It Is Better to Give Than to Receive

It's been a while since I promised myself to try and blog more about what He has been teaching me, but as you see, I did not find the time to do it. So I am thankful for Friday nights when I can spend time with the Lord and try to write down some of his blessings.

One of the things God keept showing me it is that it is better to give than toreceive. A little more than a month ago He reminded me again that He can do much more than I think if I give Him everything I have. It was a month and a half ago that I was talking to a friend. I was telling her how excited I was that I saw her on the list of the attendees of IMPACT Scandinavia (Sweden, December 2012). She told me that she registered, but she cannot come. She did not have the money. "I will pray that God will provide the money for the trip!" was my answer. But as soon as I said it, God reminded me: "Raluca, you have money in your bank account."

You see, two months prior to that, I went to a congress. They could not pay for the plane ticket so someone offered to pay for it. A month after I came back home, the leadership decided that they had the money to pay for my plane ticket, so they sent me the money. This is why I had money in my bank account, but I was planning on saving it for the next time when people could not pay for my trip. 

"Raluca, you have money in your bank account." 
"But, Lord, what if someone cannot pay for my trip?"
"Don't you think that I can take care of that when the time comes? Remember how I paid your way to Portugal, to Germany, to the US?"
"Yes, Lord, I remember."

So, I gave in. I went online, searched for a plane ticket and bought it. The amount of money needed was exactly what I had in the bank account. 

Two weeks later I was in Sweden. One evening, I checked my email before going to my room for the night. I was surprised to see an email from someone I respect. Both he and his wife have been a huge inspiration to me. I had volunteered and helped them with some projects because I was passionate about those things. I was really shocked when I read "We all appreciate so very much all you have done this year to help with "such and such projects"!  We want to send you a very small love gift for all your hard work..." It had never crossed my mind that I could ever be paid for my work. I did it simply because I loved it. And the amazing thing is that the amount of money that they sent me was double the amount of money I paid for my friend's plane ticket. Tell me that God is not amazing! 

Well God, You won again... You showed me again that you can do exceedingly abundantly above all I can think or ask. I just pray that next time I will not hesitate to share the blessings You have given me. 

Isn't He Amazing?

God is still in the business of doing miracles. This is all I can say after what happened in the last 3 days. I am in Wien, on my way to Germany. Life has been really hectic and I did not get to write my blog in a long time. So, since I have free internet in the airport, I thought this might be a good opportunity to write.

Some of you may know that this weekend I have been invited to go to Youth in Mission congress, to coordinate the prayer room and to have a workshop on united prayer. I promised to go there before I knew that our ARME Bible Camp from UK is going to take place in the same time. When I found out I tried to find someone to replace me and I did. But the Youth in Mission leadership did not accept me not to come. They said that they would really like me to go. And I consented to do so. Still, the thought of not meeting my ARME family and some of my friends was torturing me. So I came up with another idea. What if I go to the UK only for Sunday and Monday? So I bought an one-way ticket to Frankfurt. Than I tried to buy my ticket from Frankfurt to Birmingham and than Bucharest.  But the two credit cards I tried to use did not work. And than, I really did not have peace about it. So I decided that the best thing to do is to stay in Germany the whole time. Once I made this decision, I bought my return ticket to Romania. Needless to say, I was really sorry for the mistake I have made because buying two one way tickets was more expensive than buying one round-way ticket.

Monday morning I woke up like usual, had my devotions and opened my computer to check my emails. Little did I know that I was in for a huge surprise. I opened an email from Melody. Melody is one of my best friends whom I have never met. She introduced me to ARME and united prayer. I have been wanting to meet her for a long time, but it seemed that God canceled our plans every time we planned on it. In the email she wrote me that she was invited to come and speak in Germany so she was going there for a week. She was coming the day after I was leaving. I had talked to her on Sunday and she did not mention anything like that. Now, after 12 hours she was writing that she bought her ticket for Germany. I could not believe it that I will miss her by 24 hours. Could I extend my staying? But where will I sleep? What will I do about my ticket? I had a non-refundable, non-changeable low cost ticket.

