Category: Romania 2015

Worship at the Bonfires

3 out of the 6 nights that we were at the camp, we had these huge bonfires. They would spend the whole day collecting huge pieces of wood and building the bonfire, and at around 10pm at night, they would light this huge bonfire! The first night we had the bon fire, withLove and I started to lead worship with some songs we knew in Romanian. I was having a blast singing and shaking my tambourine in a rhythmic jam, Jordan grooving away on the cajon for the whole mountain to hear, Stephen, Derek, and Larry (one of the translators) playing on their guitars, and Rachael singing her heart out. We became one big choir that night! To my surprise, Larry, who claims that he “used to” be a worship leader, started to sing other worship songs in Romanian, and the whole gang sang along! That first night, we got hip to all the Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman songs they knew and to some cool folk-sounding Gypsy worship songs that are popular in their town! They took so much pride and joy in those songs and we loved singing with them even though we didn’t know the words! The Spirit of the Lord was there, and we were all singing praises in different languages! What a beautiful sight! I was pleasantly surprised at how many American songs they knew in Romanian and the experience gave the band some more songs to sing in worship for the rest of the week (songs that they would know in their language!). So here I am dancing around the fire like Kanye West trying to chorale the group and sing the whole time while catching their attention with my awesome tambourine skills! As one church, we clapped, we sang, and had an amazing bonding time in an atmosphere of worship and fun! The fire was so big and hot! We had to sit like 10 ft away from it so we wouldn’t get burned. But of course, crazy me was dancing like 5 ft away from it, every now and again getting hit by a flaming ember! But it was worth the dancing fun!

Pork Fat, Smores, and Toilets

The 2^nd night, we did the same thing, but there were added treats: Smores. We were so excited to have a taste of back home! Unfortunately, since the fire was so big and hot, only a few dared to get close enough and stand the heat long enough to get that perfectly melted smore. I was dancing around eating my smore, I noticed this older gentlemen that had this hunk of white glob and an onion on a stick. I asked Naomi (one of our translators) what is was, and she said it’s pork fat. I was like “what?!”, who eats straight up pork fat?! But apparently Romanians do around a nice campfire. They heat the pork fat up to a nice slimy drip and soft enough to slice small chunks off with a knife. Then you take a piece of onion and place it on a bread with the pork fat chunk, and bottoms up! I guess that’s the Romanian version of the American smore! Stephen, Rachael, and I tried it. I thought it was pretty good, I had 2 servings. Stephen didn’t think much of it. And Rachael seemed to have found the next best meal of her life! She kept eating one chunk of pork fat after another. All I remember were 2 things from that night:

1. The toilet the whole next day that Waddy and I endured and we vowed to never do that to our bodies again.
2. Rachael going to Hateg, the local town, to get her own glob of pork fat for the next bon fire!

It was still an experience to never forget to say the least!

The 3^rd night of the bonfire, it was nearing the end of our stay at Bradatel. It had just been raining for a brief time in the evening, and Pastor Danni decided to move forward the bonfire. Rachael was ready and excited to light up her pork fat. We had the bon fire going for about 20 minutes and then it started to POUR DOWN RAIN and we all had to scramble back to our rooms. Rachael was the most bummed, because she couldn’t have her pork fat, and decided to give it to one of the older men to eat. I was thinking, the Lord just saved Rachael’s stomach from having to process that craziness and who knows what else….

Worship 101

In the middle of our stay at the camp, withLove and I taught a music workshop to about 50 youth. I kicked it off with a basic 101 on what praise and worship is, what a worship leader’s role is, why worship leaders are important to the church, and so on. I also talked about how there are 3 main barriers that block a lot of people from true worship, which is fear, pride, and confusion. Derek chimed in some his golden nuggets of worship wisdom and then I began to talk about song writing.

Song-Writing Workshop

My heart for them is that they would write songs from their own hearts that reflect their culture, story, and sound instead of singing every Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman song known to man. They would often complain to me that they would rather sing American songs in English because everyone translates the American songs differently and when they sing together, it’s one confusing dysfunctional mess. So it gave me all the more reason for them to write their own songs in their own native tongue where there’s one translation! I talked to them about the basic parts of a song like the verse, chorus, and bridge and the purpose behind each part. I talked to them about the creative process and how everyone’s process is different and encouraged them to keep writing bad songs until they write their great songs! It takes writing a lot of bad songs before you write your good one!

