Month: July 2010

Questioning the Ways of God

The Lord works in mysterious ways, we all know it, we all see it, but we sometimes don’t understand it. Tonight Pastor Keith and I prepared to preach a message of hope top a church of believers and the woman whose faithfulness provides a place for the church to meet inside of her home and one other lady who appeared to be a close personal friend of hers were the only ones in attendance and the woman whose home we were in had just had surgery for kidney stones and herself was not actually able to attend.

They were both apologetic, but it amazes me that it just did not matter. That seems odd to say knowing that we are here in Romania to preach the gospel, but was not the gospel preached this day to us through the women who opened their home to a group of pastors who were able to both meet together and also pray for them and each other? The question boils down to, “What is the Gospel, and how is it shared?” Christ often reached out to those who were struggling and did not need large crowds in order to love on people and to aid in and share in their struggles. Was it awkward that no one showed up, yes, but I did not see it as a failure or a problem, but according to God’s sovereignty and Hid purpose, we were faithfully there to serve in that situation. Because of the lack of attendance we were able to pray over this woman, her home, and her generosity, but also to spend time with Pastor Claudu (probably spelled wrong) who is a 30 year old pastor of a church of around 400 here in Baia Mare and encourage him in his current work.

So why do we question God’s ways? Accept the fact that he is God and that he works all thing for the good of the kingdom and be content and satisfied knowing that you were obedient to his word and his will. If you can do that, then you will truly know the joy of serving God. There will always be peaks and valleys in ministry, but we are not judged by the number in attendance in our churches but by the faithfulness by which we serve. In other words we need to not be “in ministry,” but we need to DO Ministry.

The Work Begins

Never fear, we are here. It was a long day of travel. Pastor and Cathy finally joined us at 3:00am, all of our luggage arrived, and God has already been blessing us and we are now with the entire team, translators included. This morning we were challenged by the pastor to recognize the True Jesus and to look past the preconceptions that we often place on who Jesus is in the Bible Belt. We sometimes see Jesus as our personal savior and one whom blesses us but we forget that we are to be sharing that blessing with others. This week we are going to do that, but the challenge is to not leave that in the country of Romania but to bring our service home with us so much that it becomes contagious.

In Luke 5:1-11, Luke tells the story of Jesus instructing the fishermen to fish in the deep when they knew that they should fish on the shallow. In this story we see Peter being faithful to Christ but also we see the pronoun change from the personal “I” to the pronoun “they.” For us the point is that our passion for fishing, for men that is not bass or crappie, should become contagious. God is in control and we need to Radically surrender to the Jesus of the Bible and not of the Bible belt, which often will mean abandoning what we think we know as Peter and the other fishermen had to do in Luke 5, and give authority over to Christ, and possibly with reckless abandon.

Continue to pray for us as the real work begins today.

For those who like pictures, I have uploaded some to Facebook at the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1508080875#!/album.php?aid=2065674&id=1508080875

Thank God for his blessings and for the work ahead.

Almost There?!?

Travel has been quite amazing so far.  No set-backs, but there has been several blessings from God.  One of the first ones we experienced was at the check-in counter in Louisville.  Not only was the US Airway staff (3 of them) doing a great job helping us get checked in, but when it was over, we did not get charged for any of our totes, which should have been $50 a piece since they were considered a 2nd check bag.  The flight from Louisville to Charlotte was uneventful, another blessing, except for John Harlan.  We will let him tell you about the little boy and the blue water.  The flight was great from Charlotte, NC to Munich Germany.  The gentleman sitting next to me was from Jacksonville, FL and was traveling to Greece with 2 other members from his church to check out property as they are starting a church plant in Greece.  He and his wife/kids will be moving to Greece in 2011 as he will be the Senior Pastor at the church plant.  What an amazing God we have!!!  The flight was not full, so we were able to move seats a little.  After “supper” I moved back to the row with my sister as she was the only one in the section of 4 seats.  We were able to “lay” down and sleep just a little.  So we are sitting at the gate in Munich Germany waiting on our last plane boarding routine to take place until we are ready to go home.   We will be traveling to Budapest, Hungary and then getting on a bus to get to Romania.  Share more later.  Isaiah – love you and praying you are having a great night’s rest as it is 2:30am (Central Time) your time as I am writing this.  Have fun this week!!!

