We all met in Frankfurt and continued our flight to Budapest where we loaded our 56 passenger bus for the 6 hr. ride to the Hungarian/Romanian border and our hotel in Oradea.  Saturday, we continued the bus trip across the mountains to Bistrita.  Sunday was a blessed day of worship with our Romanian brothers and sisters in Christ and Monday was a full day of unpacking our sea shipment of supplies and preparing for the week.

Our mission purpose this year was to again minister in the 40 mission churches and First Baptist Bistrita in evening evangelistic services.   Our team members divide into groups of 5 or more to preach, bring special music and testimonies in a variety of settings.  Many congregations are still meeting in ‘house churches’ and the villagers cannot come until they come in from the fields and the cows and sheep are fed!  Others meet in newly constructed beautiful churches.

Our second ministry was to hold the “American School of Heroes” in 8 of these villages in Bistrita/Nasaud County.  In past years we had focused on the city children so we felt led to take the same VBS-type program to the children in the small villages.  Our team of 48 was divided into four teams of 9 along with our 30 teenage Romanian translators – (see Romania Team 2008 for more details).  We again presented the SOH II but the schools were only 2 – 3 hours each day in order to expand our outreach.  The first four were held in Teaca, Visoara, Lechinta, Galati Bistrita and the second four in Monari, Orhei, Cintelnic, and Sarata.  Two of these are gypsy villages.  Galati Bistrita has no evangelical churches at all and we went there by a special request of the mayor.  In two cases we were blessed with schools to meet in but most had 1-3 small rooms to accommodate 60-100 children in opening worship, crafts and Bible Learning.  It took “instant adapting’ as we had not seen these sites until ½ hr. before the children arrived!   Our directors and teachers, craft workers, etc. all did a fantastic job adjusting - sometimes minute to minute!!

The Lord blessed us with wonderful weather so recreation and even some crafts were held outside.  The children have so little, they are thrilled with ANY circumstances!

 
Our SOH II curriculum is designed to teach that Jesus loves children and wants them to know and pray to Him.  Orthodox children (95% of the country) are taught that only the priest can pray and how much he is willing to pray sometimes depends on how much they are willing to PAY!   Our stories this year were the story of Samuel and Jesus blessing the children.  The second day closed with the showing of the “Jesus Film for Children” in Romanian.  Campus Crusade has allowed us not only to use but also to duplicate their DVD for our use.  For Romanian children to watch a movie in their own language is unheard of and what is even more amazing is the children telling the story LOOK Romanian – with beautiful dark hair and eyes.

 
We had a total of  689 children enrolled in the 8 schools.  In many cases, adult parents or grandparents came as well as several of our group had unique ministries to them.  We had  219 children indicate they received Christ on their commitment cards.  The wonderful thing is our ministry there is only the beginning.  The Baptist churches in the area follow up with every child in attendance.  Last year, the First Baptist Church sent follow-up invitations to each of the 984 children in the 2008 School of Heroes, inviting them to a Christmas Celebration.  In Bistrita alone, more than 3,000 children came to the church over three nights the week of Christmas.   We are amazed at the dedication of the members of First Baptist as they follow up with these children.

Only in eternity will we know what was accomplished, but every team member is grateful for the opportunity we had to share the Gospel with these precious little ones.

The Team puts its mark on Camp Hope