Naomi, one of our sweet translators, wrote a beautiful song that was close to her heart called “Free” and wanted us to put music to it. So we used her song as a demonstration to show what song-writing feels and looks like. After I found the basic chord progression of her song, Waddy (electric guitar), Derek (acoustic guitar), and Jordan (drums) added their spin to the song and it became this great song within 15 minutes right before everyone’s eyes! Even though it was a very simple process for us, their eyes were lit up with amazement and excitement about creating music. When we finished Naomi’s song, they erupted into a roar of applause.

Music Workshop

Then, we let the youth come up on stage to practice playing together as a band. Since they all knew “Here I Am To Worship” by heart, we had them play and sing the chorus over and over again as we switched out singers and musicians throughout the segment. They were so excited to play each instrument and get behind the mic as they played and sang their hearts out with a big smile. As soon as everyone got a good feel for their parts, they started to sync and sound together as one beautiful sound. As they started to sound pretty good, their eyes and ears lit up with excitement as they noticed! It’s beautiful to see how music inspires and excites these young aspiring musicians to love God even deeper through this magical experience. And my heart is that it would inspire them to take what they’ve learned and to keep growing to be skillful musicians to their heart’s desire. And what’s even more beautiful is that they use their gifts to not make it about them, but to make it completely about others discovering God on a deeper level!

Reflection

Music really is a powerful tool to connect with people even when there is a language and cultural gap. And my hope is that our music would inspire people to discover God in the power of His love as young worshippers. That withLove would have a hand in inspiring a generation of truly passionate worshippers that would worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). And worship leaders that would take the time to disciple each other to be great men and women of God accountable to one another in enriching relationships and leading each other into deeper worship with God (Hebrews 10:23-25, Colossians 3:16). This is the withLove vision coming alive before our very eyes and it’s a blessing that we get to do it at an international level. The vision has already been written (see the vision here) and it came from above and now God is doing amazing things through withLove step by step, and I’m blessed to be a part of this amazing journey!

 

 

So the main purpose of this 1 week camp was to train many churches from the young charismatic to the older conservative denominations in Discipleship and Evangelism. And then to go out to the local towns and share the gospel applying what they learned. Danni and Chippi, the leaders of this effort (Check out “Multicultural Worship” to hear more about them) also wanted revival to take place in their hearts as a fire under their belly to share the gospel. And they sought to do that effectively through music and great examples of servant-leaders, which was mainly why withLove was brought to the table.

Evangelism Xplosion

Some of the training was taught by Danni and other well-experienced veteran Romanian pastors. And most was taught via video tutorials from the Australian ministry called Evangelism Xplosion. They would spend 3-4 hours at a time in the main sessions watching clips of these zealous Australian teachers and Danni, Chippi, and other pastors would facilitate smaller groups to discuss the lesson. There was a lot of good information that the band was able to learn through our translators. One thing I really remembered were our “spheres of influence”. We all have our network of people through different avenues of life whether it’s at work, home, school, church, the gym, etc. Those places are called your “spheres”. You encounter certain people in those places that you may not encounter in others. And those people have their relationship with you in those “spheres” that allow you an opportunity to speak to them about Christ – hence your “sphere of influence”. And if you drew this out on paper, you begin to see large networks in family-tree like fashion being created because every person that you encounter in your sphere of influence has their own spheres of influence to share the Gospel in. And this begins a snowballing domino effect where if you reach 1 person for Christ, there is potential opportunity to reach 20 others through direct and indirect connections that 1 person has! So what’s the point? Sometimes it takes 1 person to come to Christ in order for a whole generation to know Christ! How your seeds multiply in the harvest in later seasons…. the possibilities are endless! Where there are failures, there are successes and you can never stop trying to reconcile people back to God’s love!

Dwight and the Super Translators!

But the training was definitely a lot of information over long periods of time and I’m not going to lie, it was hard to keep up with, even for the translators. They worked so hard and consistently to translate everything that was going on for us! Dwight and his team of translators did such an amazing job being our liaison to the Romanian leaders and congregation. They put in a lot of work translating our songs, including our original songs, for each set! But it was fun for all of us to lead worship in 2 different languages. It’s definitely a unique multicultural experience!

