Finally Joining My Church

On Sunday 28 January, at the annual meeting of the 4th Baptist Church of Craiova, Romania (better know as pro DEO), the body voted unanimously to accept four new members. Pro DEO was founded three years ago this month with 22 members; the addition of these four brings the total up to 50.

I am very proud to be one of the four new members accepted into the church.

In truth, I have always considered pro DEO to be my church even before it actually existed as a church. Pro DEO came into being as a natural outgrowth of the student ministry in Craiova (OSCEC). My first contact with OSCEC was in 1996, which was the first summer that I spent in Romania helping to lead English Camps for university students. It was at one of these camps that I first met students from Craiova; people whom I now number among my dearest friends.
My relationship with these people grew stronger in 1998 and 1999. Those were the first years that OSCEC organized English Camps on its own (instead of simply attending the camps organized my OSCE Timisoara) and its US partner was my home church, Rye Bethany.
After four summers in Romania leading camps, I was led by the Lord to serve here long term and he brought me to Craiova, where I worked directly with OSCEC for two years (2000-2001).

It was during our last year here (2001), that members of OSCEC started talking about founding a church. Raluca and I were invited to be a part of the group which met on a regular basis to talk and pray about the pros and cons of undertaking such a project. This group met for over a year and tried pursuing a number of other options before finally coming to the conclusion that it was indeed God's will for us to start a new church here in Craiova. Unfortunately, by that time Raluca and I were no longer in Romania, since circumstances had forced us to return to the United States.

Even so, when pro DEO was officially founded in 2003, Raluca was one of the founding members. I would have joined at that time as well, since we considered pro DEO our home church from the beginning, but this was not an option for political reasons.
Now that we are living in Romania for more than half of each year (and hope to eventually be able to live here year-round) the time was finally right for me to join pro DEO.

It makes me very happy to finally be officially recognized as a member of the church which I have always considered to be my church.