The Key at Beclean

While we were in Romania in 2008, our main goal was to conduct a scheduled 5 Vacation Bible Schools.  We called these schools the Schoo of Heroes 2, which emphasized the importance of children in the Bible.  Each school was 4 days long and ran Tuesday through Firday.  Our school was located in Beclean, which is about a 40-minute drive from our hotel.

Monday, we spent about 2 hours setting up our school, arranging our things and meeting the translators and staff from the public school we were using. We were allowed to use their public schools because we were teaching them English while we taught them Jesus. We set up one central supply room in a classroom so that we could all go and take the resources that were required. It was a bright room because of a wall of glass windows on the opposite wall from the door. The principle, who was a woman, told us that each room in the school only had one key. They were kept on a peg system in her office where they could all be accounted for. She gave the key to this classroom to me and said, 'This is the only key to this room, there is no other'. We understood that little bit of English quite well. We also noticed something curious, everyone that worked there ( principal, teachers, janitors, secretaries, etc.) was a woman.

Tuesday through Thursday we had between 125-175 children attend each day. The children were very receptive to learning about Jesus.

Friday. Decision Day. The day began with our vehicles arriving about 15 minutes late. We used our time on the bus to pray for the day, because we knew that this was the most important day of our trip. Ending on time today was important because a few of our translators had other jobs that they worked the afternoon shift and the mayor of the city was coming for our commencement ceremony at 12:00 so we needed to be ready even though we were already running late.

About three minutes before we arrived at the school, I realized that I had left the key to our supply room in  the hotel room forty minutes away.  If we couldn't get into the supply room, we wouldn't be able to show the video of the life of Christ, do crafts or complete decision cards which would allow local churches to follow up with each child. We arrived at the school and thought that maybe one of the cleaning ladies would have a spare key we could use. We asked, 'Do you have a key to this room?' They answered, 'No. You have key, right?' This was at about 8:50. School of Heroes began at 9:00. So we called our pastor back in Bistrita and told him that the key was in our hotel room and that we would need that key as fast as they could get it to us. I hung up the phone and saw my teenage son trying to pick the lock. One of the cleaning ladies started yelling at him in Romanian and telling him to get away from the door and not to break it. The door was still locked.

The key was at least 40 minutes away. At.8:55, we had 190 children standing outside our school ready to hear the gospel. Betsy came to me and said, 'Suzanne, identify this for what it is. This is Satan trying to ruin God's plans. It's not your fault. He's trying to hold back what is going to happen today.'  I took a breath and said a quick prayer, "God, we need to get into that room. Help!"  We were out of options. We brought the children into the gym for our opening time and began.  Everyone on the team was trying to figure out what to do since our plans wouldn't work without our supplies, but we were all praying also for God to solve our problem.

At about 9:10 we had only about 10 minutes left with the children in the main group time before we needed to split up. My son, Scott, decided that it didn't matter what anyone said, he was going to break into that classroom. He went down one hallway and turned the corner to get to the supply room. Everything seemed to fade away and in a way distort. All that he could see was the doorframe of the supply room and the bright  light that was coming through the open door. He ran back to tell me, 'The door is open'. I thought he had picked the lock. I had no idea that he had found the locked door already standing wide open. I gave him instructions to start preparing all that we had planned for that day. Bro. Larry came with the key from my hotel room around 9:50 which was good because we needed to turn the key back in to the office. He was very surprised to find we already had an opened door.  The rest of the day went as planned. About one hundred students accepted Jesus into their life and one of my recreation translators did too.After we were done rounding up our leftover supplies and loading them onto the bus, we learned how the door was really opened.

            Two of our team members, Margaret and Jean, who had worked in crafts all week, were waiting in the hallway to set up for craft. Between 9:05 and 9:10 they saw a man, whom they had never seen before, come into the school. He went directly to the supply room, unlocked it, opened the door, and left.

We do not know who this man was but, there was no other key to that door and no men worked at the school. God provided the way for us to do his will even in the middle of that spiritual battle. He had The Key. We do not know for certain who this man was, but we believe that the Lord sent an angel to open that door for us.

New International Version
"To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of Him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.
Revelation 3:7