. Oh and I think I am turning Pastor Keith into a night owl. Two nights in a row after 11:00pm, although it is only4:45pm back home right now so we will see.

Look forward to our return, but also to what more God has in store for us here.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065931&id=1508080875

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Tired? Da!
Making new friends? Da!
Trying new foods? Da!
Tired? Da!
Having fun with crafts at VBS? Da!
Confused on day and time? Da AND Da!
Tired? Da!
Relying on God to work out everything for His Glory and in His time – again, Da!
To everyone who has prayed for me, thank you. I have felt it in two things I know were answered prayers: 1- in Louisville ready to leave we could have been charged $500 for our supply totes…the computers didn’t print out tickets to charge – how much was it? Da – $500!
2 – In Munich, 30 seconds before boarding plane to Budapest I was “all but sick” and somehow did not “lose it”. If you know me this is a miracle. We had to go down 2 flights of stairs to the bus to be driven to our plane and our group got completely separated. We ended up on 2 different buses and for a minute I didn’t know if I would see Alison, Beth, and Pastor Keith again or maybe one of our groups would end up in Yugoslavia? But I had to trust that God was in control and it reminded me that no matter
what – if we are a Christian, we will never be seperated from God!  

Good night or Good morning??

KP 
(originally to be posted Thursday evening but there were network problems with the blog)

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I apologize that a few others did not blog tonight. We has a technical difficulty with the site that was beyond our control but is now fixed, but seeing that it is now 1:15am, I am hoping everyone else is asleep.

For those that like pictures, there are more posted here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065842&id=1508080875

Pastor and I we able to be with 32 Hungarian children today to be able to share with them the 4 parts of the gospel and to challenge them to not be ashamed as Paul writes in Romans 1:16.

So what are the 4 parts of the gospel?

Four Parts of the Gospel

1. YOU ARE A SINNER
   1. The Verse:
      1. Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
         1. When the Bible says, “All have sinned,” it means we have all broken God’s law.  All of us have sinned and fallen short of the standard God has set.  We have lied, cheated, and broken the Ten Commandments in thought and deed.
   2. The Illustration:
      1. The Rock
         1. Many people do not view themselves as sinners because they feel they are not that sinful.  “After all, I have never murdered anyone and I try to live a good moral life.”  We can feel “good” only when we compare ourselves to someone else who is not as good as we are.  However, the Bible says we fall short of God’s standard, not other people’s!
         2. Suppose each one of us were to pick up a rock, and I say to you, “We’ll throw our rocks and hit the North Pole.”  You might throw further than I, or I might throw further than you; and Mother Teresa might throw further than both of us, but none of us would hit the North Pole.  We would all come short. God has set a standard of righteousness that He expects every one of us to meet. While we may be more righteous compared to someone else, we are all sinful people, and no matter how religiously we live or how good we are, we cannot meet God’s standard.
         3. When we break a human law and we get caught, we have to pay a penalty, such as a traffic fine or a jail term.  What then is the penalty for breaking God’s laws?
2. THE PENALTY OF SIN IS DEATH
   1. The Verse:
      1. Romans 6:23:  “For the wages of sin is death.”
         1. Not just physical death, for this death is later defined in the Bible as the “second death,” or “spiritual death,” which is separation from God forever in hell.   One may think this sounds somewhat harsh: How could a supposedly loving and merciful God send someone to hell who may be doing the best he can?   Besides the fact that none of us really do the best we can, we must understand that the Bible teaches that God is not only perfectly loving but is also perfectly just and perfectly righteous.  And a perfectly holy God cannot express one character quality at the expense of another.  For example, God cannot express His love in a way that would at the same time violate or compromise His justice.  Were God to do that even one time, he would no longer be a perfectly just God. Let me illustrate.
   2. The Illustration:
      1. The Judge
         1. Recently a San Diego newspaper  contained a story that implied a judge may get impeached for “fixing” his son’s parking fines.  Why couldn’t the judge still sit in judgment over bigger and more serious lawbreakers?  (This is what people expect God to do – overlook “parking fine” sinners and only judge the  “major leaguers.”)  The judge cannot do this, for even in the human judiciary system we recognize that if the judge violates the standard of justice he is obligated to uphold, he has no right to judge anyone else by that same standard.In a similar way, if God were to say to even one “parking fine” sinner, “You are free to go,” He would have no basis to send Adolph Hitler or even Satan himself to hell.  If even imperfect sinful man recognizes this by impeaching a judge, how much less can a perfectly holy God do what imperfect, sinful man won’t even do?  Would the Creator have a lower standard of morality than the creature?   God cannot grade on a “curve” and still be a perfectly righteous God; the penalty for sin must be paid.
   3. Transition:
      1. One could say that God had a problem, for God created man and loved man, but  man rebelled against Him.  We are a fallen race and God cannot overlook sin.   But the good news is that God found a way to solve the problem.
3. CHRIST DIED FOR YOU
   1. The Verse:
      1. Romans 5:8:   “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
   2. The Illustration:
      1. The Judge II
         1. Let’s go back to the story of the judge who was impeached.  Let’s say that as the son stands before the judgment seat, the judge brings down the gavel and pronounces the verdict: “Guilty; the penalty is a $100 fine.”  But then an amazing thing happens.  The judge takes off his robe, walks down the stairs of his judgment seat, and stands with his son.  He turns to his own judgment bar and pays the $100 fine.  Then he walks back up the stairs and puts his robe back on.  Now if he were to do that, would the young man be free to go?  Yes, he would.  And would the judge have been impeached? Again, no, for he did not violate his justice because the penalty was paid. The San Diego judge could have paid the penalty in the place of his son and actually solved the problem.  In the same way, no matter how much God loved man, he had to bring down the gavel and say, “The penalty of sin is death.”  But He loved us so much that the Judge Himself, in the Person of Jesus Christ, came down and paid the penalty for us so we don’t have to pay it.  Christ died in your place as your substitute!
         2. There is one thing that God requires in order for you to get what Christ did on the cross applied to you personally.  The Bible says
4. YOU CAN BE SAVED THROUGH FAITH 
   1. The Verse:
      1. Ephesians 2:8,9:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  not as a result of works,  that no one should boast.”
         1. Faith in Christ saves from sin.  Works we do for God cannot save from sin, because works do not pay the penalty for sin.  It is not what I do for God that saves; it is what God has done for me.
         2. There are two elements to saving faith.
            1. Faith or belief means to accept something as true:  You must accept as true that Christ is the Son of God, that He died for your sins on the cross, was buried, and was raised from the dead just as the Bible says.  But just mentally assenting to the historical facts of the Gospel is not saving faith;  there is one other element.
            2. Faith or belief also means to trust or rely on someone for something. You must trust and rely on Christ alone as your only way to heaven. You must believe that Christ died for all of your sins – past, present, and future – and trust in Him, not your goodness, religious works, or anything else.

