We attend church here in Romania at Harvest Arad.  It is a non-denominational church, which is unusual for this culture, but we love the worship, the preaching of the Word, the people and the spirit that is felt there so openly.  Another wonderful aspect of Harvest is the love shown for people, particularly those within the congregation who have an urgent need.

Last year, the church family came to the immediate aide of some members who had experienced a devastating fire in their home and lost everything.  There is no fire insurance in Romania — unless you count Harvest Arad!

  Everyone who was able pitched in to help not only rebuild the house in a matter of weeks, but supplied the family with more than they had lost!

   Pictured on the left are Harvest members at the house site, working to rebuild.

But this post isn’t actually about this particular family — I just wanted to establish a bit of a baseline for you, so you’d understand what this next story is about.  This post is about a little girl named Sarah.

Here she is.

   Isn’t she cute?

Sarah was an answer to her mom and dad’s many tears and prayers for a child.  She was adopted as a baby by Simona and Calin and gained not only a new family with a mother and father, but became part of the Harvest church family as well.  Her daddy was very involved on the worship team playing bass guitar.  Here is a picture of him in action– Calin is the one on the far left.

 Then tragedy dealt a blow that is nearly unimaginable.  Without any warning, Calin died of a massive heart attack. He was only 44 years old.

It’s been just over two years since that happened, and Simona and Sarah have navigated through the grief as best they can with the help of a support system of friends and family around them.  They have also been supported financially from the church since Sarah was so little and Simona has needed to be at home.

Today we heard about a miracle that is about to happen for Simona and Sarah.  There is a charitable organization in Germany which donates money and resources to needy individuals of which they become aware.  It is not a Christian organization, although there are, evidently, a couple of Christian people who are part of it.  God orchestrated the events in such as way that this organization heard about Calin’s tragic death, the need that this Romanian widow has, and the fact that little Sarah had started to pray for a house, and decided to come and build them a new home for free!

So beginning this Wednesday, 40+ people from western Europe are coming here to build a house from top to bottom in just 3 days. That might happen on the set of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, but not here. And especially not in Romania!

But that is the plan. And that is the miracle.

Without even realizing it, these people will be part of true religion — “Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  James 1:27

Then on Saturday evening, the church has invited the entire German team (remember most are not Christians and have never even been to a church service before!) to come celebrate (worship) and share (give testimonies) to what happened (what God did!).

I can’t wait! Sarah’s prayers have been answered in a most unexpected way. And I am sure that Calin is rejoicing up in heaven too!

Stay tuned for the next post about how it all turns out!