By Andy Baker
Have you ever caught yourself dreaming about what could be? I caught myself recently talking about dreams for the future, which is fine to do. But as I talked about dreams with my Romanian colleague, he responded to me with the word: prayer. I wanted to share with you the prayers of our partner Impact Church as shared with me by their pastor Adi Galiger. There is always a dollar amount attributed to many of the prayers we have for Romania because that is just the reality of ministry life. It takes money.
The first prayer request for 2022 concerns their facility, which is a rental property in an old communist factory. I love that a church is using space in a building that was once a factory managed by a “godless government” and now it is a place of worship for those who fear the one true God. Much to our dismay, the cost of electricity has increased by 300% in one year. This has caused a budgeting hardship. But as the church prepares for 2022, there are three issues. They are presently renegotiating the lease, utilities have increased, and there is a need for some renovations due to wear and tear over the last nine years. We invite you to pray for these needs.
They also have a desire to increase their monthly budget for youth activities. Weekly, there are about a hundred teens meeting together, and to be able to provide good study materials would be a plus. The summer youth camp is also a BIG outreach event for the church. They had two hundred young people attend last summer at a cost of $80 per participant for the week. Many of the young people that attend come from homes with limited or no income. We would love to be able to scholarship as many young people as possible in 2022. We invite you to pray for these needs.
There are plans to help in the community as well. In the past, we have partnered with them in renovating a local hospital. They have sponsored small Habitat homes for families in crisis. Bottom line, they want to be the church to the community through outreach. This is something new for the post-communist culture, and we would love to partner with them and match dollar for dollar what they put into their outreach. We invite you to pray for this need.
We continue to partner with them on training seminars throughout Romania, and now a partnership with Eastern European Bible College has made it possible for us to host training events throughout the year on their campus. There is also a desire to create digital content to make it easier to pass information around the country for training purposes. There is always a need for training materials, access to online resources, and scholarships for graduate education. We invite you to pray for these needs.
These are dreams that are becoming prayers. We hope that you will dream and pray with us. Then we would ask you to consider ways you might be willing to participate in any of these activities in 2022. I am so excited to see a society that was once void of dreams due to oppression, begin to dream and to pray for how God might use them. Today the invitation is to pray with us. Maybe through your prayers, you may find yourself in a position to be an answer to prayer. We look forward to the journey with you in 2022 that begins now with prayer.
Blessings!