I plan to start publishing once again on a regular basis, but it will take on a new dimension. Next week’s post will give explanation to the new dimension and new vision.
TIMISOARA
Forty years ago, God used a Romanian pastor to set in motion my destiny. I find myself today (Sept.2,2015) in Romania praying with about 300 people. Zuzanna and I are at the European Trumpet Call in Timisoara, Romania. ETC is a group that brings together intercessors to pray for Europe.
There were so many reasons we could have used to talk ourselves out of coming but God made sure we got here.
Once we were here in Timisoara the Lord reminded me of two past events regarding Romania and the destiny I have to pray for the Balkan countries. To expand on what I mentioned above, forty years ago, 1975, God spoke to me through a Romanian pastor.
I was in a Texas jail because of drug charges. We were allowed to have books to read and somehow I had picked up Richard Wurmbrand’s book, “Tortured for Christ”. In the book he tells of his many years in prison and the tortures he endured because of being a pastor in a communist country. At one point while reading the book the Lord showed me something that deeply impacted my life. Here was a man that was in jail for doing good but I was in jail for doing bad. I had become a Christian a few years earlier but had fallen back into sin. Wurmbrand’s story planted a burden in me to pray for Christians that were living in communist lands.
I was released from jail/prison in 1977 with a desire to read all I could about the persecuted church. In 1985 I moved to former Yugoslavia as a missionary. For three and one half years I was able to travel throughout the Eastern bloc countries and actually pray with my feet on the ground.
About June of 1985 my pastor from America, Olen Griffing, and his wife Syble came to visit me in Yugoslavia. He gave me a letter that contained important information and he ask me to take it to someone in Timisoara, Romania. The letter was from a Romanian in America that wanted to communicate some news to his relatives. So I arranged to travel to the then very restricted Romania to deliver the letter. I arrived in Romania and delivered the letter and watched as the family weep as they read it. I was ask to come back the next evening so I could then meet with other Christians. I woke up the next morning, and realize I had most of the day to walk around the city and pray. So that is what I did. I never noticed anyone following me, which was the normal thing regarding foreigners back then. I think the Lord had me hidden. As I walked and prayed I noticed the stores that were not closed had very little food in them. There were nice wide streets but hardly any cars. I was shocked at what I was seeing, or what I was not seeing.
That evening I meet with a small group of Christians in a home. We prayed together. I observed them on their knees, poureing out their hearts to the Lord. The next morning I left Timisoara a changed man.
Now it is 2015 and here I am in Timisoara 30 years later, in a huge church, praying with hundreds of Romanians and other people from around the world. 1975 I received a call from the Lord, through a Romanian pastor, to pray for Eastern Europe. 1985 I was able to prayer-walk Timisoara, a very devastated city. (By the way, in 1989 the revolution that brought down communism in Romania started in Timisoara.) To me these dates are important: 1975, 1985 and 2015, 5 has always been my favorite number.
This time of prayer in Timisoara with the European Trumpet Call has been earth shaking. Timisoara is experiencing a heat wave. The church we are meeting in is not air-conditioned and 300 people are sweating and crying out to God for a revival in Europe.
Destiny is an amazing thing. Please seek the Lord for the Destiny He has for you.
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