This IS Romania: loving the randomness

And you wonder why people make wrong turns or get confused!

Even the Romanian Orthodox Nuns like to go fishing

Gotta love the pig!

I hope this guy didn't pay for the parking spot

Look carefully....the workers are heating their sausages for lunch with a torch light

Happy Easter!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Or at least, those that follow the Catholic Easter. Here in Romania, Easter is still several weeks away, as we follow the Eastern Orthodox Calendar. Eastern Orthodox churches generally use the Julian calendar, while Roman Catholics and Protestants use the Gregorian calendar. Methods of calculating the date of Easter differ. Thus Easter is celebrated on the same day in Christianity only about once every three or four years. In other years, the Orthodox Easter -- called Pascha -- is delayed by one, four, or five weeks from the Roman Catholic/Protestant date. But for those of you in the West....Happy Easter! May the knowledge of our Lord Jesus' resurrection bring you peace and joy this Easter season and a reminder of how very much the world needs Jesus!

Missions Mobilization in Suceava, RO

This week I joined my colleagues in traveling to the northern Romanian city of Suceava (close to the Ukrainian border) to meet with members of the Brethren Church there who are doing incredible work in missions mobilization in their region of Romania. We had the privilege of participating in a prayer night with youth from various churches and cities who meet together for encouragement, prayer, and collaboration. We were all crowded into a living room, with many people in the hallways and other rooms. This is a group passionate about missions and bringing the Gospel to unreached areas of the world, as well as unreached cities and villages in Romania. We sang, we prayed, and heard more of their vision for the Suceava area. It was also an opportunity for me to get involved with the Kairos Program (a missions training program) that some of my colleagues have been teaching in churches around Romania. Most of this group in Suceava has been through the course and is now motivating and preparing other churches to play a greater role in the Great Commission. It was great to be encouraging a group of young Romanians on fire for the Gospel. We are praying for their efforts and continued passion to reach the world for Christ.

Vali with his daughter. He is the mission and youth coordinator for the Brethren Church in Suceava. He has helped form missions prayer/encouragement teams and he and his wife are hoping to serve cross-culturally as missionaries themselves. He often takes his youth in missions trips to villages in the Suceava region and into the Romanian speaking cities in Ukraine. He and his wife have a great heart for missions and are truly one of the "success stories" and shining examples in Romania of a church and region mobilizing its forces for missions.

Me with my colleague Adi (left), Linda (the Kairos European International Coordinator who joined us from England), and Russell together for dinner at Vali's house. It was a delicious meal!

I especially enjoyed dessert!

The Suceava region is known for fortresses and monasteries

Conference in Budapest, HU

This past week I attended a conference in Budapest, Hungary about foreign missions and second language acquisition. It was a good conference, full of material and resources that we hope to integrate into our work here in Romania. I met missionaries from all over the world and got to strategize with others working specifically in Eastern Europe. I really enjoyed the fellowship! We stayed at a hotel/dormitory on the outskirts of the city which provided some interesting experiences using public transport. Apparently in Budapest, bus routes are not only organized by numbers, but also by color. One night coming back to the conference center, I took the bus 40 only to realize I wasn't in Budapest anymore. I asked a girl on the bus in English "isn't this bus 40?" She said yes, but I need the yellow 40, not the red 40. Anyway, she was nice enough to get off the bus with me and walk me to where I could catch the bus I needed back into the city to get to where I was staying. It was an interesting experience, since it was late at night and I couldn't afford to take a taxi.

And as a true 'Romaniac', I got a few scowls from people on the street when I asked for directions in Romanian. I know I have fully become a Romanian when it doesn't dawn on me to ask in English--it was just natural to ask in Romanian. Anyway, if you know anything about Romanian -Hungarian relations....all I can tell you is that we don't get along--at all! That said, I must say that Budapest is a beautiful city and many travel books label it one of the world's most beautiful cities, for good reason. But the Hungarian language? Uffda! It's a beast and not too beautiful to the ears either. Yet as pretty as Budapest is, I am thankful to be living in Romania. And anyone who has visited Romania knows, it is an absolutely gorgeous country.!

