Times Gone By: Old Bucharest

Back in the day, Bucureşti was known as Micul Paris (Little Paris) for its wide boulevards, aristocracy, rich culture, architecture, arts, and restaurants. Here is a glimpse of old Bucureşti: Entrance to Parcul Carol

Bulevardul Elisabeta

The old national theatre

Palace

Much of the architecture had a Parisian style

Street cars

A central market selling furniture

Old fashioned sled rides

National Military Museum

Old Center

The Hub of activity: Calea Victoriei

Presenting: Jared & Elena Nehrer

Jared and I met through Christian Student Fellowship at the University of Minnesota. And he too was eternally impacted by the country and beautiful people of Romania. He roomed with me for a while here in Bucharest and last Saturday married the love of his life, Elena, who he met through a local Christian organization he works with here. It was a beautiful wedding with extremely heart-felt vows. It was conducted in Romanian with English translation. Currently they are working through the paperwork for Elena to get her Visa so they can move back to the States. Well, here are some pictures from the wedding: Jared saying his vows
The sharing of the rings

Elena is concentrating hard...but Jared has that look of "what did I just do? :) Just kidding!

Bucharest Evangelical Choir

Last Sunday, a lot of my time was spent hauling around musical equipment in my car for the Bucharest Evangelical Choir, directed by a good friend of mine. The choir is comprised of youth from various churches within the city (Baptist, Penticostal, Brethren, etc.) and really does a professional job. I remember seeing the choir assembled last fall out of a desire from the director, Emi, to construct a choir of youth that was capable of making high quality choral music. Well, I can say that they have come a long way since the fall--it's been neat to see. And they are making music for the Lord's glory--using music as an evangelistic outreach. I know many people within the city who have already been touched by their music and passion for the Gospel. Plus I love a good choir. Emi has been recruiting me to sing with them, but have been too busy, but might guest solo in the future...we'll see!

This is My Romania!

No comment!

Whatever works! And by the way, it's about $5.30 a gallon, so no complaining Americans!

Alright all of you who think you're the world's best driver--Please explain this one to me :)

Băsescu Re-instated

For those of you who have inquired, yes, President Trăian Băsescu has been re-instated as the Romanian President after being impeached by the Romanian Parliament. The process is complicated and involved a lot of politics, bickering, and jockeying for power. Romania held a national election on May 19th and Băsescu one back his position with 78 percent of the vote, having received a million more votes than the last time he ran for re-election. Talk about a mandate. He is well-liked for his demeanor and comes across as just your "average joe". It is not rare for people to see him driving his car down the streets of Bucharest with the window down, talking to people or shopping with his wife at Selgros (the Romanian Sam's Club or Costco). Recently, he has called for another election to re-figure the Romanian Parliament. Whatever the case, the political parties are certainly not getting along at the moment, and it's not helping Romania's image in the EU community. Please pray that Romania wouldn't shoot itself in the foot by letting political battles get in the way of true reforms.

Catching Up With Old Friends

I had a fun time catching up with my good friend Callie Weed, pictured above, while she was here with her team from Florida. Callie and I worked together in the city of Târgu Mureş , Romania in the summer of 2002. We have remained close friends ever since. She has a great heart for Romania and has since shared that with her church in the Tampa Bay area. We explored the sites together, with some of my dear Romanian friends, including Cat (pictured above), and laughed so hard that our stomachs hurt! Callie will be in her final year of law school at Stetson University in Tampa, FL. Her desire is to impact adoption law and ultimately be an advocate for international adoptions and the needs of orphans around the world. Pray that God will continue to use Callie for His glory and for helping to give children around the world a better future. And for those of you who know Callie personally, tell her to get singing again--she has a BEAUTIFUL voice! Cat and I hope she will come back and record some songs with us on one of our new CDs.

The view from the People's Palace (the second largest building in the world) that we visited