Munich Germany

According to my clock it is 9:00am and we are in Munich Germany waiting for our flight to Budapest. It is interesting that we keep getting a “Free Public WiFi” showing up, but we are not able to access the internet on it, go figure, so this is a postdated blog done in Word while sitting in the airport. By the way, according to your clock it is 3:00am EST.

So far so good, no turbulence to speak of and we landed a little early. It seems weird to say that we have traveled over 80% of the distance but according to time we are only half way there. Continue to pray for us and that we will get some sleep soon.

Less than 2 Hours in the States

image

We are in Charlotte, NC awaiting a flight to Germany. The trip has begun and already we have been blessed. We knew before we left that we were a little short of money that we were hoping to have to the sum $500. When we arrived at the Louisville Airport we began to check our bags and the 10 totes that we are taking. These totes would cost us $50 a piece. God in his extreme awesomeness, when we checked in our bags and totes expecting to pay for them we were told the computer showed no charge so we did not owe anything. Now you do the math, the total saved=the total needed.

If this is an introduction of what is about to happen then I look forward to the next blog post. Also, the counter worker checking us in at the Lufthansa desk is from Baia Marre, Romania, which is where we are going, so we were able to brighten her day also.

Pray for us and for Cathy for safe travel and preparedness for the next week and a half.

20 Hours

The team is now 20 hours from leaving and already Satan is trying to spoil what God has paved the way for. Pastor has heard from a friend of his about his health and the outcome looks bleak. I know his mind will be with them we are out of the country, but I know that his heart will be with the people of Romania as will be his friend’s for he knows and understands the need of the Word of God to be shared with the world.

I covet your prayers as we travel over the next few days. We will be on the go for 30 hours once we begin our first flight which leaves at 12:15 EST. I think all of us our a little nervous, but it is a different nervousness, more of an excitement because we really do not know what to expect but we are all prepared to allow God to work.

We all should be blogging right here while we are gone so return often for updates and feel free to leave us comments, anything from home is nice when you are out of the country.

We look forward to sharing with you soon.

Romania 2010

This is my 1st post…I have been praying for this trip to be all that God has planned & to help me to not be nervous!  I am not big into travel =)  Right now I think what is the most overwhelming is packing….

kp

Saying goodbye to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland

Hullo from Glasgow, Scotland! Our three weeks in the Western Isles of Scotland has been both challenging and rewarding. God is gracious and provided us with many opportunities to speak with the Gaelic Scots throughout our time there. The people there are so friendly, but don’t see their need for God and the church. Pray that the seeds we planted will be grown until they come into a relationship with Christ. I’m looking forward to meeting up with everyone and joining in on what God is going to do in Romania this summer. Only a week or so left!

Counting Down – 16 days

We are counting down to the boarding the planes and buses to Baia Mare. The schedules are coming together even though we have been told time and again that “PLANS CHANGE!!!” I have about a week to get myself prepared due to going to camp in Illinois, so I am trying to get everything done in this next week in preparation for the trip. It amazes me that even though I feel completely unprepared for this trip, I am not afraid or anxious because I know that God has the plans already worked out and that his words will be the only ones spoken to the people while we are there.

Please pray for us as we prepare for the trip beginning the 19th.

Rich Barnett
Amy Barnett
Keith Joseph
Beth Joseph
John Pulliam
Kim Pulliam
Alison Pulliam
Joey Grom
Cori Beth Hale
John Harlan
David Butterworth
Cathy Bond
Valerie Bates