The Buda Castle and chain bridge at night. Budapest was actually two cities Buda and Pest that combined.

A close up of my favorite bridge (the Chain Bridge) in Budapest

Hungarian Parliament at night, overlooking the Danube

Our hotel/dormitory where we held the conference

Romanian Art

Constantin Brâncuşi is a world renowned Romanian sculptor whose sculptures blend simplicity and sophistication that led the way for modernist sculptors. His works are housed in the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and in the National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest), as well as in other major museums around the world. The Philadelphia Museum of Art currently has the largest collection of Brancusi sculptures in the United States.
A reconstruction of Brancusi's onetime studio in Paris is open to the public. It is close to the Pompidou Centre, in the rue Rambuteau. He bequeathed part of his collection to the French state on condition that his workshop be rebuilt as it was on the day he died.
Brâncuşi was elected post-mortem to the Romanian Academy in 1990.
In 2002, a sculpture by Brâncuşi named "Danaide" sold for $18.1 million, the highest that a sculpture piece had ever sold for at auction. In May 2005, a piece from the "Bird in Space" series broke that record, selling for $27.5 million in a Christie's auction.

The Endless Column in Târgu Jiu, România

The Gate of the Kiss

The Table of Silence

Situation of Church Growth in Romania

The above diagram is an example of some of the incredible research that my colleague Russell Mitchell has done regarding the evangelical church growth (or lack thereof) of each county Romania. Recently, we mailed out a newsletter with detailed maps, charts, etc., to every evangelical church in Romania, showing areas with and without churches. In this newsletter, we challenged church leaders in Romania to not be satisfied with the status quo. After the fall of communism, there was significant church growth in Romania, but that has since leveled off. To this day, there exists 9,638 villages in Romania without a single evangelical church and 21 cities (with populations over 50,000) without churches. And Romania has one of the highest percentages of evangelical Christians in Europe! That, my friends, is just sad! Thus, we are tying to challenge every church in Romania to be thinking of ways that they can reach out to areas without churches in Romania. There is still so much unfinished work to do. Obviously, we need to be thinking creatively about new ways to do outreach, especially to the emerging generation. Old styles of evangelism and outreach have not always been effective. This is especially true in the urban areas of Romania, like Bucureşti. We are hoping to hold a forum soon with church leaders in Bucureşti to look at ways we can grow the Church in such a spiritually dark city. To this day, Bucureşti is still (a metro area of 2.5 million) less than 1 percent evangelical Christian. Compare that to the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area (where I grew up) that has a metro area of 3.5 million people and is roughly 50 percent evangelical Christian (according to Religion Information Resources). In Bucureşti, there are just 80 evangelical churches (the Twin Cities metro area has over 3000). What a need! As you look at the above chart, all the white areas (or suburbs of Bucureşti) have NO evangelical church---and this is the year 2008! Incredible.

Part of our duty at OC International is to challenge the Church. I see my ministry to youth and youth leaders having a direct correlation to church growth in Romania. One roadblock I see is the failure of the Church to reach out to the younger generation who sees the Church as old, obsolete, legalistic, and backwards. Thus, in connection with my colleagues, we look to be holding forums to address this issue as well. Perhaps by bringing attention to issues that hinder our growth, we can finally get over the hump and witness real, significant church growth throughout our beloved Romania. Please pray that the church leaders who look at the data will be challenged to actually do something and that this research would spur a revival. Pray also for our forums to be challenging and lead to brainstorming of real, practical solutions.

