EASTERN EUROPE UPDATE

“…find out what breaks God’s heart and then let it break your own…”

‘Buna ziua’ from a new EU country!! Actually, people seemed more excited about the opening of IKEA and Starbucks, but there’s definitely mixed opinion about whether the EU is a blessing or curse – many new rules cripple traditional livelihoods – no more chickens in the city & you can’t kill your own pig! We got rid of four ‘0’s from our currency, causing the confusion that one pound is now 5 lei, but was 50,000 lei, but is still referred to as 50 lei!!! We suspended our President then re-instated him. Unlike in Scotland, the summer was spent praying for cooler weather – temperatures topped 50 degrees Celsius! This last week has seen the start of Autumn though, and we’ve been using candles for warmth while waiting for the Government to decide it’s cold enough to turn on the city heating. England was brought to us in the form of Hollywood film sets (see below!). But the most exciting changes have been in new ministries for us here, as we’ve seen God answer our prayers by revealing to us the unmet needs that He has brought us here to help fill.

            Last December, I (Steph) stood watching a Children’s Theatre Christmas performance in Bucharest’s Underground system. Yet it was not the performance that caught my eye – two pre-teens, a toddler and a blind baby were also in the crowd, but they carried a sign reading ‘Dying of hunger’ and were taking a brief break from begging on the metro trains. Starting up conversation with one of them, I realised that normal questions like ‘So are you looking forward to Christmas, what do you hope you’ll get?’ were so inappropriate and irrelevant to their situation. God brought an awareness that we’d never heard of anyone in the city reaching out specifically to these children, who spend all day (often unsupervised) working on the metro, outside shops and cafes, or risking their lives in the traffic to clean car windscreens at traffic lights, in the hope of some spare change.

In February I found a friend with the same awareness of and heart for this unmet need, and we started ‘stalking’ dirty kids as we prayed around the city and gave out bags of homemade cookies! If the children weren’t extremely grubby, flea-bitten, pee-soaked or bare-footed, we’d say ‘Nah, too clean!’ and know they probably weren’t ‘our’ kids!  At times it felt like looking for a needle in a haystack, hoping to bump into the same children more than once in a city of 3 million people, but it’s been amazing seeing God guide us every step of the way, we have made nothing happen ourselves. Praying ‘Where are they God? Help us find them!’, immediately the kids would show up or find a way to call and tell us their location! Sitting on a bench for hours hoping for the 1 person we knew in the area would pass; we would feel God say we should stay there until a certain time, and minutes before it the person would show up!

We quickly became friends with one family who sent their baby out with their 11-year-old to make a living for their large family, while the parents don’t work. They live on the street, sometimes in makeshift ‘tents’ if police don’t catch them, or in abandoned buildings. We were able to be there for this family when the baby was taken by the police for 2 months, when the mother’s foot was run over by a car, and when they asked for help trying to get birth certificates for their youngest children. In May, I finally re-met the original children who God used to challenge me last December, it was amazing to get to know them this time round!

More recently we stumbled upon ‘Romania’s version of Africa’ – a community living on waste ground in the middle of the city, in cardboard and plywood 1-room shacks or breeze-block-and-mud huts, with no running water or electricity, half-naked babies crawling in the dirt and with horses and carts completing the picture. Already we’ve had some success at introducing the beginnings of a children’s programme, reading Bible stories and doing colouring with up to 20 kids – often the parents are the keenest listeners and colourers, being illiterate and not given such opportunities in their own childhoods!

The families we have met have all been gypsy, and as such have incredible odds stacked against them. There’s a huge stigma and stereotype against them, even among many Christians. Viewed as dirty, smelly, liars and thieves, unfortunately this is often true, but people don’t give them a chance to change either. Many don’t have birth certificates and so don’t officially exist, can’t go to school and can’t get jobs. In their culture, child marriages are common as young as 12, so few that do start school ever finish and young teenage mums are normal – they can’t believe we’re so ‘old’ and don’t have kids yet! Even with qualifications, few people want to employ a gypsy. Recognisable just by their skin colour, they are pushed out and not accepted into mainstream society. All along we have offered friendship, care, acceptance and most importantly God’s love and hope, instead of material items. These people are so victim-orientated, so used to being the receivers and demanding that others give, they would appreciate you for nothing else if you only offer physical help (especially as a ‘rich’ foreigner), and it can also encourage that attitude and lifestyle. So it’s been rewarding being accepted in just as friends who care, help, and most importantly can point them to the one God who desires to change their situation. Sometimes it is possible to bless them though. In fact this winter Bucharest’s streetkids will be dressed in Hollywood clothing thanks to a donation from the wardrobe department of a film shot here that I was an ‘extra’ in! (In cinemas around now - look for the pink hat running across a bridge and into a Manor house during a snowstorm in ‘The Seeker : The Dark is Rising’! It was actually 26 degrees, in April, with fake snow! All the sets were fake, apart from the mall which is near our church!)

The hardest part right now is that my co-worker just left Romania, and the Romanian girl (Simona) who I now go with lives far away and can only come once or twice a week. It’s not safe to go alone, and it’s hard to develop the ministry fully without more hours on the street.

CHILDREN’S CHURCH…..TRAINING…..SEMINARS…..WORSHIP…..

As well as training the children’s workers in our church, we have now also agreed to oversee the Church’s entire children’s ministry. We do not need to teach the children each week, but are overall responsible for it’s running. It appears that training is a huge need here, and as such we have seen the importance of investing into others, though it was not our primary goal. In March, Paul completed a 1-month course that will enable him to start and lead YWAM’s Principles in Child & Youth Ministry school (which we have both been students and staff on before) here in the future. This October we are running a Human Development seminar in Transylvania for a week, in the same town where Paul’s parents have been involved with a children’s home. We shall be training 20 of the local Child Protection Agency’s staff, which is an exciting opportunity. As we continue to be an active part of our church’s worship team, I was excited to be able to attend a week-long ‘Call 2 Worship’ seminar in Transylvania, receiving some further training and writing my first (! – I’d like to write more if we ever get a piano!) worship song! It is called ‘Heart of Compassion’ and is inspired by God’s call on my life. For personal input, training and wider vision, I attended the YWAM Romania Leadership Forum, and we both were able to attend YWAM’s ‘Festival of the Nations’ in Germany – for YWAMers all over Europe, the first in 7 years!         

PLEASE PRAY

We look forward to seeing what else God has in store for Bucharest! Thank you for partnering with us through your prayers, we really appreciate them and see their effects! We pray God blesses you in return.                        

With love from

  Paul and Stephanie

Paul: mobile +40720806377, flat19up@hotmail.com Steph: mob +40726152496, einahpets_79@hotmail.com

Postal address (church office): Str. Pericle Gheorghiu Nr 11, Sector 5, Bucuresti, Romania.