To the Streets!

On the 5^th day of camp, we went to a local small town called “Hateg” (Pronounced “Hot-Seg” – we liked to call it “Hashtag” lol) to share the gospel. This truly was a small town because we were able to walk the whole city in about 1 hour! They had a beautiful park in the middle of the city with a this beautiful fountain in the middle of the park. It was right in front of this grocery store and looked like the main hang out for a lot of gypsies. The strategy for evangelizing was via this simple questionnaire that the students used to start a conversation. It basically quantified the quality of life without Christ and the quality of life possibly with Christ. For example, “How satisfied are you with your life from 1 to 10, 10 being the best?” or “How important is having a spiritual life to you on a scale from 1-10?”. In about 8 more similarly derived questions, it led to a conversation into the “unknown”. The “unknown” meaning, the space that was created in conversation (through the questionnaire) and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your conversation to wherever he may lead you, whether that is in prayer, encouragement, or salvation. We were able to debrief afterwards back at the camp and found out that out of the 115 people that went out to evangelize, 5-6 people came to Christ with many more considering going to the local church to find out more. And that was worth all the more to keep trying!

Concert in Hateg!

On the 6^th day of camp, withLove played an outdoor concert at the park in Hateg. This concert consisted of old and original upbeat, LOUD songs (finally); testimonies from the young adult Romanian Leaders, from Rachael, and myself (with our translators of course). This was capped off with Danni sharing a beautiful 5-minute presentation of the Gospel. The concert was so much fun! This was a cool Friday afternoon, the speakers were up, the amps were turned up, and the tents gave us shade from the sun! We were ready to play! As you heard the lovely sounds of splashing water in the nearby fountain, David was playing his double-edged sword of the key bass on one keyboard and main keys on the other, Jordan was playing as loud as he wanted on the drums in the large patch of grass, Waddy was shredding his guitar through this giant amp, and Derek and Rachael were foot-stomping, guitar jamming, and tambourine shakin’ the evening away! Our original songs “After Your Heart” and “Worth It All” were a big hit with the crowd as people all over the park were dancing and singing with us! We were hitting on all 12 cylinders that night, all in the name of Jesus! It’s a great feeling when people can have fun and dance to your own original music! People came to Christ and many others were prayed with by the end of the night! In the excitement of everything, everyone was taking pictures with us and shaking our hands, and then helped us break down the set and pack it into our 2 vans. We rode off in the sunset back to the mountains where our camp was. We left just in awe of the work that God was doing in that community. Souls and hearts were definitely stirred that night!

Reflection

Although it was a lot of intense teaching, all I can say about all this evangelism and discipleship training is that I have never seen anything like this in the states where multiple churches from multiple denominations come together to learn and train together; and then immediately GO OUT into the community to apply what they learned in the same week to reach souls for Christ! That is unheard of and yet it’s so beautiful! We have a lot to learn from what the church is doing overseas! Unity is lacking in the church, and for a country like Romania, where the church is redeeming itself in comparison to the rest of the world, they are starting on the right foot by reaching people for Christ together! My heart is the same as the Romanians with The Love Sessions where we can all worship together no matter who you are or what church you’re. It’s a beautiful and powerful thing that as 1 UNITED church, WE can bring people to Christ as one outreaching arm rather than in our own divided glory.

John 17:22,23 saids “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Unity is what God has given us as our symbol of LOVE to the world – that even as imperfect and as different as we are in doctrine, race, or preference of worship, it’s because of His love that we can harmoniously come together under one name, JESUS. And that alone is a huge testament to God’s glory and love to the rest of the world!

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to leading worship in an entirely different culture and context. We came prepared with 5 popular songs in Romanian which were: “Here I am To Worship”, “How Great is Our God”, “I Love You Lord”, “Oceans”, “Nothing but the Blood”. Here we are, an alternative ROCK band brought to lead worship in a conservative context where most are used to boy choirs and pipe organs. Dwight must have seen something in us to have asked a rock band to come out Romania to lead worship through music. They are 25 years out of communism and are just getting hip to Chris Tomlin. That means that people 25 years and younger are just getting hip to new contemporary Christian music outside there hymnals. So throw out the gospel music, the shredding guitar lines, and the bumping bass, we had to throw ourselves back about 10 years in the song books to when Michael W. Smith, Matt Redman, and Chris Tomlin were the headliners!