Sorry for the length of the post but I thought the content to be worthy of sharing.

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For those of us type A planners, Romania can be a challenge because it is such a fluid culture. It often becomes stressful when things do not go as smoothly as you planned them to be, but even the apostle Paul dealt with things being different that he had planned. If everything in ministry always went smoothly, Paul would not have had to written books like 1 Corinthians.

I was reminded tonight as I was talking to Keith what Dr. York once told me during my preaching class. He said that if I went to the pulpit with a full manuscript then I needed to answer for myself if the reason was because I was more worried about embarrassing or dishonoring myself rather than lifting up the word of God.

I think the same thing can be said in this culture of Romania. As a mission team, we cannot afford to allow Satan a foothold which is what happens when we begin to sweat the details so much that the ministry begins to be sacrificed. As the team continues to do a great job during the VBS, help me to be flexible, Lord help my wife continue to lead well, and overflow all of our hearts with both grace and com passion for each other and for the people of Romania. In Jesus’ Name…

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This will be very short as I am blogging from my iPhone and others are waiting to blog also. I am enjoying the wonderful time here! Today was our first day of VBS with the children from the villages and it was awesome. Although there is a language barrier, there are universal signs and body language that allows us to communicate – the waving, high-fives, of course the smile, and the nods of approval. We went to worship service in Baia Mare tonight and it was great – so nice to worship God with other brothers and sisters in Christ! I was very touched when we all sang the Alleluia chorus.

For Adam – I love you forever!
For Austin – I love you berry much!

Can’t wait to get back and share more with everyone in person!

Valerie

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“Salug.” This is one of the ways to say hello but is also goodbye in Romania. I have finally got the time to blog which will be my first time ever to this kind of thing.

