August Prayer Update

Dear Prayer Partner,

Thank you so much for partnering with me in prayer as I begin this great adventure that is ahead of me. I am so grateful for people like you who love the Lord, love missions, and love me! I hope to share my life with you as best as possible in the upcoming months through these prayer updates and my blog, http://2yearsinromania.blogspot.com .

To start off, I would like to let you know a little bit about what has been going on with me in the last couple of weeks. I am currently at Orientation in Virginia at the International Learning Center. The last few months leading up to this time were spent greatly anticipating the time when I would finally be surrounded by others who share my passion for the nations. Since arriving at ILC, I have learned a lot about what will come up against me once I get to my field of service. We spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the first full week of our time here in sessions dealing with Spiritual Warfare and discussing different ways that the enemy will try to attack and hinder the Gospel from being spread. These were some heavy sessions, and required a lot of patience to get through listening to everything that the presenter had to say. Most recently, we have been briefed on different services that are available to us and have had the opportunity to fellowship with others who will be going to the same region.

As far as prayer requests go, I would like to ask you this month to pray for a few things. First, though I would like to give you a brief description of what the work in Romania looks like and what my job will be. The work in Romania is primarily focused on church planting, but there has been little success reaching the younger generation. Most existing evangelical churches in Romania are dominated by older, pre-communism generation which does not appeal to the younger generation. Student volunteers are frequently used for projects geared toward reaching the young people who are not churched. The students do a good job, and now we are seeking to use them more strategically and effectively.

My job will be to bridge the gap between the church planters in Romania and North American student volunteers. I will mobilize and facilitate the volunteers and help the IMB church planters to develop and implement strategic projects in order to utilize the student volunteers effectively. This work will be focused more on urban areas with the goal of starting and multiplying small groups that will eventually become multiplying churches.

That being said, here are some things that I would ask you to pray for this ministry:

-Pray for the young people who are flocking from the villages to the cities for educational purposes. Pray that my colleagues and I would know how to best engage them with the Gospel in order to have some small groups started.

-Pray for the younger generations of Romanians not to be consumed by materialism but to remain open to the Gospel.

-For God to awaken the Evangelical churches in Romania to have a passion for Christ and for the lost and to be willing to let go of their traditions and legalism.

-Pray for God to call students out from the United States to go share the Good News with their other young people in Romania.

I feel that the Lord has given me this task because He plans to fulfill His purpose through it. I know that I am not able to do this task on my own, and that’s why I need God’s help. This being said, pray for me:

-Pray that I would be receptive to all of the training I am receiving at ILC.

-Pray that I would know who to seek out for expert advice as to how to mobilize students to come join the work in Romania.

-“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,…” Ephesians 6:19

I would also like to ask that you take some time to pray for my family:

-My parents are on the mission field in Guatemala, and my brother Tim and sister-in-law Elisa live in Irving, Texas. It will be a new experience for my family to be in different continents and hemispheres these upcoming months.

-Tim and Elisa are expecting their first child, a girl, in September. Please pray that Elisa’s

pregnancy would continue to be healthy and that the baby will be healthy, too.

-Pray that I would be able to focus on what I’ll be learning during Orientation when the time comes that my first niece is born.

Thank you again for committing to partner with me in prayer as I strive to live in obedience to the call that God has placed on my life. I can’t wait to share my adventure with each and every one of you.

La revedere! (That means goodbye in Romanian!!)

Thanks for praying!

-Angela