This has been a long day. The VBS is going great. The children amaze me in how they will pass up candy for tooth paste and a tooth brush. There is a group of teens and young adults staying at the camp we are working at. Tonight Butters, Joey, and Mike got the oppurtunity to talk with them. They had lots of questions about God and our beliefs. It humbled all in our group as we sorted through the questions. We know and can feel the prayers that have been prayed. We need more so God can guide us in what we say and do with all we come in contact with. We head to the mountains tomorrow for more VBS. It is now 4am here and I have to be up at 9am so good night to all and thank you for the prayers.
Day: July 23, 2010
What Will the Future Hold?
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. After
accessing 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.
Yes = Da!
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)