On Monday we traveled to Tinca (a village approx. 30 minutes south of Oradea) to minister to some gypsy children at the school located there. On our return trip we made a diversion to meet up with an old acquaintance and fellow pastor, Viorel Pasca. I had met Viorel on my original trip to Romania 11 years ago. Serving as pastors of small churches, he and I had an immediate connection. Back in ’97 Viorel was serving as the pastor to a very small village outside of Tinca. I still have a picture of the two of us, arm-in-arm, standing behind his pulpit. His passion for the Gospel and for the forgotten people of Romania was infectious. But I had yet to learn the true depth of this man’s devotion to God.

Viorel now serves as a pastor and administrator to his “home-made” nursing home. That’s right, his is a home-made nursing home. Here’s his story: Since I last spoke with Viorel, he has married and moved to another village near Tinca into a better home. “Better” is a relative term to the typical person living in western civilization. By better I mean concrete walls & floor, and a roof over one’s head. The flat is very small – four rooms and a very small kitchen (closet size). There he was biding his time as a pastor to the community conducting worship services and bible studies throughout the week. One evening he and his wife were watching the television news via tin-foil rabbit ears and witnessed a news story of the ill plight of abandoned elderly people who were literally freezing to death on the streets of Oradea. The story pierced his heart and he and his wife sprang into action beginning the very next day. They located some beds and placed them throughout their flat. They acquired a small, run-down camper and placed it in their tiny back yard to serve as sleeping quarters for the two of them. They then loaded up in their car and made the trip to Oradea and began transporting elderly homeless people from the mean streets of Oradea and into their home. To date they’ve rescued 6 – 8 street seniors who now have a bed to call their own and enjoy three warm meals per day.

Walking into the house nearly brought me to my knees. My mind and heart was overwhelmed by the love and compassion of these two amazing individuals. All I could think was “Behold, what manner of love.”

There’s something about this place that makes me feel very small. Its easy for me to think things like, “when I acquire this or that then I’ll be in a better position to be generous with what I have.” Maybe I’m not alone in that line of thinking. Its seems to be pretty pervasive in our western culture. But here are two people who have virtually nothing – a run-down, four room flat with a kitchen the size of my closet – but what they have they willingly sacrifice. Like the little child that only had some fish and some bread or like the widow who approavehed the religious leader’s coffer and deposited her pennies they willingly offer what they have and left the rest up to God. Merely the thrill of cooperating wth the Spirit’s leading in bringing relief to the suffering is sufficient to them.

In the grand scheme of things it may appear to be so insignificant. At the end of the day, I doubt that Viorel will ever get rich by penning some book(s) or hitting the speaking tour at some “church” conferences. He is far too busy demonstrating the Kingdom of God to get caught up in any of that. His proudest moment is the privilege of preaching the Gospel each Monday night to the people of the village in his makeshift sanctuary – comprised of plastic lawn chairs strewn about his tiny lawn – with the windows of his home-made nursing home open so that the forgotten elderly will have a chance to at least hear the Gospel preached.  -Amazing!

This is pure and undefiled religion. To visit the widows and orphans in their distress . . .

We pretty much chilled out on Friday and Saturday trying to shake the effects of jet lag. We did visit Caminul Felix – an orphanage we visited on our first trip to Romania back in ’97. It was good to get reacquainted with some of the house parents. We sat and had coffee and shared stories with some dear friends, Mircea and Lydia. It was a great time catching up with each other’s lives. They have now raised (or remain in the process of raising) 21 street-orphans. Amazing. And I sometimes whine about raising three foster-children. They make me feel like such a light-weight. We’re to have dinner with them on Tuesday evening.

On Sunday we worshiped with some friends at a local “evangelical” church – every church aside from Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox are considered “evangelical” churches in this part of the world. The worship was inspiring. The presence of God was truly experienced even though the entire service was in Romanian and no English translation occurred. Following the service, when asked what I thought I mused, “the worship was inspiring, however the preacher was entirely too deep – I didn’t understand a word he said.” Following the service we enjoyed lunch at a wonderful out-door restaurant and took in the sites of old down-town Oradea. This area is rich in history. From WWII, to the rise and fall of communism, incredible stories abound. The old down-town area is simply beautiful. A lot of restoration has occurred since I was last here.