Danni and Chippi

To put things into context, withLove was working with 2 relatively young church leaders named “Danni” and “Chippi”. Danni was recently ordained as an evangelism pastor for a new church plant in Timisoara which is part of a big church in the area call the “The Vox” or “The Voice”. Chippi is Danni’s disciple who he has been discipling for years. Danni has been doing ministry for 20 years and has an incredible life story of how he came to Christ and doing the work he is doing today. (His story will come up in a later blog, so stay tuned!) Let’s just say that he came to know Christ while being a part of the Communist revolution….

So Danni and Chippi have a huge heart and vision of revival and evangelism in Romania and have mainly been doing that through youth rallies throughout the years. For the first time, they gathered about 10-12 different churches with their prominent and rising church leaders from all over Romania at Bradatel to receive evangelism and discipleship training and then apply what they’ve learned by strategically sharing the gospel in local cities. These churches ranged from young charismatic denominations to older conservative denominations varying from different styles of worship on both extremes. A majority of this crowd were young ranging from 16-25 years old. And 25% of them were older. So as a band that has to lead worship with all these denominations in 1 room, you can begin to see the challenge that was before us…

Worship in little steps….

We get to Bratadel on a Friday evening and spent the rest of the evening tirelessly setting up the sound system in the cafeteria. We’re jet lagged and little flustered because we kept flipping the fuse box switches because of the power of the sound system we were setting up. We had to pray over the fuse box to let us have the power we need for the sound system. And sure enough, we did! The local church gave us some great sound equipment that was suited for an outside concert of about 750 people if we wanted! So when we got this equipment we initially assumed, let’s rock out!

We were scheduled to lead morning and evening worship sets for the next 7 days. So when Saturday morning came, we started with a simple song to sing called “Fill Me Up” by Jesus Culture….. Talk about a tough crowd. You could see excitement in some people’s faces just because we were an American band, but many were not feeling our music because they said it was “too loud, too repetitive, and too free”. Free? They called our worship “Free Worship” because we didn’t sing from a hymnal or have any structure to our music on a project screen or paper – which they are not used to and made them uncomfortable. So in response, we turned down the volume of the sound system. When evening worship happened, we sang our songs in Romanian and they were highly impressed that we sang songs in their language! They began to warm up to us more. But it was still too loud. So we turned it down some more. This happened over and over again until the volume of the sound system was as close to 0 dB as possible.

The Conversation

Danni began to worry that the “loudness” of our music would turn off the conservative churches and ruin his reputation as a new pastor. Personally, he loved our music and said that he would love to have us play at his church playing as loud as we want, but for this context, he has been carefully playing a fine balancing game between appeasing the conservative and charismatic church. My response? I said, “withLove is here to serve you and work with you as 1 team. Our only agenda is to help propel your ministry to the next level and not slow you down! We want to honor how you do ministry in your country! This is about Jesus and reaching souls for His kingdom. Let’s embrace this challenge together!” From there on, there was a feeling of unity, despite our cultural and language barriers, and were able to move forward with a mutual understanding of the challenge that lied before us!

Chipping at the Ol’ Ice Block

By the 2^nd morning worship set, we decided not to shock everyone with our “loud” music and do an acoustic set. Piano, acoustic guitar, cajon, and a quieter bass. This worked out well with the crowd as the older folk decided to not run out the cafeteria. As the band and I were sitting in our rooms between sets strategizing and praying over our worship sets, I painted this picture of chipping away at this ice block that has something special from God in the middle. Each time we’re on that stage, we’re chipping away at their ice block of life circumstances, their questions about God, and about themselves – and warming them up to be free to worship Christ with a renewed sense of faith, hope, and love! In this context, the first night was an introduction to withLove. We welcomed them to be comfortable in worship as we loved on them, but at the same time challenged them to step out their comfort zones to go to the next level with Christ as they worship! And so the second night, they were more comfortable with our sound and style of worship and we challenged them to begin to surrender to God and to indicate that by standing up and raising their hands! And so many did, from young to old! Again, Danni, Chippi, and many other church leaders were surprised to see this happening!

