With Lord's help, we got to be part of another medical and evangelistic project. We worked with a team of people both from Romania and the States.

We take it as a great opportunity to serve the Lord when working with people coming from different backgrounds, social status, age or financial resources. My son, Flavius, helped with the dentist team. He interpreted for Dr. Benjamin and served him when working. I realized he was not afraid to see blood, but he had compassion for people. They had around 30-40 people coming to see the dentist every day.

Some of them were afraid to see the dentist but they were all happy when leaving and said it didn't hurt a bit. One gentleman came three days in a row. He had more of his teeth removed because he was going to have dentures.

I would like to ask you to pray for Dr. Benjamin. He had a heart attack right after he returned from Romania. Presently, he is in the hospital. He's been a tremendous blessing for many Romanian people as he had a wonderful testimony!

Rebeca helped a lot with the evangelism team. She interpreted for Joy. I talked to her afterward and she told me she understood some things about the gospel better. She was touched by the stories of the people she spoke with. There were about 160-180 people per day passing through the evangelism department. We had four teams working with them and each team had around 40-50 people every day. It was a huge effort but a great opportunity to get to know people. Ani helped by giving out the medicines. I helped by organizing things and filling in the medical charts with people's personal info. Sometimes I had to calm down the people's emotions because some people would get anxious and no longer wanted to wait and see the doctor when it was their turn. We were two days in Fagaras, one day in Gura Vaii, one day in Breaza and Sinca Veche. These places are no longer anonymous to us as we have met many people there. We are now familiar with many of their problems and joys. It's been a very special time for us. We had a wonderful experience in Breaza too. We met a young family there that also had a child. When I first saw them, I had the feeling that I had seen them before. After we talked a little, I learned that they used to work with Campus Crusade when they were in college in Cluj. They had been part of some of our projects with students. They were not married back then. After graduation, they were married and Cristi, the husband, decided to be a teacher in a small mountain village where they wanted to start a church.

The Kids Ministry

The future lies with the young generation. The kids had the opportunity to be part of a wonderful program that helped them learn many things about the kingdom of God.


CAUGHT UP BETWEEN TIMISOARA AND BRASOV!

Our plans are not always God's plans. We can say that our plan was to move into the apartment we found in Brasov at the beginning of August. But that was not God's plan for us.  Everything was postponed til the beginning of September as it had something to do with the owner. But God is in control even in circumstances when we face changes of plans. We are now in between.  Because we could no longer live in Timisoara, we took all our stuff to my parents' home. They live 100 km from Brasov.  Everything is in boxes in small rooms in my parents' house. We didn't have all the means of communication there and felt a little frustrated, but the Lord helped us hook up to the Internet and that improved our communication with others. So we lived for the whole month of August with my parents. While we had a wonderful time, we had our challenges as well. They have a different life style and we had to adjust to that.

It felt good to rediscover their world. My grandmother is 99 years old and has been a widow since she was 29 as her husband died in the war. My father is 71 and my mother is 64. They raise cattle and work the land like most of the country people in Romania.

During this time I studied Jacob's life. I learned so many things as I contemplated his life. He had a hard start by making many mistakes, but his life ended wonderfully. At the end of Genesis, we read about the "blessing" that came to Jacob. He wanted to be buried in Canaan where his forefathers Abraham and Isaac were buried. It was no accident that God changed his name from Jacob to Israel (the one who fights with God and has victory). His life is very inspiring for me.