Romania Recap, Part 1
For the next few blogs I’ll be revisiting my time in Romania, sharing testimonies and stories of God’s pursuit of others and myself, the ways He invited me to engage with Him in the spiritual battle around us, and reminiscing on a few sweet moments with my team/squad. For this first one, however, let’s start with some context… Here’s a general overview of Romania and a glimpse into what ministry looked like:
Romania is located in the heart of Eastern Europe, a Latin-rooted culture scarred by the remnants of communism. While Eastern Orthodoxy is the main religion there, it does not necessarily mean the majority of people know Christ. With the heavy influence of witchcraft on the culture and the high value of tradition and religion over faith in the church, the Romanian Orthodox Church has strayed far from Biblical doctrine. 5% of northern Romania is considered reached while only a mere 0.3% of the south is reached, including Craiova, the city I served in for nearly two months. Craiova is the largest city in South West Romania and is nicknamed "the graveyard for pastors, missionaries, and churches" due to the heavy spiritual atmosphere, division in the local church, and social persecution of evangelical believers. A few years ago, Craiova held the international Wiccan conference at their stadium, meaning the city hosted over 30,000 witches from around the world!
We partnered with Hope Church Craiova, a church plant that's been steadily growing over the last few years. Now holding a regular 70-90 people each Sunday, they've found tremendous results in bringing the light and love of the Gospel to the community through evangelism and outreach, community development, prison ministry, youth events, kids programming, and classes and training in various areas available for all! As short term missionaries our main priority was to evangelize and build relationships with local youth. We'd seen new faces at our Saturday night youth group every week through our connections, praise the Lord!!
During the Christmas season the main ways we served had been through Christmas caroling on the street corners while passing out devotionals or calendars filled with scripture, part of which included us performing a flash mob to a Romanian Christmas song; collecting, wrapping, and delivering Christmas gifts from around the world to Roma communities; and one on one discipleship meetings with our new friends.
A quick update with funding, I am currently at 98% including all committed monthly amounts! WOOT WOOT!! God had been faithfully providing! My biggest prayer request for financial stuff is for God to continue providing for my personal spending. This includes all personal hygiene, adventures, snacks and coffee shop visits, outings during evangelism times, weather appropriate clothes (limited storage space in my backpack means I have to buy more when the climates change!) and anything else like that. If you or someone you know would like to support me in that way Venmo is the best option! And please reach out if you have questions about this!
My Venmo is: @Dezarae_Westveld