The 3^rd Night….

The third night, the chains fell off. I challenged anyone that was willing to step out of their comfort zones and step into the next level, that they would symbolically come to the front and worship with us! And practically the whole crowd packed the front of the stage! They were singing their hearts out to “Here I Am To Worship”, raising their hands in surrender in tearful joy, and some were even bowing down on their knees to God. On other songs we did, they were dancing in circles and clapping their hands, it was a beautiful rare sight! Dwight and many other church leaders were in tears of the revival that was taking place. There was a realization that no matter the music, or the method, that this camp was about bringing people closer to Christ and that’s when we worshipped as 1 church.

After witnessing the “free worship” that his Romanian counterparts were now capable of, Danni decided to move worship in the evening to the end of the session to allow more time for “free worship” and to allow the old heads that absolutely don’t like the music to leave and go back to their rooms! Like I said, we were chipping at the ol’ ice block and after 3 nights out of the 7, God opened up hearts and minds to His love through our music and message! This continued for the rest of the camp!

Reflection

It’s amazing to see people worship the same God we worship in their own culture, language, and style! It paints the beauty of who God is and what He sees in all of us as His own sons and daughters. The most translated words in any language are “Hello”, “How are You?”, “Thank You”, and “I Love You”. And when you can create an environment and atmosphere of worship with those gestures in mind, especially in a multicultural context, it allows a platform for people to want to step up and draw closer to Christ with a renewed, faith, hope, and love. 

“To be a diverse group that creates music that REVEALS the truth of who Jesus Is by reflecting God’s love world-wide”

That is our vision and mission. And this was a glimpse of what withLove did at this camp. Revealing the truth of Christ in our lives through His perfect love….

Without Borders…

It was close to midnight when we crossed over the Budapest border into Romania, it was a feeling of assuredness that God had destined us to be there. At the border, we were approached by a female Romanian border agent who asked us for our passports. She took 1 good look at the van full of musicians and gear and in Romanian asked Dwight, “Are you guys Christians?” and Dwight kindly said “Yes”. She then asked us to park to the side. After a few minutes of waiting in the cover of night, she came back over to give us back our passports with a beaming smile and said “Welcome to Romania, I hope the camp goes well!”. Dwight said she was happy to see us. Good signs to hear when you are leading a team on an adventure into the unknown!

Take me deeper where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters wherever you may call me….

Dwight

Dwight is our missionary leader and contact in Romania for this trip. We’ve been meeting once a month via Google hangout for about 4 months prior as a team to discuss, prepare, and pray for this awesome trip. When we finally met him in person at the Budapest airport, he was much taller than I imagined him to be from the computer screen and seemingly towered over me with his height and head of grayed hair, his smiling eyes behind his round glasses, his round face, button nose, rosy cheeks, and a cheery smile. He has the voice of a narrator like on a documentary in the History channel or the national geographic. But he’s incredibly gentle, full of joy, and has a huge heart for revival in Romania! He has so much vision for Romanians to come to know Christ in all of His love and not just what they read on paper. He yearns for Romanians to come to know Christ through relationship with Him and not by obligation of being accepted into a culture. That’s why he wanted withLove to come to Romania because he saw exactly what he was looking for in us as a ministry – full of God’s love. Not only did we have a bible, but we also came armed with mics, guitars, keyboards, drums, and amps. He’s an All-American doing missions work in Romania with his family for 20 years. He felt called to Romania after finding out that his great-great-great-great grandfather was in the Romanian history books as a key leader and was coincidently in the same place and time (milestone anniversary) of a key historic event that his ancestor was a part of! He has a beautiful wife, Melissa, and 4 beautiful children – 2 daughters (2, 5), and 2 sons (8, 10). Dwight is a great guy all-around, he’s an awesome leader with a humble soul and a heart of service – a pastoral calling on his life! He was our driver, our tour leader, translator, and liaison to the local church leaders. And in doing all of this, he is an absolute joy to just be around because he keeps it real and keeps it fun!