A Really Cool Story

While working with the short-term team from Florida the other week, I had the pleasure of meeting Monica Wall, pictured above. Monica had just returned to Romania to work as a summer intern with a children's foundation in Bucureşti that ministers to orphan children. Monica knows what life is like as an orphan in Romania, because she used to be one. She was born in a Romanian prison, and later moved to a babies orphanage under the Ceauşescu regime, because the government deemed her mother incapable of raising her from a prison. At age 3, she was later transferred to Casa de Copii #7 . It was there that her life changed forever. Monica grew up having a problem with her ears, and a missionary named Annette took her to a hospital when she was around 10 -years -old to have her ears checked out. What was supposed to take about two weeks in the hospital, ended up taking two months. The day that she was supposed to be taken out of the hospital and returned to the orphanage, a team from Washington state came to Bucureşti to do missions work. The very night that Monica was supposed to return to the orphanage, a family from Washington had her stay with them, which was just fine with her, because the last thing she wanted to do was return to Casa de Copii #7. This family she stayed with, later adopted her in 1996 at 11-years-old. Her new mom is a special-education teacher and helped her immediately grasp the English language. In addition, she had a personal tutor in her third-grade class the instant she got to Washington. Monica says that she was immediately mainstreamed with the other students, and moved quickly from only knowing Romanian at the beginning of the school year, to being one of the top students in her class by Christmas. In only 6 months, she was speaking English fluently. While in Romania, Monica was in a regular school, but put in a room with other orphans, which she described as a system where orphans are considered "altfel", or simply regarded as "other". Monica is now 21-years-old and has two brothers and one sister. Despite growing up in a loving home, Monica has never forgotten her roots and plans to be quite active in helping the orphan situation in Romania. Monica can remember quite vividly what conditions were like and being lectured by orphanage workers to say only nice things about Ceauşescu and the Communist system. Monica is by all means a success story and a blessing for other orphans. She doesn't remember any Romanian now, but wants to learn and attends Fresno Pacific University in California to be a special education director. Praise God for Monica and pray that she will be able to impact the lives of more orphans through her life and testimony

The Florida Dream Team

I am pleased to present my first short-term missions team to Bucharest, First Baptist Church from St. Petersburg, Florida. A good friend of mine, Callie Weed (with the Carolina t-shirt), and I have worked together in Romania before, and she was excited to bring members of her church to Romania to assist in orphan care and outreach. The team has been working with a Christian foundation here in Bucureşti called Inimii Deschise (Open Hearts), also known as the Children to Love Foundation in the States. One of the strengths of my OC International team here in Romania is networking with Christian organizations in Romania to help build awareness and work together in HIS kingdom for the greater cause. We have a wonderful partnership with Inimii Deschise and are honored to send them teams. The team has been a great help and really have servant-hearts. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each unique member--while picking on their Florida accents :) They have had a workout, visiting orphanages and group-homes in the mornings and afternoons all on foot, mastering the Bucureşti public transport network (trams, buses, subway, and trains). We also spent an evening with my OC International team, so they could get a feel of what life is like for a full-time missionary on the field, as well as get a flavor of how OC International is working to equip and mobilize the local church in Romania. It has been my pleasure to work with this team and I hope that they will be just the first of many short-term teams that I will be welcoming here to my little slice of heaven: Bucureşti that is. I will be contacting many of you in the near future with some short-term opportunities. Thank you First Baptist!

My Romanian Brother Florin

This is my Romanian brother, Florin, preaching at a local seminary's chapel service in Bucureşti. Florin, or Cica (chee-kah) as we call him, is a missionary/youth minister of a church 30 kilometers to the east of Bucureşti, called Fundulea. The church is largely made up of ethnic gypsies, and has really grown to have a wonderful outreach in the community. Florin is involved in working with the boys of the church in Bible study, young-men's discipleship, and helps to coordinate weekly soccer (fotbal for Europeans) matches for people in the community. He is a third-year pastoral student with a great heart for the Lord and a passion to preach the Gospel. I love his lively, straight-forward and challenging style to preaching. Moreover, he is engaged and will be getting married this July. I know that I have already learned a lot from "Cica" and am privileged to have him as one of my Romanian brothers. Please join me in praying for God to use Florin for HIS kingdom and for Florin and Ana (his fiancee) to have a long, Christ-filled life together.

Special Baptism service at Harul Church

On Sunday my colleague, Donna, invited my friend Cat and I to assist with music for a special baptism service at her church. The choir sang a piece by Ken Tucker that was too difficult for many piano players to play, but Cat (the amazing player that he is) had little problem playing the piece. I also sang a song with Cat during special music time. It was a great time of worship, especially having the privilege of watching six people profess their faith in Christ through baptism. The choir did a great job! This is a young church plant called "Harul" in Romanian (Grace Church) that spent many years in construction, but the congregation remained faithful. Today they have a beautiful facility in a largely unreached section of Bucureşti. The pastor is open and has a great heart and vision for outreach. Here are some picture from the day. My colleague Donna directing the choir

