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I didn’t do much when I first visited Romania in 1997. (I was only 15 anyway…) We spent every evening in a village church doing evangelism. I was a little too young to preach, but I did give my testimony and share briefly from one of my favorite Bible verses: Psalm 19:14.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

The people always responded graciously to my short testimony.

Romania was so different. The winter was harsh. The wind was biting. The snow fell non-stop. The dreary, winter landscape draped the city in a dull gray color. The apartment buildings loomed over us in the city, yet their exterior revealed decades of little care or renovation. The sun only peeked out for short intervals, before hiding again behind the snow-filled clouds.

Church was different too. Services were held in a solemn atmosphere that was only rarely interrupted by laughs or smiles. The worship services seemed cold, though the temperature inside was warm from the wood-burning stove in the center of the church house. People were welcoming and accepting, but the language barrier made me feel unintentionally distanced and different.

Life was different. Schedules didn’t matter as much. We sometimes arrived an hour late at an evangelistic service, but the people would wait, would listen, and then would stay after we had finished. If Dad didn’t preach a full hour, the people felt cheated. In a world with little to do in the wintertime, the people were hungry and receptive to the Gospel message.

Work was hard. Most of the people we met that first year were farmers. They cared for their crops, raised their animals, and fed their families. They lived off the land, mostly, and had the scars, wrinkles, and bruises to show for it. The people’s faces revealed a hard life of labor with little in material wealth as compensation. Evangelical Christians seemed much more joyful. In the midst of their poverty, they would not give in to despair. Instead, they seemed to have tasted a better world – a better life – and that the life they now lived was an anticipation of the world to come.

The anticipation of a new world coming… that was the impression that stuck with me most. For the first time in my life I questioned whether or not the USA was a “better” world, and I began wondering if the wealth of my country had dulled my sense of hope for the new heavens and new earth – a world where righteousness dwells. In some ways, the Romanians were better off. The sense of longing and anticipation was infectious.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2007 Kingdom People blog

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