Changes to the Romania Religious law

Act 4:19 But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye:
Act 4:20 for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.

This month we find a new law taking affect and with this new law in Romania we ask that you will pray with us. We are not sure how this is going to affect us yet. The new law states "Under the new legislation religious denominations can only receive official registration if they have at least 20,000 members, about 0.1 percent of Romania's total population." The law also creates a tiered system of religious communities, with different rights associated with respective levels. The legislation was signed into law by the President of Romania, Traian Basecu. Here is the following excerpt.

The draft law's three-tier system of state recognition is completely inconsistent with fundamental rights as it contravenes the principles of equality and non-discrimination. Enjoying the greatest rights under the proposed new law are the recognized "religious denominations," a category that it is almost impossible for some faiths to join (applicant religious communities for the most preferential status must wait 12 years and show their membership exceeds 0.1% of the population of Romania, or 23,000 adult citizen members persons). Of the 18 currently registered religious groups, approximately one-fourth would fail to meet the proposed numerical threshold.

Religions with fewer than 22,000 members can register as "religious associations" with lesser rights, while religions with fewer than 300 members can only function as "religious groups" which have no legal status.

Religious communities such as Calvary Chapel that are new to Romania and have less then 300 members will be deprived of the rights to purchase property, build houses of worship, to protect their rights in legal proceedings, to own assets or have paid staff or clergy

The Good news is that the EU is already planning on challenging the law in the Constitutional Court and potentially, the European Court of Human rights.

As some of you know we are working currently to have an religious association approved for Calvary Chapel Bistrita. How this will affect us is yet to be determined, but please keep this in prayer.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Joh 15:18 If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me before it hated you.
Joh 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Joh 15:20 Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
Joh 15:21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.

Man's religious system has always sought to destroy God's plan for a personal relationship with him. It's been this way since Cain and Abel.

In other news we have been blessed to have Natalie Bridges working with us as a volunteer since June 2006. We had been praying for a year before her arrival for a way to reach into the community of young people here effectively in Bistrita and the Lord provided that with some contacts that have allowed Natalie to teach conversational English to approximately 8-11 Romanian teenagers in an after school social program that provides after school services for 250 kids. She has been teaching them twice a week and developing relationships with these teens. One of the girls that she teaches came to the youth group after being invited during December. She has also been volunteering 3 times a week at the orphanage, working with the disabled children, and has recently been approved to work at the hospital, that should start up in the next couple of weeks.

Even in the midst of things not looking good God is still opening doors for his word to be shared and his light to shine into the darkness.

Prayer requests:

• Prayer for God's will and protection in regards to this new law.

• That God would pour his Spirit out in an amazing way.

• Approval of our Religious Association

• Divine appointments

• That God would pour his love into our hearts anew both individually and corporately as a church

• That we would see the Lord work like he has in the past in the early church.

• To be obedient to what the Lord is doing in our lives

• health for kids

We left Wednesday early afternoon. It was sorrowful leaving family but we had a great time visiting and seeing everyone. The plane trip was uneventful which is always a good thing. Thanks for all of your prayers on that.
Praise the Lord we arrived in Budapest without missing any bags. Although it did not start out that way. It seems the airline lost our luggage along with about 6o other passengers. But before we made it through the lost and found line they made an announcement that they had found a bunch of missing bags so everything was fine. The bus ride was nice, the kids being exhausted along with mom all slept. Adi picked us up just a little bit across the Romanian border.

The rest of the ride home was nice. We noticed it started snowing, I guess all of Romania is covered right now except our area. Adi said he was praying for a clear road when we came so God answered his prayers. We woke up to a small blanket of snow on the ground with a crisp cold Romanian winter, feels like home.

Exodus 33:19 "Then He said, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

After nearly two years in Romania we made our first trip back to the States. We were greeted by loving and open arms all over Idaho and Oregon. We spent the month of November in Boise visiting with not only our friends and church family from CC Boise but also from other Calvary Chapels in the area. We were blessed with the opportunity share what is going on in Romania with Calvary Chapel Boise, CC Treasure Valley, CC Garden Valley, CC Emmit and CC Mountain Home. It was just amazing how many people wanted to know what God is doing in Romania.
After a very busy month in Boise we went on to Oregon to spend the rest of our with family. While we were in Oregon we were able to share with several more churches near our families. It is a long story how those connections came about but the Lord was definitely a part of those appointments. We again shared what God is doing in Romania with believers from CC Corvallis, CC Lebanon, CC Cottage Grove and Lebanon Foursquare. It was so great to meet so many other people with a heart for missions.
As you can imagine after being away for so long we had a fantastic time visiting with family. We had all of our family, in the area, from both sides together to enjoy Thanksgiving and hear about what has been going on in our lives. After that we went back and forth staying with Brian's parents and mine. Brian's parents have adopted to young children so Kaidon and Sedona were thrilled to be able to stay and play with their aunt and uncle that are their ages. Since we don't live near the ocean we always try to take the kids over to see it when we are in Oregon.

This trip we also took them to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and that left them speechless. While we were there my older brother and his wife had there first baby dedicated. then of course there was Christmas and New Years. The stores and Christmas shopping left us all about as speechless as the trip to the aquarium.

The last great news item from this trip back to the states is that we have an official church webpage. You will notice that you are receiving email in a different format then usual the reason for this is that we are blogging all of our new updates. Its a great new tool and a lot more efficent in our use of time. We would invite you to take a look at the new website, its a great blessing for us. www.calvaryromania.org/bistrita/. We would also encourage any of you who know someone that is interested in Romania send them out to our website and encourage them to sign up for our updates. Its very easy now there is a subscribe text box on the right hand side of the website. You just have to enter your email address and it will guide you through the whole process. For those of you that are interested in things of a more personal note we have also linked our personal family blog to the church website under team members.

Our entire visit was not only busy but fruitful. Yet somehow we were able to relax and be refreshed during all of that too. We are extremely excited about the next year and go back with high expectations of what the Lord is going to do. The Lord is good!

As always we close with our prayer requests

• Safe trip home
• A quick turnaround on getting back to work
• That the Lord would pour out his spirit on us and the ministry in Bistrita
• The Lord would provide guidance on what he wants us to do with these new relationships in the states
• Wisdom as always
• Show us how to effectively reach the lost in our city and the surrounding areas