In September students were still on vacation in their hometowns outside Bucharest. So I had more free time to spend with my family, helping them out with their needs. I also spent more time with a graduate friend of mine from Bucharest whom I informally disciple. I want to share with you an experience I had with her this month. Many times I am amazed of God's Fatherly care and vigil watch over her life!

She became a Christian in her university years and we've been good friends ever since. Like yesterday, I remember when we met eight years ago at a subway stop in Bucharest when she registered for our English camp. She came to camp through seeing a poster in her faculty and remained with us ever since. You can imagine God's wonderful providence in her life! After the camp, God constantly used me in her life as she first understood the Gospel and then learned to walk with the Lord with lots of ups and downs. Dating non-Christian guys was her main problem since we first met. She has desired very much to get married, but the problem is that there are very few Christian guys in our Evangelical churches. Consequently, lots of Christian women turn to non-Christian men for marriage. This is Satan's trap and, unfortunately, more and more Romanian Christian women fall into it.  Looking at her life, I clearly see that God is enabling His children to persevere in faith, as the Scripture says that He never loses what He has already owned. Praise Him! He overcomes our prejudices, our disobedience, our rebellion, our unbelief, and gives us a new heart that desires Him and His holiness.

One day this month she told me she felt God spoke to her to not yoke herself with unbelievers while she was reading her Bible. At Church she went to our pastor and told him about this, but she confessed that she wasn't sure that God spoke to her, "would such a big God care to speak to a little one like me?" The next Sunday the pastor stopped her and told her "God spoke to you!" and he shared that he had a vision one night about God speaking to her. That was unusual in our Baptist church, and it seemed that God was preparing her for a temptation or trial that was to come. And indeed, in that period of time she met a handsome non-Christian guy. The dangerous thing was that they liked each other very much and he was very religious in his Orthodox faith with moral views and principles. She was convinced that he was a true Christian. I could see that Satan wanted her to believe a lie and there was no way to convince her otherwise. So I continued to beg her to stop meeting with him and I prayed to God for her deliverance that He would reveal to her that she believed a lie. Over the years God touched that idol in her life and convicted her that dating non-Christians is disobedience towards Him and that these relationships kept her from deepening her relationship with Him. The problem now was that she truly believed this man was a Christian and she couldn't understand why I kept telling her he is not a Christian! One evening I met for prayer with some people and prayed for her again. The next day she told me that around the time I was praying they were chatting and she told him that she was a Christian who attended a Baptist church. Suddenly, he became very furious! He called her on the phone and told her he never wanted to see her again as he didn't want to have anything to do with 'repenters'. He believed Evangelicals are a cult and a bunch of hypocrites. She realized he wasn't a true Christian and praised God for protecting her and breaking this relationship. I also saw that God can do the impossible. I just need to keep sharing the truth in love and most of all, pray for my fellow sisters who are in trouble! I saw that even though everything seems to go wrong, God has a plan with each child and He will fulfill it. Praise Him! Please pray for more Christian men in our churches that would become mature husbands in their families. Pray for me for patience and wisdom in counseling younger women that are struggling while waiting for God's answer to their prayers for a husband.

This month I had more time to spend in the Scriptures and while going through the book of Isaiah, the doctrine of the sovereignty of God captured my thoughts once again. He has absolute authority and supremacy in all things.  "I am the LORD, and there is no other" (Isaiah 45:5,6,18,21)  It's my favorite doctrine. My life would be very difficult without knowing this doctrine. The truth that every detail of my life is established by God for my own good (Romans 8:28-30), gives me so much peace and joy in living my life and submitting to His will for my life. The sovereignty of God was called "that noble doctrine" by Jonathan Edwards , "God's favorite doctrine" by R.C. Sproul, "the continental divide of theology" by John Piper. "One drop of water on one side of this issue will flow and end up into an ocean of man-centered thinking, ministry, worship, and one drop of water on the other side of this issue, that God reigns and does whatever He wants, will end up into an ocean of God-centered living, worship, ministry and proclamation." (Steven Lawson) A.W. Pink said "God does as He wants, when He wants, with whom He wants and always as He wants", because God is God, and He controls everything for the honor of His reign. I praise Him for His majesty and sovereignty!

This truth was also present at the conference I attended at Elim with the Romanian HeartCry community. It was a very good conference. We went through the book of 1 Peter and also listened to an interesting apologetic series on the history of the Bible where I heard interesting new things that will help me in the student ministry. I am grateful to God for the teachings we received at the conference and for the fellowship we had in the Lord!