First of all, Romania is a very beautiful country. We started VBS today and we had around sixty-eight kids. Our theme for this week is creation and we acted out the first two chapters of Genesis. We taught a song to the kids (don’t really know the name), then a group of Romanian kids sung a few songs. After which, we had small groups and crafts.

I am very glad that I can be flexible for we had to change our plans – again 🙂 – so we had recreation before lunch. Then we went back to our place of rest to change clothes for service at a local church. From there, we went to Buenissimo – an ice cream shop/restaurant. I would compare it to Edy’s or Blue Bunny ice cream.

Hmmm…. stay tune for the next update…

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This is a bistro that serves awesome ice cream that we all went to after the service tonight. I’m not big on rasberry but it is great especially after the heat in the service.

Everyone did great and John and Cathy both gave his testimony.

I’m blogging from my phone so I’ll post more later.

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Most who know me know that I am a night owl and dread mornings, but I find that when I am away from home I am still a night owl, but mornings are actually really easy. I was awake about an hour before my alarm this morning, the sun was shining and it is already hot and muggy, but I am looking forward to the day and the new challenges it will bring.

I was thankful to read the blogs from Cori Beth and Joey since pastor and I are not with the rest of the team it helps to keep up with what they are involved in. This morning we are preaching at the camp and then again tonight. Pray that hearts will be broken for the gospel as this morning at breakfast we observed many in the streets of Baia Mare who were wandering the streets in need of salvation. This is why I am up early, because their is an urgency here for the gospel, but there is also an urgency back home in the states, probably even more so because we have cleverly disguised Christianity with religion and many are just as lost as those we witnessed this morning on the street, perhaps more so.

It is my prayer that we do not lose sight of this when we leave here. It is so easy to find the lost in a culture dominated by years of communism and Greek Orthodoxy, but may the Lord grant us the wisdom to seek out the religious in the states who are hiding amongst us with just as much a false sense of salvation as those who blatantly oppose the gospel. May we be ever vigilant in our efforts to see Jesus’ name made famous in both the US and Romania, but also in the rest of the world. (Acts 1:8)

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It’s Cori Beth! After three flights, four air ports and a six hour bus ride we’re finally here!  🙂

I always wondered what people meant by jet lag and now…I understand…I’m about ready to go to bed now and it’s not even five o’clock in the US!

We had ice at lunch today! That was a treat! So far the potatoes are my favorite food, very good with sour cream and this salt that’s kinda like sea salt and served on a saucer.  Don’t fill up on soup…good fact to remember, they have more than one course for lunch here…

So far we haven’t had the opportunity to share the full gospel but we have gotten to know several youth who will be helping us out with VBS. They understand a little bit of English…we understand no Romanian…trying to converse can be a little frustrating but it’s pretty neat talking with what little English they know then using the translators.

Well it’s about mid night here so I’m off to bed soon hopefully and the real fun begins tomorrow! Please keep us in your prayers!

As they say in Romania, Chow. (spelling?)

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First, about the title. Einstein said time was relative but I never really understood that until I began the last leg of our journey here. This leg consisted of a 6 hour bus ride to our destination. The roads in Hungry were better than they are back home but as soon as we entered into Romania the roads suddenly became 10x worse than kings church road when the dump was still in operation. The classic question of  ‘how much longer till we get there?’ came up many times… the response was always along the lines of ‘ehh, about 30 more minutes or something like that’. This response came from one of our translators who claims he is from Romania, but judging by his responses to our many questions we are no longer certain of this.

Some of the following may or may not make any sense.

30 hours of travel with no sleep is tough. People look younger here. They stack hay on poles instead of baling it. Light switches are on the outside of rooms. Language barriers are hard to cross while trying to make connections to share the gospel. The Internet is amazing (skype, facebook chat, ect). Don’t smile at people you don’t know in Romania. Food is good here. Ice is rare. “For-Tuna” means storm. Order water “with no gas”.

Enough with the random facts… even though their are many of them!

Today was mainly a prep day but tomorrow we start VBS for 50-75 kids. I am very excited about it! I preach on Monday to a group of teens. I am weary about it because I have no idea how to relate to these people or speak their language. But, I hope in being faithful to God’s calling, His Spirit will do the speaking and all I will have to do is show up as prepared as I can be.

Sorry for not writing as eloquently as is my custom. It is hard to put so much into so few words. Also, excuse any spelling or grammar errors; very tired and drowsy.

PS. We’re all sitting here, slap happy, laughing at John Harlan. lol!

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