Galatians 5:6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. KJV
In March of 1993, Our Heavenly Father instructed me to go on a missionary trip to Romania. The pastor of the church we were attending had been focusing on Romania as a missionary field. Six of us went on the trip: the pastor and his wife, an auto finance loan officer, retired commander of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, an auto mechanic, and myself. It wasn’t easy getting into Western Romania at the time. We flew into Germany, rented two cars and headed to Romania. We spent the night in Budapest, Hungary and drove to the border the next day. After being detained at the border for 45 minutes (police were waiting for a bribe), we were finally allowed into the country.
We established our base of operations in Aiud and stayed with a local family the church had been supporting. The college age daughters acted as our translators. We split up into two teams. The pastor, his wife, and the auto finance loan officer were on one team. The retired commander, the auto mechanic, and myself made up the other team. Each morning our team would be before Our Heavenly Father to find out who should speak at the meeting that night. We went to a different village each night. Once we got the Word, that person would prepare to speak. None of the three of us particularly cared who would share, we just wanted to minister to the downtrodden people of the village. Each night brought forth notable healing miracles and salvation. The meetings began at 7 PM but would extend to midnight at times. Our faith was strong and it was working by Love. The anointing of the Holy Spirit was intense and sustained for the entire trip. The other team had very few results.
What was the difference in the results? All of our team paid our own way to Romania and expected nothing from the people. We were there solely based on our Love for the people. The average Romanian worker received an equivalent $25 USD per month. We took up no collections nor did we attempt to take anything from the people. We were there simply to unconditionally Love the people. None of us were interested in making a reputation among the people. Our team experienced a taste of the “Tabernacles” walk. The other team was walking out the “Pentecostal” mindset.
We were there for a total of three weeks. I now appreciate why Our Heavenly Father wanted me to go on the trip. There was a great disparity between the two teams. At the time I had no revelation of “Tabernacles” but was seeing the end of the Pentecostal church age. The pastor tried to control our group but was unable to. He tried to create rules that tended to be self-serving. The rules did not stick. I believe Our Heavenly Father was giving me a glimpse of what is to come! Faith needs Love to produce the fruit needed in the current global environment. The Pentecostal faith movement failed to see the necessity of Love.