Dear Friends,
I apologize for not communicating very much over the past two months. We were immersed in summer activities with the children, many visitors, weddings, and vacation. In September we welcomed some of our most faithful supporters, Sue Genge and Val Hammond from England. They visit us at least once a year, encouraging the community, gathering information about the children, and then returning to advocate their cause in the UK. After they departed, my mom and John visited for a few days and then took Lenuta and me to Italy for a relaxing week. When we returned to Romania, we welcomed a work team from England who came to insulate the Valley House's chapel and workshop.
In September Lenutsa began working full-time at the Valley House. She brings her professional training and experience in teaching to the children in the tutoring program. With Lenutsa's coming, we were also able to receive more children into the program. Currently, there are 28 children in the program. Lenutsa has also been meeting with the children's teachers and parents.
In September we had an “Open House” for the Valley House. We invited those that have been praying for the children, teachers, and businesspeople from the neighborhood. We had over 50 visitors and a very positive response. We hope to do an open house each year so that more people from Galati are aware and involved in what we are doing.
In September we employed Fanel Ursachescu. He has volunteered with us for the past six months and heard God call him to serve with the community. Fanel works primarily with the older boys on the streets. Shortly after employing Fanel, we sent Viorel M. to Turkey for three months. He is there learning language, building relationships, and hopefully laying the groundwork for a longer-term involvement.
In the last few weeks there has been a bird flu scare. Fortunately, the EU's testing of the dead birds has not found any of the virus. We hope that is the last we hear of it. The real urgency in Romania is not bird flu but shelter for those stranded by the summer floods. I want to thank those that gave financially to those affected by the flood. We continue to look for the most appropriate ways to assist the victims.
The past few weeks I have been doing some teaching on alcoholism and drug addiction with the street boys. I grew up in an alcoholic family, mostly hurt and confused about my environment. It is amazing to see how God uses such profoundly destructive experiences for good. We are praying that the education on drugs and alcohol will serve to liberate the street boys from this bondage. In the coming weeks, we hope to start a group with the boys following the Alcoholics Anonymous model. We are also praying about other things we can do to help the boys be freed from this addictive lifestyle.
Please pray with us about the development of a program that will best help the boys find freedom from drugs and street life so that they can walk with Jesus where He is inviting them to walk. Please also pray for Viorel in Turkey and for Fani and Lenuta that they would have God's vision and heart as they take on responsibilities in the community. Although the media attention came and went, please remember to hold up those that are still affected by the floods.
I am looking at starting a study program in theology through a college in London. All of the work would be done through correspondence from Galati, but it would mean investing some time each week in concentrated study. Please pray for me in making this decision.
In the coming weeks we will need to make some major decisions about the direction of the Lazarus Home. We want to continue seek what is best for Moise, who is currently in the home, and for the other boys that need family. Please pray for us in this.
We are also receiving some new WMF staff from the US. Ron and Audra McAvaddy and their two sons, Gavin and Avery, will arrive the last week of October. Please pray for their integration into the community, their acquiring the language, and their making home in Galati.
Thank you for your faithful prayer and support for Lenuta, me, and the children among whom we are serving. I am grateful to know that I can depend on you.
With love,
David and Lenuta
Cataclysm, Christians and the End of the World
Over the past year we have witnessed catastrophic events across the globe: earthquakes in Asia, hurricanes in the Americas, floods in Europe, typhoons in East Asia, and the tsunami – not to mention AIDS, wars, terrorism, and the increase of poverty. Many are asking questions like “Where is God?” “Is this the end of the world?” “What are we to do?” These questions are all interrelated: God gives us meaning and direction in the midst of history, and we shape our present action in the world after our vision of the future.
So, how do we view the end of the world? In an article entitled “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America”[i], Time Magazine reported that most evangelicals get their beliefs about the end times (eschatology) from Tim Lahaye, the author of the bestselling Left Behind Series. In his novels Lahaye is not so much formulating new beliefs about the last days as he is creating a new story sustained by beliefs, which are normally termed “pre-millennial dispensationalism.” This view of the end of time is characterized by a belief in a secret rapture, a 7 year tribulation, the reinstitution of the temple and its sacrificial system in Israel, and that Christ will return to earth before His thousand-year reign. Most American evangelicals, however, do not realize that no one in the church held these beliefs until the 19th century, that pre-millennial dispensationalism has extremely weak biblical support, that this view is a product and export of the west, and that there are other Christian views of the future. In what follows I want to point out briefly the shaky biblical support for this widely held view and its implications for the people of God in today's world of calamity.
