David, a missionary to Romania, recently shared a story with us.
In 2004 we had just arrived in Romania. We were trying to decide how best to reach out to these beautiful people and decided the best approach would be through the children. EEM provided us with about 250 children’s Bibles, and we began events where we handed those Bibles out.
Now, fast forward to 2012…our church has outgrown any house and anything we can rent, and the Romanian church leadership decided we needed to build a building (so we) purchased land. (To our surprise) we were then served a notice that the Romanian Orthodox Church had filed an official grievance against us with the city and were blocking our building plans. We were called into a meeting with the Mayor of our town. We arrived on the designated day with the Priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and we both waited for the Mayor to enter the room.
When the Mayor arrived he said, ‘I have read over all the documents, and I feel that it is good for our town to have another church. This meeting is over.’
The Priest was not happy but the hearing was over and we both began to exit the room. Just then the Mayor pointed at me and said, ‘Not you. Sit down.’ Nervously yet politely I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and sat down. After everyone else left he said to me, ‘My granddaughter got one of those children’s Bibles you handed out in 2004 and that Bible has changed our family’s life. You build that building and keep preaching Jesus, and let me know if you need anything from me.’
Since that day our church has made the decision to hand deliver Bibles to all 7,000 households in our town. I told our church that God would be providing the Bibles we needed through EEM.