Today we got down to business. We traveled to Tinca, a small village approximately an hour from Oradea. I distinctly remember my first journey to Tinca 11 years ago. Tinca housed the first state-run orphanage I visited. In a word it was appalling. We were greeted by a sea of filthy, scantly clad, bare-footed children. The stench of b.o. burned my nostrils. Each child’s eyes were dark and sunken into their skulls. Their heads were all shaven to prevent lice from spreading. The confines weren’t any better. The place was dark and dank. You could feel the oppression in the air. An eerie silence fell over the bus the entire ride back to Oradea. The only sound was the whine of the tires and an occasional sniffle. Many tears cleansed my cheeks that evening. It was the first time in my life I ever experienced that level of abject poverty and neglect. I still remember my journal entry that evening. It was laced with verses of disgust and confusion toward a God that could allow such an atrocity.

This morning, my stomach was in knots as we loaded in the SUV and began our journey toward Tinca. I was trying my very best to prepare myself emotionally to deal with it all over again. But this time it was different. And I mean different! The orphanage still stands as one of the largest buildings in the village but it is no longer an orphanage. Gone are the sunken-eyed children. They’ve all grown and/or have been placed into foster homes where they can experience authentic family life. We bumped along the village streets until we reached a dirt street at the edge of the village. We entered the gypsy village.

Gypsy villages remain virtually as I remember them. The streets remain littered with filthy, pot-bellied, mostly naked children. An occasional horse-drawn cart clattered along the street. Sewer ditches still border the street on each side. The houses barely eclipse the homeless shanties of Columbus. However at the end of the dirt street lies a true light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a new, beautifully constructed school. The classrooms are filled with little desks, learning materials, and 100+ smiling faces. The kitchen was abuzz with women preparing a nutritious meal for the children’s lunch. The brightly colored playground was filled with screeching smiling faces. Each child is capable of attending the school due to the sponsor-a-child program of Remember-The-Children ministry. The newly constructed shower house erected on the end of the school building provides a place for the children to bathe and learn proper hygiene habits. The children each wore nice clothing and big smiles. What a welcome difference from my first journey to Tinca.

One of the things I can’t get over is the role Christians and Christianity has played in this amazing transformation of an entire nation.  I will have much more to say about that in my future writings. On our way home I witnessed perhaps one of the most remarkable stories of philanthropy I’ve ever encountered. I will think and pray through the night as to how I might capture it with words and write about it tomorrow.

Please continue to pray for Andy and me as we continue our amazing week of ministry here in Romania. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest that he will use us both as lights in an incredibly dark part of the world.

Grace & Peace,  Doug

Some say, “Hey, it was a great season for the Bucks. They lost all those first-rounders in the draft. Nobody picked them to go anywhere during the pre-season. Most had them finishing 3rd in the Big Ten and look what they did – 11 wins, a Big Ten title, and played in the BCS Title Game.” Whew Hew!

Others say (and I think Dale Earnhardt, God-rest-his-soul, coined the phrase), “Finishing second is just finishing first among the losers.”

My heart says, “Great season, all things considered” but the pit in my stomach says, “I feel like we’re just first among the losers”.

Where do you weigh in?

 Best Laughs: 

• Sitting on a picnic table at St. Albans golf course in Alexandria, OH with a handful of old high school buddies reminiscing about old times. We are not so different from Uncle Rico (Ref. Napoleon Dynamite). 
• Sitting on a couch at my mom and dad’s watching dad laugh until he cried reminiscing about Grandpa Swan. The stories just keep getting better each time they’re told. There are few things in life greater than laughing until it hurts. (Solomon was right: “A cheerful heart is good medicine” -Proverbs 17:22)

Best Moments:

• Walking hand-in-hand with Terri (my wife) on Daytona Beach sharing our lives together.
• Celebrating Travis’ (our grandson) second birthday along with our daughter Jessica in Texas.