Spring is in the Air

Temperatures are rising across the Romania landscape and it is feeling a lot like spring. Being from Minnesota, it's very warm! A little too warm, too soon, or at least that is what we are saying in Bucharest. Why? If it's this warm already--it will be murder come summer! But for the time being, everyone is enjoying the great outdoors and the sunsets. Quintessential Romania: painted trees. This is done to protect it from bugs (others say for added beauty, some say it was just something the Communists gave certain people to do--paint trees). I cannot wait for leaves on the trees and some color. Bucureşti really comes to life in the spring with lots of lush vegetation and flowers. Bring on the foliage :)!
I have seen a lot of people playing chess in the park already like in this picture. Spending time in the park is really a part of life in Romania--a lot more than in the States.

Andrew Palau Festival Coming in Bucuresti

Similar evangelistic festivals of Louis Palau's organization have

drawn huge crowds around the world.
Andrew Palau speaking at the youth rally night in anticipation of the May Festival

One of the bands, Catre Cer (Towards Heaven) leading praise and worship

Me, along with other leaders of the event leading prayer

Tonight we had a youth gathering of all the evangelical churches in Bucuresti in preparation for the Andrew Palau Festival that will be taking place in Bucuresti in May. Andrew is the son of the world-renowned evangelist Louis Palau. Despite having grown-up in such a Christian home, Andrew was a drug user, an alcoholic, and miles away from the Lord. Yet, his Dad, friends and family never stopped praying for him. Eventually, it was the influence of young Christians, who went to one of his Dad's festivals in Jamaica, that changed his life. Andrew says their passion for the Lord just left a real impression on him, saying, "they seemed so joyful, so committed...I thought to myself, if this God is real, I definitely want a part of that life." Thus, at the age of 27, Andrew finally decided to follow Jesus. He has quite the testimony and will be sharing that testimony and more in May at the Andrew Palau Festival in Bucuresti. Past festivals in cities like Madrid, Mexico City, Tampa, and Minneapolis have drawn hundreds of thousands of people who heard the Gospel. The Bucuresti Festival will feature many top Romanian Christian bands, as well as the Hillsong Church praise and worship band from London. Moreover, there will be football (soccer) professionals, skateboard competitions, stuff for kids, basketball, etc. The event is to have a youth focus with the attention of reaching non-Christian youth by identifying with their interests and introducing them to Christians who share their same passions.

Yet, what I am most excited about is not the big hoopla, but the follow-up. Mainly, will this have an impact? Currently, I am on the committee for discipleship for this event. In the weeks leading up to the festival, several of the bands will be speaking in over 40 local high-schools about their testimonies and decisions to give up drugs and alcohol. In addition, we are planning to have close to 1000 volunteers to counsel those who take the first steps to follow Jesus. That is coupled with follow-up nights of discipleship after the festival where people will be invited to explore more what following Jesus means. These will be done in informal coffee houses, as well as some main concert halls around the city. Already, there are over 40 churches in the city collaborating on the event. Those that make decisions to follow Christ at the event will also be notified of churches in their area and local pastors (of various denominations) are responsible to follow-up with each individual. If nothing else, I am happy to see the collaboration. Bucuresti is such a spiritually dark city, that any momentum evangelicals can muster is welcome. Please pray that this festival would produce much fruit....that more unbelievers would make real decisions for Christ, that the government would see the impact Christ has made on the lives of its' citizens, and that there would be strong and effective follow-up among churches in the city...and for good weather too!

A Local Favorite: Shaorma

Shaorma is a local favorite in Romania when you need a quick bite to eat on the run. It is pita bread stuffed with chicken or pork, french fries, garlic sauce, cabbage, onions, pickles, hot sauce, etc. (I know, calorie heaven...but oh so good!)

Making shaorma The standard walk-up shaorma stand

The finished product....now I'm hungry!