Since Mel wrote me me and to the lady who invited her, I wrote the lady and asked her where is she living. I was thinking of trying to see if I knew anybody or if my father knew anybody in the area who could take me in for a few nights. But Gerda was kind enough to tell me not to worry because I could stay with Mel.

Once the problem of the accommodation was solved, I had one more to solve: the ticket. And this was the most difficult one.

I called the company and found out that it would cost me one and half more times the price of the ticket if I wanted to change the date of my departure. Hmmmm, I really could not afford that!!! I asked the lady what is the penalty for canceling the ticket. She told me that I will be refunded the whole amount of money. How's that? God worked out things that they changed the time of my flight and now I had the right to cancel it and get the refund without having to pay any penalty. Wow... when God is doing something, He does it all the way to the end. But this was not the end of His miracles.

I started looking for a new ticket and all of them were very expensive. I could not afford it. But than, He did it again. I found one. Even though it was more expensive than the first one I had, still the price was reasonable. Not to mention that someone offered to pay for that out of the blue.

And when I thought this is all, God showed me one more time that He was not done yet.

I applied for a week's leave on Tuesday and my request was approved. Wednesday I talked to our secretary and she told me that the director decided that from now on nobody can apply for leave. Everybody will have their annual vacation in August. Had I been a day late, I would have not been approved my request for a week off and I would not have been able to meet Melody and Gerda.

So... who would have ever thought how things will turn out when I decided that obeying God and staying the whole time in Germany? Who would have ever thought that God can turn a mistake into a blessing? Who would have ever thought that He will give me the desire of my heart? Had I not obeyed, I would have spend 2 and a half days with Mel in the UK. Now I get to spend with her a whole week!!!

God is amazing. In fact, saying that He is amazing will not do Him justice. There are no words to describe how blessed I am to have Him as my Father. He showed me one more time that He loves me so much and that Jeremiah 29:11 is so true: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." We just need to trust Him even when our desires tell us to do something else, even when things do not make sense, even when it seems that we have to give up so much. Just do it. Just obey Him. And in the end it will all make sense. You will not regret it when you will see the wonderful things He had in store for you.

I am really excited about Youth in Mission, about the wonderful things God will do there through united prayer and about spending a week with Melody and Gerda. We serve an awesome God and He just showed me one more time that He is more than amazing.

God Protects!!!

Living in Omatako helps me realize more and more that without God’s protection we would be in great trouble. Just a few days ago, while I was hanging my cloths on the line somewhere next to my tent, I heard a local worker calling another one. Somebody asked what happened and I heard the word the no one wants to hear here: a snake. They looked for 3-4 minutes for the snake but since the grass was too tall and they couldn’t see anything, they decided it is not worth looking for it anymore. My first thought was to call Mario (who is well known here for his ability to catch snakes) to look for it since it was so close to my tent, but I just cast away the thought. Upon finishing my job, I headed toward the bathroom to take back the bucket when on my way I met Mario. “How are you doing? Are you OK?” he asked me. I really do not know why he asked because it was not the first time we met that day. So, as an answer to my question, I told him about the snake and that the workers were not looking for it anymore. I hardly finished what I had to say that Mario was on his way to the place that I showed him. Three other people joined him. They started looking in some pipes that was stored there. The very first pipe that they took and shook proved to have inside the so wanted pray. (Later on Mario said he took another pipe in his hand but something told him to check first another one.) It proved to be a black mamba, the biggest they have ever caught in the camp. People around say that its bite is deadly. You don’t even have time to go to a doctor. In the last 3-4 weeks we have caught a few spitting cobras and black mambas (a black mamba was caught on a shelf in the kitchen). No, you tell me that God doesn’t care and that He is not interested in our safety! I see it clearer than ever that He does. And that gives me pace.