I have been home for a few days now and had some time to think about all the things I wanted to share with you about this trip. Only to realize It is a whole lot of information! So this is just a very brief summary, no need to bore everyone to death! I will be putting together a more in depth explanation of this vision to share with everyone who wants to know more.

The 3 main goals of this trip were:
*Build relationships with the people already working there and hear what they are doing and what they hope to see in the future.
*See if the desire and vision Gods has given me actually fits there and how it would look practically.
*Find out specifically where in the country my next step should be towards.

Thankfully all three of these things were accomplished! It was an incredibly fast trip with only a day or two spent in most of the places we went, but I was amazed at how many people we met felt like old friends by the time we left! Romania really is an incredible place, amazing terraced landscapes, a few modern cities, horse and carts, Mercedes Benz cars, mud huts, giant western mega malls with Starbucks, small villages full of naked kids because they have no clothes, cardboard and pallet shacks where people live on a landfill… and all within a 25 minutes radius depending on traffic!

We were able to spend time with a family who lives in a three walled shelter put together with random stuff they found laying around… mom, dad, and five children! It is just big enough for them all to sleep on a queen size-ish bed and be under the roof.

In the village where I see myself ending up, we spent most of
an evening just hanging out and chatting with a gypsy family in there home. Later on in the night we got to go to the one room house of a man who had just had a stroke and was paralyzed. We spent time praying for he and his wife by the light of a cell phone because they have no electricity or running water.

It is in this small village just outside Sighisoara (the birthplace of Dracula!) that I see myself, in God’s timing, moving to. My desire is to see a community of Christians, the Body of Christ, move there and live the way we have been called to live. To take care of the orphaned and the widow, to train and teach, to heal the sick, but most of all to love unconditionally and share indiscriminate compassion with all. It is impossible to carry a lit candle into a dark room without causing the room to light up.

It is in this community that there would be a children’s home for up to ten kids from three to fourteen years old. The home would hopefully be just a few minutes walk outside the village on a small farm. With a school, chapel, housing and doctors office inside the village.

All that to say, one of the most amazing parts of this trip was after sharing this desire with the YWAM people there, they brought Tim and I to this village and showed us the school, chapel, doctors office and small apartment that they already own! It is all in one location, on the edge of this same village but it is empty! The only thing not there is the children’s home and farm. The next day after seeing this location we met another person who works with two orphanages and is trying to get all of the kids placed into these smaller foster homes… and her desire is to see one on a small farm! Both of these people and ministries are in YWAM and in the same area!

How amazing is it that the desire God has put on my heart is not only possible but is the combined desire of two other people and ministries in the same area and all within YWAM! Talk about answered prayers!

As amazing as this trip was it is still only the very beginning. I wanted to begin to share in the smallest way what my desire is, but it is all held with an open hand and left to God and his timing. I am planning on making as many trips as I can back there over the next year and a half and will continue to move towards moving there at the beginning of 2010. Lots has to be done and if it takes 2 years or 10 years for this to come to reality I will continue walking towards it as long as God will allow me to.

There is a strong desire to go now and begin looking to purchase land and begin building the children’s home. As Romania has recently joined the EU at the end of 2009 all of the large social orphanages by EU law, have to be emptied with the children all in foster care. The problem is this deadline will not be met. We have been told by people working in and with the orphanages that the government has already started emptying some of the orphanages by “sending the kids home.” Which means putting them in a van, driving them to the nearest city and dropping them off.
The need is great but people who desire to live this way, teachers who want to teach, doctors who want to treat the sick, people who just want to love are needed. Finances are needed, languages have to be learned, relationships built and made strong, But most importantly it must be in God’s timing. So please continue to pray!