Bill Hybels Conference

Bill Hybles speaking and me with my colleague Alina
This week I attended a leadership conference put on by Bill Hybels from Willow Creek Church in the Chicago area. His church grew from a few hundred people to over 22,000 members. He has written a number of books about evangelism and church growth including The Contagious Christian. Now, I am not a big fan of the mega-church phenomenon and I don't agree with everything Willow Creek puts out, but I was very impressed by Bill Hybels adress at this conference. Some of the things we were left to consider:

• A leader is always an optimist
• A good leader delegates (therein creating leadership skills in others)
• Leaders need to have a face to face encounter with God
• A good leader challenges the status quo....it's never good enough
• A strong leader is different
• Strong leaders are always somewhat controversial (if everyone loves you, there are issues)
• A strong leader takes his time before making a decision (now, that was a new idea for me...usually we think leaders should be swift at making decisions...the argument here was that a good leader should ask, "how much time do I have to decide? 10 seconds? A day, a week, month, etc." A good leader stops to think about the right decision

So yeah, some things to think about. What was encouraging was to see many pastors in the city there shaking their heads and taking notes. The Romanian Church is quite traditional and new forms and ideas for growth and outreach are long overdue. Some bold leaders have tried new things and experienced much success. One of my favorite quotes from the conference was that if God gave you a chair in your sanctuary or a pew, that means HE has someone in mind who ought to be sitting their. So, we all repeated quite loudly, "NO MORE EMPTY SEATS." As the Body of Christ, we should always be looking to see who is on the outside that we can reach eternally for the Kingdom. And here is my thought for you. How many people have you invited to your church in the past week. Next time you drive to church or stop for coffee, think of that stranger you meet and think about inviting them with you...or at least striking up a conversation. You'd be surprised what God can do if you just open the door. In short, some good stuff!

Oh How Times Have Changed: the Bucharest malls

Almost all of the malls in Bucureşti are housed in the original structures that former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu had intended to be human feeding centers. His idea was to have dome structures around the city that would serve as the food collection centers, meaning Bucharest residents would come to these places and food would be rationed and distributed based on the communist government's mandated per-person food quotas, which sometimes amounted to as little as 1 dozen eggs for a complete family to last an entire month. Some have said that internment camps throughout history sometimes gave their prisoners more meat than the Romanian communists ever allocated to the Romanian people. But oh how times have changed! Ceauşescu was assasinated before his idea ever came to fruition. Thus, the city of Bucureşti was left to decide what to do with half-built dome structures. The result? They were privatized and transformed into the city's malls. What was intended to be communist controlled food-rationing centers are now what some consider to be the epitomy of capitalism: the western shopping mall. Who 'woulda' thought?

The half-finished dome structures....
are today the city's malls like Plaza România...

the original Bucureşti mall (notice the dome structures)

Shopping in Bucharest

I thought I would give you all an idea of what shopping is like in Romania. The European supermarkets are different, and thus, carry different items. Some of the things you can either not find in Romania, or are difficult to find include: almost anything mexican (some stores carry tortillas, but are not always in stock), chocolate chips, colby/cheddar cheese, brown sugar, boxed mac & cheese, etc. Overall, prices are much more expensive in Romanian supermarkets than their American counterparts. Still, the face of shopping in Romania has changed DRASTICALLY over the last 5 years. The options used to be so limited, but now western european stores are springing up just about everywhere. That said, there is a major difference between the cities and countryside....it's like two different time periods living side by side. In the countryside, some homes may not have running water, and the local store is what farmers (working with their own horse and plow) sell on the main street or in the local store (often someone's home). Contrast that with cities like Bucureşti, where malls and stores like Starbucks and Ruby Tuesday have opened. Yes, Romania is a land of complexities! So here is a tour of some of our stores: Selgros: this would be the Romanian version of Sam's Club where items are bought at a cheaper price and sold in bulk quantities. It's like a warehouse and you have to sign up for membership to buy items there (much like Sam's Club). The best thing about this store?

They sell cheddar cheese! :)

Auchan: a French mega-supermarket with arguably the cheapest prices for food in Bucureşti. It's huge, like a super wal-mart. The good? Cheap prices. The bad? Hardly ever carry any specialized food item--there is usually a handful of items on someone's list that they can't find here.
Kaufland: a German supermarket similar to Target or Walmart but smaller.