Best Books:

•  Soul Graffiti- Mark Scandrette
• The Sky is Falling; Leaders Lost in Transition- Alan J. Roxburgh

Best People:

• Terri – my wife (22 years running!) Her selfless, Christlike spirit makes some of those saps on Oprah look like a bunch of lightweights. Her patience and persistance with Brandon & Ashley (our foster children) is derserving of a medal of some sort. Not to mention she still loves me, despite me – a feat derserving of an even bigger medal. I’ve yet to hear a story on Dobson more compelling than hers. As a husband, I’m honored. As a pastor, I’m privileged.
• Tom Eisaman - A true friend who, for whatever reason, has come along side of me and has challenged and encouraged me through a very rough stretch of ministry. He is a true brother in Christ.

Best Movies

• Ocean’s Thirteen
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• I Am Legend (thanks Sid & Danny!)

Best TV:

• Lost – Has there ever been a better written show on television? Me thinks not!
• House – A very close second.
• UFC Unleashed
• 24? – Sorry. Not even on my radar.

Best Video Games:

• Call of Duty 4
• Halo 3

Yeh, that’s right. I like the first-person-shooters.

Best Perspective:

• “The original call of Jesus was so simple, so clean, so clear: “Follow Me”. He wants us to surrender our lives to Him and follow Him into the unknown. And if it means a life of suffering, hardship, and disappointment, it will be worth it because following Jesus Christ is more powerful and more fulfilling than living with everything in the world minus Him.”   The Barbarian Way-Erwin Raphael McManus

 May you find yourself in the grip of His grace this coming 2008!

Grace & Peace,
Doug

I had every intention to blow past the re-touch option with a snort, but before I could move onto the next section Ashley asked, “Dad, what’s a ble…m…ish.” (she was doing her level best to sound out the word). 

Oh boy, where do you start? “Well, its like if you have a pimple on your nose or something they can sort of paint over it and make it look like you didn’t have one.” I could see trying to get her head around the concept.

“Dad, why would you want them to do that? Isn’t that sort of like cheating?”

What a great question!  “Isn’t that sort of like cheating?” How do you respond to that? Do you give it the ‘ole, “Well, hunny its really more for the parents who can’t stomach the fact that their child has a flaw – like a cow-lick, chipped tooth, or zit on their chin?” Or,  “well, its not really cheating . . . one day you’ll grow up and figure out how to the play the game? Life is really more about the image you project and less about inner beauty that you possess?”

There’s an old cliche that says, “and a child will lead them.” Leave it to my eleven year old foster-daughter to remind me of the fact that if people can’t accept you for who you really are (warts and all) then who’s problem is it really?”

I’ve been scooting around the book of I Corinthians a lot lately. I’ve been paying particular attention to the middle sections of the book as I’m trying to do a better job of getting my head around “community” and how that played out with our earliest spiritual ancestors in their churches. It is interesting to me that we are instructed  that “if one part suffers (part = other individuals in the church), every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

When it comes to community we’ve got that first part of the instruction down pretty well. We’re all about rallying around the person that is suffering. I mean at times its almost funny to me. It’s like we sit around in our OIKOS gatherings just waiting for someone to get vulnerable and share something that is troubling them and in that moment the whole group springs into action – like the bug-eyed receptionist on Ghost Busters sounding the alarm bell, yelling, “WE’VE GOT ONE!!!” and everybody scrambles for the fire-pole and rallys to the cause. And that’s a good thing! But it is far from the only thing. We are also instructed to rejoice with those that are rejoicing. For whatever reason that part doesn’t come as natural to me as does the first. And yet a well-directed, well-timed ‘at-a-boy is probably more conducive to the development of community as is rallying around the suffering person.

Case in point: Take a lesson learned from a marriage relationship – something very much akin to community within a church body.  (Note: I never thought I would see the day that I would be quoting from O Magazine but I ran across this interesting morsel while browsing the CNN news site – so here goes!)

A new study has found that the way you respond to your partner’s good news may be more important than how you react to his/her disappointments.

Couples who celebrated each other’s happy events (like promotions or raises) reported greater satisfaction in their relationship and were less likely to break up than those who offered support only during rough times, says lead study author Shelly L. Gable, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at UC Santa Barbara.

