May 03, 2006
My Heart Goes to Romania
So the Romania trip is starting to take shape, and I'm overwhelmed by the opportunity and so grateful to God that He would present it to me. The real work begins now of raising funds and getting to know each other as a group; of laying out our schedule for the week's work. We leave in mid-July and we will be in the town of Timisoara. I know we fly into Bucharest, but I'm not sure if we'll take a train to Timisoara, or another flight. I'm hoping for a train, because there is something romantic and unrecreatable (surely not a word) about train travel in Europe. And I believe that despite a horrific 12-hour sleeper car trip from Seville to Barcelona in 2001.
This Sunday the director of missions presents our group to the congregation so that the church can pray specifically for us over the next few months and I'm so humbled by that. I feel like I don't deserve this; like it just sort off fell into my lap and I needed to work harder or be better or know more before I went out into the world for Him. But what I keep forgetting is that every day I'm out in the world for Him.
I've been searching for Romania tags on Flickr and the photos are breathtaking. It's a country I never even considered that I would visit, but I've been reading voraciously - history and culture - and I feel like I have enough time to learn a few phrases before I go, even though we will have a translator and most of the people we'll be working with will speak English. In preparing for this trip, both prayerfully and logistically, I hope to be reminded that the God I serve is also the God that they love. And in teaching them the curriculum of NPCC's early childhood Sunday School - that God created me, God loves me and Jesus wants to be my friend forever - I'll be constantly reminded that those tenants are universally true. I recently read Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller and in it he makes the (laughably obvious) point that Jesus wasn't an American. It's laughably obvious, yes, but it also stands to be repeated, often and loudly. There is a movement at work in our country - a movement to fully Westernize Christ into a symbol for things He never intended to symbolize. It's dangerous, and as a Christian I think you have to be constantly vigilant that you don't fall victim to that mentality. It's easy though, because when you have a personal relationship with someone you think of them as like you, when instead we should be forming ourselves to be like Him.
Jesus came to save humanity and as He flings me across the globe to do his work, even if only for seven days, I hope that truth imprints forever on my heart.
"There is nothing in this life that could take the place of You, that could take the place of You, my Jesus. And there is nothing in this life that could take the place of one life, one love, one power to save us all. One hope, one truth, one glory in it all." - Glory of Your Name
Posted by hannah at 05:05 PM