Cora: the mega-mega supermarket. This is a French chain. Think of a Super Walmart, but much bigger! They do carry more specialized items. The problem? It's SOO big and SOO crowded. Even with about 100 checkout lanes (literally) you can still wait in line (even after 9 p.m.) for 40 minutes to an hour. I try to avoid this store like the plague. But then again, I hate shopping.

Carrefour: another French mega-mart. Prices here are a bit cheaper than at Cora. The problem? The workers don't even know what they carry half the time and the aisles are narrow and crowded. Like Cora, the lines try anyone's patience.

BricoStore: The Romanian HomeDepot...pretty reliable and good quality

Romania: Always Interesting

Hey, it works!
Who needs a grill?A little scotch tape goes a long way for a Dacia!

Apparently the sack of potatoes weighed a lot more than the woman who actually needed the wheel-chair!

The Newest thing to hit Bucharest

Europe's largest Hard Rock Cafe recently opened in the city last week along the lake of the largest park in the city. I think I have been to this restaurant twice, once in Boston with choir and once with friends in Minneapolis. Anyway, I'm sure the one in Bucharest will be twice as expensive, as things usually go here. I'm not a huge fan; all I want is a Taco Bell :) Just more signs that Bucharest is moving farther away from the city's communist past.

Coffee on the Go

The girl leaning up against the railing is distributing hot coffee to people caught up in traffic. It's something I have seen around the city of Bucureşti a few times. Now I'm not a coffee drinker, but I hear it's pretty cheap and not bad. It puts a whole new spin on the "drive-up window".

Barnabas Ministries

It's a new year with new objectives. Our OCI team in Romania has lots of things on tap for this new year. One of our new areas of concentration will be in forming Barnabas teams around the country of Romania. As one reads the book of Acts we find the New Testament church being birthed, taking root and bearing God-honoring fruit. In this context we are either introduced to and/or learn more about men and women who were important instruments in this birth and expansion of the church in its earliest years. Barnabas was one of those pioneers. Though not having as high a profile as Peter, John, or Paul, he impacts this fledgling body in a number of very significant ways. One of these is that he was a platform builder under others. Again and again, we find him pushing others up, helping them flourish in their spiritual health and influence. We at OCI Romania are tying to have a similar ministry in Romania: encouraging others and building platforms in ministry. We will be doing this by forming various regional teams of movers and shakers, collaborating together, praying together, and regularly meeting together. This year I hope to be more involved in mentoring strategic leaders in Bucureşti (and I fully plan to learn from them as well). Some of the other things on tap include continued development of the youth leadership network and missions mobilization through missions training courses, conferences, and trips. These are exciting times. Thank you for your prayers as we work together in Romania to bring Europe back to Christ.

Faith Formation

I have been really encouraged lately by the youth meetings of our church. It seems that we have somehow taken it to a new level. Our discussions and studies are a lot deeper, relevant, and interesting. For instance, we have looked at the issue of forgiveness and had discussions based around questions such as, what makes forgiveness hard? Why does it seem at times that Christians are the most unforgiving? Does forgiving mean you ever forget? Anyway, some deep stuff. This past week we looked at the issue of repentence as it specifically relates to the life of a Christian. We broke into small groups looking at the letters written to the seven churches in the book of Revelations. This led to even more discussions and some profund thoughts. One person stated, it seems that many churches have become just like churches in ancient Ephesus or Philadelphia for example, where things seem to be going okay, but Jesus is outside knocking on the door. Do we answer? A lot to think about. I love that we have grown as a group and are actively engaging in discipleship and talking about real, relevant issues. Thank you for your contined prayers for us. Our group is growing both in numbers and most importantly, in spiritual formation.

Winter in Romania

Driving through the slush

Skiing/Sledding at the mountains

Peleş CastleThe Bucegi Mountain Range