From the September-December 2011 Issue
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES- Romania
Pal and Anna Borzasi
To start to serve the Lord in a new place requires being flexible as much as possible. It is quite an experience to stop ministering because of health problems and then after recovery to move to serve the Lord in a different church. It requires being willing to adapt to the new situation as much as possible. Of course this raises the question of what our freedom and constraints are in Christ.
For me the apostle Paul’s teaching is indeed instructive, as he sets out his principles in this regard in 1 Corinthians 9. The constraint for him – and for us – is the law of Christ. This we should never give up. The freedom for him –and for us – is to become all to all, whether to Jews or Gentiles, or for that matter to Romanians or Hungarians or Gypsies. The purpose of all this is the salvation of as many people as possible: “that by all means I might save some.” These are the principles which we should never give up anywhere, anytime, but they should govern all our willingness to be flexible in every circumstance. Learning these principles is a challenge indeed.
In particular, to serve the Lord in Luna de Sus means to understand the present situation, with its different opportunities and challenges.
Joys
As for the opportunities, the good news is that there seem to be some thirsty people who are open either to come to the church quite regularly to hear the gospel (like Ilonka), or in a case where the husband is prohibiting this, to read some good books at home instead (like Enikő). Moreover, there are some backslidden Christians (like Győző), whose spiritual recovery is alone a miracle of the gospel and the joy of the whole church. Another cause for joy is the baptism of four young people who joined the church recently and are showing real signs of growing in grace.
Challenges
Speaking about the challenges, these might be categorized as external and internal. From outside we encountered some opposition, as some religious people from Luna de Sus tried to convince us not to evangelize, visit homes, share the gospel or invite people to the church. Of course, we continue this mission even more convincingly; though try to do it as courteously as possible.
The internal challenges include a situation which looks like the one found at the very end of the Book of Judges, where we read that “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In other words, we have a real leadership challenge, which necessitates pastoral wisdom indeed. It seems that the solution to this problem might be not just to have godly leaders in front of the church – which we do not have at the moment – but that the brethren should then respect and depend upon their leaders. This may take a longer time than I thought, as it also requires the finding and implementation of well-functioning principles, to which the adjustment is not a matter of momentary decision alone, but a process in time.
Gypsy mission
The work of the gospel in Mera, where I also go twice a week, mainly consists of Gypsy mission, as they are the most open to the gospel there. Alongside the regular church services (three times per week), the work includes visiting families, teaching illiterate adult Gypsies the letters of the alphabet, and teaching the children (see photo). There is also a baptismal class going on with a couple, which is really encouraging.