The baptized

One of the adolescents who was baptized

Cat concentrating at the piano

Scenes of Bucureşti

Rows and rows of apartment blocks

Aerial view of old-town Bucureşti

Mid-day hub of a busy city

At dusk

Evangelism in Odobesti

On Saturday I helped organize a large evangelism event in the city of Odobeşti, about 40 kilometers to the west of Bucureşti, with youth from my church and students studying at a Christian seminary. At least once a month, I have been going to this city to run a Bible club with children and adolescents. Since this is largely an unreached community, I called my best friend Cat and his band helped us organize an evangelism concert, complete with dramas, testimonies, games, food, and lots of time for one-on-one conversations. I was pleased for how the event turned out for several reasons. First, it was a chance to reach-out to a lost community. Second, it was a great way for the youth from my church and friends to get involved in outreach and to develop leadership and evangelism skills. Third, the day was absolutely beautiful, so we were able to have the concert outside. Fourth, somewhere between 150-200 people attended the concert--PRAISE THE LORD! Lots of parents came with children and seemed to have a great time. On the way home, the youth were buzzing with all the great connections and conversations that were had over the course of the day. We are hoping to build on this momentum to expand the Bible club in this city and spur growth in the local evangelical church. Here are some pictures from the day: One of the best up and coming Christian bands in Romania:

"Profides"

Playing games with the kids

Playing in a drama about

earthly temptations We were pleased to have young and old attend the concert

Here I am in another drama Around 100 kids attended the event

The President is impeached!

It's official! The Romanian parliament has officially impeached President Train Băsescu for allegations of not cooperating fully enough with the parliament and opposition parties. Yesterday there were massive rallies in some of Bucureşti's central squares in defense of the president. Băsescu has been quite outspoken about the need for reform in the government, especially in the years prior to Romanian's EU entry. He remains extremely popular among the populace. What now? It is likely that Băsescu will run in the elections (to be determined) to get his postion back. Some speculate that he would easily receive over 50 percent of the vote, eliminating the need for a runoff. What a mess! If you would like to read more, please follow this link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/19/romania.suspend.reut/index.html

Paul Washer in Romania

Last week I finally had the chance to listen to Paul Washer, director of HeartCry Ministries, preach at a local church here in Bucureşti. Washer, a former missionary himself in Latin America, is a gifted speaker and extremely popular here in Romania. He led a conference co-hosted by my home church here on post-modernism and its effects on the local church. His style is very straight-forward and thought-provoking. One of the main premises in his sermon is the lack of appropriate teaching on sin and repentance in the Church today and the rise of "feel good" churches that don't properly communicate to new or young Christians the importance of repentance and living according to Christlikeness. It certainly provided something to think about. If any of you have ever heard Paul Washer speak or have some thoughts, I would love to hear from you.

Happy Easter! Paşte Fericit!

Happy Easter everyone. Just wanted to share with you a few things about Easter in Romania. Take a look: The paintings and icons are beautiful, but far too many Orthodox Romanian Christians are guilty of icon-worship. This particular picture depicts the empty tomb.

During Easter, many Romanians create decorative eggs like the ones shown above

In the Romanian Orthodox Church, a common Easter celebration is to light candles and march home with them from the cathedral after a pre-Easter mass. The candles are to symbolize the light (Christ) going out into the world. I love the symbolism of this ritual, but am saddened that for many Romanian Orthodox Christians, it is just that, a ritual and not a heart-thing.

Oţelu Roşu

I had been wanting to pay a visit to the city of Oţelu Roşu for a long time, so I was pretty happy to participate in an evangelism concert last Saturday in this beautiful village in the Banat region of western Romania. Some friends of mine from Bucureşti were invited to play at the cultural palace and a number of youth from the city came, including orphans and disadvantaged children that I have worked with in the past at Fundaţia Humanitas Pro Deo, an orphanage where I have helped lead VBS programs and Bible studies. I cannot express what a blessing it was to visit this foundation again and to follow-up with kids that I have not seen in a few years. Unfortunately, there were more sad stories than success stories. The life of an orphan in Romania is truly difficult to grasp--they are certainly considered the "least of these". Still, it was great to pay a visit, share pictures, prayers, laughs, and stories. I also had a great time staying with my hosts, Iulian Panca (Emi's brother for those of you who know him) and his wife. The food, conversation, and fellowship were great. Here are some pictures from the weekend. One of my favorite groups "profides" playing at the concert
Sharing a message at a local church on Sunday

Fundaţia Humanitas Pro Deo în Oţelu Roşu

With some of the orphans and staff

With "Stancii"

With Claudiu

Cosmina with one of the newest members of the orphanage

What a bunch of goof balls!