Mobile Impact Team: Romania Mobile Impact Team
Iasi, Romania is the home of Tudor, a college housing complex of 15,000 students. Unlike the campuses across America, with tulip lined walkways and beautiful brick buildings, the students of Tudor live in 10-story concrete dorms, cook on hot plates in their rooms, hang their laundry out the window to dry, share bathrooms with the opposite sex and rarely have hot water. Empty beer bottles and packs of cigarettes litter the hallway. Guys huddle around tiny televisions to watch pornography. Boyfriends and girlfriends share dorms rooms. Thousands of lost souls live in this atmosphere every day, and have yet to hear about Jesus Christ.The Mobile Impact Team became fast aquainted with this scenery, knocking on doors, building relationships and introducing Romanian students to Jesus Christ. The team was made up of five young adults, Chris Sutton, Jamie Wright, Hollie Stansbury, Alicia Small and Karly (Swanson) Wright. The team committed the year to live in Iasi and establish the only evangelical college ministry on a campus of nearly 100,000 students. God miraculously provided the money to purchase a large house right on the campus. After a few months of remodeling (in the winter!) the house, named The Way, was finished! The downstairs was painted and set up to feel like a coffee house, with bistro-style tables and a coffee/tea bar! The team organized and led two weekly evangelistic outreaches, inviting students they had met in the dorms. On Wednesday evenings, the team served a free meal and sat around tables, talking with students who had questions and wanted to know more about Christ. Friday evenings were more programmed, and included worship, testimonies and the Gospel message.
Currently, The Way house is directed by Bebe and Mirela Baciu, and a leadership team, made up solely of Romanians, has been established. The weekly outreach events continue to take place, as well as many small groups and discipleship relationships. Students are meeting Jesus Christ and giving their lives fully to Him. We give God all the glory for His faithfulness in continuing to move in the hearts and lives of Romanian college students!
Updates
5/19/2007
May 19, 2007 "I can't help myself writing this email to you. My heart, my mind, and my soul have gone through serious changes since my last email. In my almost every prayer I think God that he put you in my way. What you first seeded in my heart was afterwards cultivated and raised like a small plant, by Bebe Baciu and his wife, Mirela, a blessed couple. I first just continued to visit The Way, play ping-pong, have a snack, watch a documentary about the beginnings of the earth and about who wrote the Bible. And then Bebe challenged me to read the Bible together. First it seemed weird, but then I started to like his way of explaining the meanings I did not notice, and the things I didn't understand. After a while, he showed me that I am a new born man...I am a son of God now if I believe that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, and if I trust Him and understand His sacrifice. He showed me, that as a new born man, a man born from God, I have to feed myself everyday by reading the Word...by praying, by spending time with brothers of faith. I am now in a very strong fight with temptations. But I pray everyday to God that He can ease my fight and absolve me from smoking. Anyway, I trust God that He will help me, and give me strength! Thank you again for praying for me and for verything you people did for me. Now truly your brother in Jesus..."