She and her researchers videotaped 79 couples as they talked about negative and positive events in their lives, then categorized the partner’s responses in four ways: active-destructive (“Are you sure you can handle that job?”); passive-destructive (silence, changing the subject); passive-constructive (an absentminded “That’s nice”); and, the most helpful, active-constructive (“I’m so proud of you” or “I know how important this was to you”).

The finding that praise boosted a relationship more than a sympathetic response to bad news surprised Gable and the research team.  Concluding, ”So when your mate bursts through the door with good news, “make an effort to notice these events and act on them in some way,” says Gable.

Hmmm? Let the parallels begin!

Last night, as I lay my weary body down to sleep and prayed the Lord my soul to keep and all, my heart was full. Its a beautiful thing to witness the body of Christ at work. All it took was a couple of emails and a blurb during last weekend’s worship gathering about a struggling single-mom in need of a hand and you showed up. Barb Eisaman even drove an hour one way to provide dinner for us.

I think we become the church that Jesus intended from the begining with stuff like this. Paul once said, “There are different kinds of gifts, but they are all from the same Spirit. There are different ways to serve but the same Lord to serve. And there are different ways that God works through people but the same God. God works in all of us in everything we do” (I Cor. 12:4-6). And this only a random sampling all that is going on throughout the Endeavor family. A group of nurses got together this week to pray over and encourage a graduating, aspiring nurse as she prepares for her state boards. Others are opening their homes hosting house church meetings.  And I know there are many yet untold stories of people stepping up to demonstrate what the body of Christ is really all about.

As we begin meeting in multiple locations this weekend it is my prayer that we not lose sight of this all important aspect. If anything I believe the Lord will do even greater works among us. Remember, church is more about who we are in Christ together and a lot less about where we go.

 Grace & Peace! 

This is unhealthy in other ways as well. I recruit! When I think of the conversations I’ve had over meals and on my porch over the past few weeks a lot of them have been focused on the hard stuff. I instigate it and others are all too willing to jump in with their sob stories. Before you know it the mood of the moment can get pretty dark.

Ever noticed how some words sound like what they mean? (I know there is a technical term for this that sounds a lot like hominy grits, but I’m not one of those folks who’s smarter than a fifth grader.) Consider the word GRUMBLE. The word just sounds like what it means. Well, I was reading along through the Old Testament this week and ran accross this deal in the book of Numbers (chapter 16) where God got so torked at a group of the Israelites that he allowed the earth to just swallow them alive – seriously! What crime could be so haneous that would cause the God of the universe to act in such drastic fashion?  GRUMBLING!

Now, as a fellow grumbler that’s a bit unnerving. Certainly makes a man glad he lives under a new covenant of Grace and not under Law – phwew!  A story like that causes me to reflect and do some heavy duty introspection. The moral of the story I believe is that grumbling must be so disappointing to God. After all He’s done (reference a life salted with a million and one blessings each day) I get caught up with the one little negative thing and blow it all out of proportion.

So, as to avoid being swallowed up by the earth and by way of apology to those I’ve drug into my pity part of late here’s a list of just some of the cool things that’s been happening in my life:

I woke up breathing this morning and the really cool part about this is that I didn’t have to stay up all night last night to remind myself to keep breathing to stay alive.

There was still oxygen to be breathed!

My heart was still beating even though I didn’t do it.

My truck broke down again and I had to take it to the shop – no, no, no this is not grumbling! – this was really a good thing because I got to run around in my mom & dad’s cool Jeep all week. The kids particularly like this because they can climb in over the side without having to use the doors – as Ashley would say, “so righteous!”

I had the joy of standing in a hospital room last night with Adam & Molly Sylvia celebrating and praising God for the birth of their son, Nicholas. Even better, the room was filled with others from the Endeavor family which literally moved me to tears.

I have the joy and privilege to serve a God Who’s Kingdom is breaking out all over the place and he has invited me into the mix. This blows my mind.

I have an incredible wife who loves me despite myself.

And I could go on and on and on…