Dear Friends,
I just celebrated my 49
th
birthday. I can’t believe it! I came to
Romania when I was 33 years old and started out in missions when I was 26
years old. It is amazing that so many of my adult life “landmarks” are here
in Europe rather than in the USA. I guess I am not the normal American.
Well perhaps “normal” and me have never really associated together. ;-) I
am certainly not aiming for a “normal life”that would be aiming way too low!
Time is marching on, but it also seems that every year gets better.
Last year was probably the best of my life so far. The highlight was
watching God at work, up close and personal. Establishing a church has been
hard work, but immensely rewarding! It really has been an amazing year…I
have seen dozens of miracles with my own eyes and heard of countless
others happening just out of sight. I’m not talking about past generations
nor about past revivals. I’m telling you, something is happening here and now.
God is working in ways I have never seen a nd it seems that He is just getting
warmed up!
For example, this past weekend before our church service, we met to
pray like we usually do every week. About 25 of us were praying (we pray
aloud, all at the same time, while pacing the floor) and then something
happened.
How can I describe it? It was like wave after wave of God’s presence,
His goodness washed over us. I was praying and suddenly felt overwhelmed
with the presence of God. I staggered forward aware that the atmosphere
had just changed...my palms felt they were charged with electricity.
Another level of His presence had come into the room. Then another wave
came and I was swept away in the gracious goodness of God and dropped to
my knees. For some time I just worshiped Him and enjoyed His closeness.
When I looked up, I saw some others on their knees around the room. What
I had perceived in the spirit, others had “seen” too.
It was obvious that God was doing something different this week.
This was not “church as usual”. (Mind you we are talking about the prayer
preparation for church.) So we gathered together, waited on God and
continued to pray…this time not praying for church, but in response to God
who had drawn near. The only appropriate response was worship…we sang a
tender love song to our Jesus…and an even greater wave swept through the
room.
David, my pastor, caught the wave…that movement in the heart of God
and gave instructions for me and Mihaela (his wife) to join him in laying our
hands on people. I can’t explain what happened nor why it happened…but I
will tell you what my eyes saw. As we laid our hands on people and prayed for
God to release Himself over each one … in a short time…a few seconds up to
one minute…each person was overwhelmed by God. Knees buckled, hearts
melted, tears flowed…completely swept off their feet by the Lover of Their
