Last day of VBS with melting hearts!

7-6-2013

The last and final day of VBS.  Bro Dave needed us to get to his place early this morning so that we could take his Doblo (small van like SUV) to the shop, before we arrived it just randomly stopped working.  We had to push start it so that we could get it started. Bro Dave asked me to follow him and drive the Doblo, so I had my first experience driving in a foreign country.  When I got in the car I realized that it was a manual transmission and it has been a few years since I last drove a manual transmission.  Needless to say as the captain of seal team 7 (just for you philip) I was feeling the pressure to perform and not stall the engine.  Philip was the co-pilot and Allie was in the back seat videoing part of the trip. It was a success, we made it to the shop without incident, I was quite proud of myself even though there were a couple close calls. It was then that bro Dave revealed to me that if we had been caught driving without a Romanian drivers license the penalty is one year in prison. Yikes... just kidding everything would of been fine! We got back to bro Dave's house and got ready to go to VBS.... When we got there the team had a circle of prayer and asked God to use us and help us to make a lasting impression with the kids.  We had 47 kids that came and each kid heard the salvation message and received a salvation bracelet as a reminder.  There is one little boy named Cristi, who hasn't been the easiest kid at vbs, who gave me his salvation bracelet and wouldn't go to the lesson time unless I went with him. So I sat down with him and we chatted with sis Manary as our translator.  This is a young boy that has no father figure but has 3 much older brothers and a mom that isn't really involved. Cristi pretty much runs around doing whatever he wants with absolutely no authority figure in his life. I ended up going with him to his last station. I asked him to tell me what each of the colors on the salvation bracelet meant.  We sat through the lesson and then finished the VBS with the usual singing and giving away of candy.  The kids were told that if they come to service tomorrow and bring their parents then they will get a large chocolate candy bar. As we left the VBS I gave Cristi a bracelet (kingswitness) that I had been wearing, it was one he wanted earlier in the week.  Bro Manary explained to him that it was a sign of friendship and that it means that he and I are friends, he really liked it. We have prayed a lot for Cristi, for his salvation and behavior and we definitely saw some big changes in him this week. Seeing those changes really touched all of our hearts. It truly is amazing what can happen when you show the love of Christ to others. You might be thinking that we give a lot of candy away and that the kids are just doing it for the candy... well let me tell you a story. Sora Magdalena is one of the most faithful members at the church here and the reason she found out about Christ was because her children attended vbs years ago and were told if they memorized the verses they would get extra candy. Now her kids, according to her, were the crazy ones running around not paying attention but they really wanted the extra candy so they begged their mom to help them remember it. As Sora Magdalena helped them so they could get extra candy she was also memorizing the scriptures and became curious. She came and asked questions and found the truth all because her kids wanted the extra candy. She has 10 kids and since then 2 of her boys have surrendered to the ministry. God has used her family in a mighty way and after years of praying for her husband Costi, he finally accepted Christ and has become very faithful and has also been helping  work on the new building. We finished the night with our devo/testimony time in which everyone talked about how they saw God work this last week. Bro Dave and sis Joy both gave their testimonies of salvation and talked about how they have seen God work in their lives. Please pray for services tomorrow that we would have a good turn out and that God would bless with great weather as we have had amazing weather all week.