 

Romania, the Beautiful

Romania is a beautiful country with a rich history of about 6000 years! The culture is very much engrained into the identity of Romanians everywhere. Most recently, Romania is in transition from the fall of the communist era in 1989. Meaning that they are about 25 years out of an oppressive era and culture. That’s barely 1 generation! During the communist era, things like work camps existed, where you were literally worked you to death, there were long lines of starving people to simply get bread, the only religion was Orthodox Christian (very similar to Roman Catholicism), and conformity was king. The revolution against communism took place in 1989 and started in Timisoara, which was the city that we were going to!

Timisoara

Timisoara is a major city of Romania that has the largest income per capita in the whole country! It sits right near the beautiful Carpathian Mountains infamously home to Transylvania and Count Dracula…. What’s funny is that Count Dracula was made up in Hollywood and Romanians don’t even know who he is! Thank you Hollywood.

Gypsies

We also saw many gypsies otherwise known as “Roma” in Romania. They look of Indian decent and are your common beggar just like you would see a panhandler or someone homeless in the U.S. However, gypsies are also known for being a culture of drug addicts, thieves, and entertainers to make a living. They are also a result of the fall of communism because during that time, the government sponsored many orphanages. But when the government fell, so did the orphanages – leaving many orphans without a home or anyone to go to for support. So where did they go? To the sewers underground and leaning on each other and doing whatever they can make a living. To cope with the pain and way of life, drugs ease the reality of an undesirable life that they now face every day. They are known as the scum of the community, the outcasts, the shamed, and no country wants them. They are commonly associated with Romania because of their name “Roma”, but they have nothing to do with Romania, and Romanians hate that association with them. Europe believes this to be true that many countries round up the gypsies and throw them into Romania thinking that’s where they belong! It’s about 25 years and now those orphans are having children of their own, now creating a sub-culture in Europe. It’s a sad history and more of a reason why God’s love would embrace the “least of these” in a culture where you embrace being a “nobody” or an outcast and you have to be okay with that. This world needs more love!

Bradatel

After getting all the sound equipment and supplies from Timisoara, we made our way deep into the Carpathian Mountains to get to the camp called “Bradatel” which is in this beautiful valley where the morning sun rays don’t reach the bottom of the valley until 10am! It’s an incredibly scenic route as you see gorgeous rolling foothills and trees covering mountain after mountain. You almost thought you were on your way to The Shire (Lord of the Rings). We get to the camp to find ourselves in awe of the mountains towering over us, the fresh air that breathed deep into our lungs, and the sounds of calm river running by us below. Then we ran into Romanians that were gathering at the camp! One word: beautiful. Danni, a Romanian pastor warned the band that there are many beautiful people in Romania, and we all brushed it off thinking we see beautiful people all the time! But I mean, these people were BE-A-UTIFUL. You would think they are your typical white person but speaking Romanian, but they aren’t! From their hair, to the eyes, to the shapes of their body was completely different then what we were used to! I couldn’t stop staring into their eyes because many of them almost had this emerald color which I rarely see in the states!

Food

Lastly, the food. It’s a meat, potatoes, and bread kind-of diet. Pretty hearty I would say. They love their pork. And we had it in every kind of way – sausages, bacon, chunks, cured fat, grounded up, or wrapped up in cabbage. I remember when we first got to the camp cafeteria; there were these mountains of big sliced white baked bread waiting for us in these baskets in the middle of the table! My first thought, they barely got it during the communism era, and now they can have all the bread they want! Breakfast was typically bread, butter, honey, goat cheese, sausage, and tomatoes (which were amazingly sweet and good). Lunch was typically an appetizer soup (chicken noodle or potato soup) followed by a surprise concoction of chicken and rice, pork and rice, or pork chunks and potatoes. And dinner was typically a meat and potato meal followed by a chocolate wafer dessert. They fed us well! The food was fresh and tasty for the most part although we had a few should-I-say “surprises” along the way! For example, their macaroni and cheese was LITTERALLY cooked macaroni noodles mixed in with chunks of goat cheese. No sauce and no melting action. It happened. But I still ate it because when you’re hungry, you eat.

Stay tuned! 

This is just my introduction of Romania when we arrived and our general experiences that we had while there! Stay tuned for our adventures in leading worship in a different culture!