One foundational belief of pre-millennial dispensationalism which is maintained by most American evangelicals is the “secret rapture” which is will supposedly occur before the tribulation. This invention is based on a misconstrued interpretation of I Thessalonians 4 and Matthew 24. In I Thess. 4:17 Paul tells that we will be taken up together to meet Jesus. This refers to the Second Coming, to the resurrection of the dead, and to the alive in Christ being brought to Jesus as well. Dispensationalists, however, call this the rapture of those in Christ so that they are spared tribulation. Their view also implies that there will be a “Third Coming” of Jesus after the time of tribulation – and such a doctrine has never been held by the church.
In Matthew 24 Jesus tells us about judgment. Dispensationalists claim that this refers to the rapture. Jesus said that as it was in the days of Noah, so also when the Son of Man comes. Two will be working; one is taken and one is left. The ones taken away are not secretly rescued to Jesus but are judged and taken away, just as the flood took away the condemned. The ones left behind were the ones who were saved: Noah, his family, and the woman at the mill.
As I said, the bottom quickly falls out from beneath the dispensationalists. The problem is that most American evangelicals still maintain this position, and this affects how we live in the world today – not to mention that it is insulting to God. Let me give some examples.
If God will save an elect (which is us) from tribulations, then we are enabled to exploit the earth and e
njoy its plunder without consideration for others (which are not us). Practically, that means we can burn so much fossil fuel that we heat up the globe and make hurricanes, typhoons and flooding more likely and more deadly. Dispensationalists believe that when the real tribulation comes, God will take us out of it.
If God will save an elect (which is us) from tribulation, then we are less likely to be involved when others (the non-elect) suffer tribulations. If God is not involved in the tribulation, and His people are not involved in the tribulation in the future, then we (the elect) have no place in tribulation in the present because it is for the damned. We saw the concrete results of this faulty view this summer. Although severe flooding hit Romania, and people died, there was barely international news coverage until flooding occurred in Western Europe, in which people did not die.
If God will secure an elect (which is us) from tribulation, then we too should secure an elect (which is us) from tribulation. The amount that America spends on “defense” could wipe out global hunger (from which 24,000 people die every day).
If God will save an elect (which is us) from tribulation, then we do not need to consider the affects of our decisions on future generations (which are not us). In Romania, there is currently an advertisement on the television for an electronics store which runs like this: You have heard of global warming; you have heard of earthquakes, tsunamis and floods; you do not know what tomorrow will bring; therefore, buy electronics equipment now on credit; enjoy now, maybe there will be a disaster, and you won't have to pay for it. The message transmitted is “consume the benefits now without paying the costs in the future.”
If God will save an elect (which is us) from tribulation, then we are enabled to project our view of the end times onto a political agenda. Already in the 19th century, when pre-millennial dispensationalism was being formulated, George Elliot said, “Advertising the pre-millennial Advent is simply the transportation of political passions on to a so-called religious platform; it is the anticipation of the triumph of 'our party,' accomplished by our principal men being 'sent for' into the clouds.”[ii] We see this today when apocalyptic imagery is written into American politics. But we, American Evangelicals, must ask ourselves, “What about the other nations suffering tribulations?” And more importantly, we must ask, “How are we to be a people of the cross as a prophetic, suffering witness in the midst of tribulation?”
Thankfully, most Protestant and even Catholic and Orthodox Christians do not believe in a secret rapture or the other dispensationalist tenets. This should challenge us American Evangelicals to reject any elitist theology that preserves and secures the “good life” for a secure minority, and to heed the words of Jesus: “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33); and: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:10).
[i] In the issue from February 7, 2005
[ii] Cited in Mark A. Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, p. 143. Mark Noll is another of Time's “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.”