I celebrate what God is doing through your support of our ministry! Let me share one exciting story with you by introducing you to Alin Bogdan.

He’s a blond, blue-eyed Romanian (not at all like the Nicolae Carpathia of the Left Behind series!). He has a great Christian heritage. Alin and his family migrated from Romania to Spain more than a decade ago, driven out by the depressed economy in their country. Alin’s father, Adam, was a pastor in Romania, but in light of the massive migration of his region, he came to Spain where he started a small construction company.

Adam and his three sons began to work as hard as their culture taught them. In Spain, Romanians are known for being very hard workers. Amazingly, within a few short years, the hard work had moved them high into the Spanish middle class!

But there was restlessness about the Bogdans’ newfound comforts. They kept an ear out for the events back in their homeland. It was more than being homesick. It was a burden. And it wasn’t just Adam either; the sons also shared the shepherd’s burden for the people back home. They knew that many had not been able to leave and were having to make life work in adverse circumstances. The Bogdans felt that they needed to do something for their people.

One of the sons decided to go back to Romania to study, to prepare, to try to make a difference. Alin decided to train for the ministry. He heard of our seminary in Madrid, and he saw it as God’s provision for him to be trained and to make himself available for the Lord’s use.

Adam and the remaining son, Ben, kept running the construction business to fund the training for the other two.

In Madrid, Alin quickly distinguished himself as a jovial yet very serious student of God’s Word. When I met him, I was stunned by his thunderous, prophetic style of preaching. From his very first preaching exercise, we felt he had to deliver the same message in chapel! Then it became a regular practice. We all recognized that God had given Alin a very special gift.

When summer came, Alin participated in our summer country-Gospel festivals. He was amazed by the resources that American churches brought to put on the festivals and to evangelize thousands of people. He knew instantly that the festival approach had an explosive potential for Romania.

Alin began to earnestly request that we go to Romania also. He pleaded with me that we put it on the calendar. He knew that not only would thousands attend the festival, but that thousands would be saved.

The future was bright with hope for the Bogdan family. Business was booming, and the sons were making wonderful strides to become leaders who would make a difference for their people in Romania.

Then tragedy struck.

Alin’s older brother—in the city of Timisoara, in western Romania—was murdered.

There was shock, disbelief, anger. WHY? What purpose did this serve? There was some bitterness in the family. The details of the crime became more and more evident. The culprits became known. Revenge became a possibility.

At first, the family contemplated vengeance, but then they remembered God’s Word: “Vengeance is Mine. I will repay.”

It took a full cycle of grief to overcome the pain and the trauma of the crime. But through this torturous process, God’s heart and mind became strangely deeper and more passionate for the Bogdans. Somehow, they came to feel the deepening effect of pain that Job most have felt. Their walk with the Lord, and their commitment to make heaven the clear objective of their lives, intensified.

Alin graduated from our Madrid seminary, and he began preaching to congregations of Romanian refugees in Spain. But the shepherd’s burden for his homeland grew heavier. Alin had to press his case on to us. Would we consider the plight of Romania?

We felt that with so many “good things” on our plate, we did not need any new ventures. But Alin would not give up—and two years of pleas finally persuaded us to “at least go take a look!”

Our ministry director in Romania, Alin Bogdan, just wrote me with overwhelming, multilayered news from that mission field:

• They've constructed two churches in spite of having to go into debt to do it.
• A businessman has put up half the money to buy a large house as a church in Dabuleni where there are literally no churches.
• They have recently evangelized in the villages of Turnu, Rueni, Dalci, and Zlagna-for two weeks in each.
• They evangelized in Ohaba de Sub Piatra for four days-and in Boita, Plopi, and Oltenioa, for three days each. Alin himself was heading to Plopi to preach again, then to Oltenioa to preach along with an ex-Orthodox priest who has come to Christ!
• Then the team will head to Roman Bretea, Cris, and finally, Bucharest.

Workers from other ministries, struggling to serve in Romania, have actually asked Alin, "How do you do it?  How are you doing so much?"  This has been quite a push for the kingdom!

Most humbling of all was this:

I had told Alin about the U.S. dollar weakening overseas and apologized that we were struggling to keep his ministry funded.  His response was not to ask for more explanation, or to chastise me for a lack of faith, or anything else.  Instead, with a heart of overflowing gratitude for what we have already given, and encouragement to go on, he wrote these words:

All of the workers are praying for you each day, and we have recently begun to fast as well.We have a list for all the workers, and each day it is a brother's day to fast . . . thus every day is covered in prayer and fasting. We are praying that the funds will never be lacking both for the ministry here and throughout the world.

Amazing!  In that difficult land, they are praying for us!  And fasting!  And this is not an "if you feel like it" fast . . . everyone takes a turn to make sure there is prayer and fasting every single day!