Potato’s bring the gospel too

I never knew how much potatoes could mean to someone. To anyone. My small American mind was shallow to the fact that potatoes are more than just food.

But here, in the countryside of Romania, potatoes are more than just food.

We’ve been doing a lot of different things ministry-wise while living in Stoenesti.

Our ministry days look different each day and it’s been so sweet to live in that. To live in the new and the unexpected and have nothing planned. To get picked up by different people and just go. It’s been a place for the Lord to work.

One of the ways that we have gotten to serve was by taking big bags of potatoes to the locals in the villages and pray over them.

Each house we visited was so special. Getting to see the faces of the locals light up when we brought them their two bags. Knowing it was going to give them the nourishment and the strength that they need was nothing short of a blessing. It was their stories that I was excited to hear.

Driving through the village on the way to each of the houses, I looked out the window and took in the countryside of Romania. The beautiful valley’s and chilled air. The light of the sun peering over the hills. A stillness that resides.

Peace. If you could describe an emotion, that’s what peace feels like.

We pull up to a beautiful house behind a gate. The house is pale yellow and has grape vines all around, growing up the side of a black fence once you step inside the property. Looking up past the house is the illustration of rolling hills and many more grape vines. A women greets us and gives us warm hugs. She is the embodiment of a grandmother. She has a warmth and that is welcoming and comforting and wants us to feel settled and at home while we visit. She quickly made sure that we had a place to sit. Then she went inside and brought us some grape juice. Fresh grape juice. She came and gave us glasses and poured the red liquid into them. As we brought it to our lips, the sweet taste of fresh juice hit our taste buds and we were thankful for the kindness she showed us. We drank and made some conversation. Then we asked our translator how we can be praying for her. He told us that we can be praying for her health. She has a bad knee and her ankles tend to hurt. My two teammates and I went to her, surrounded her, laid hands on her shoulders and her ankles, and prayed. We prayed bold prayers that she would be healed on the spot. And prayers that if she wasn’t, that the Lord would heal her because he is a God who heals. We got up and she gave us the biggest and most kind hug. Truly encapsulating each of us. She had tears in her eyes and yet, they sparkled with so much gratitude and hope. I knew that that the gift of the potato’s were a blessing for her health going forward and for the opportunity that the Lord gave us to pray health and healing over her.

We leave her house, thankful for the opportunity to sit and share, and then drove to another house.

We walk along the golden and orange fall leaves for just a minute before entering behind the black gate to a man’s house. He’s come out a little reluctantly. He comes over to us and introduces himself to us. We begin to talk to him and hear about the struggles that he has been through. He recently had lost his wife to cancer. He himself has cancer. As we talked, we learned that he and his wife are Eastern Orthodox. Most Romanian’s here are Eastern Orthodox and we have gotten to meet many of them. This man’s wife had come to know Jesus and had accepted a personal relationship with Him. He seemed saddened and confused by this. But beyond that, he seemed angry. He was angry at the Lord for taking his beloved wife away. He was angry at the Lord for giving his wife cancer. He was angry at the Lord as he believed that he got cancer because his wife came to know Jesus, like it’s a curse.

He is angry. Confused. And hurting.

And my heart broke for this man. Knowing the sadness that he feels from losing someone to cancer. But I also know the ultimate peace that his wife is now feeling. A peace that surpasses all understanding. And I know that she is healed. She may not have had healing on this earth, but she is fully healed in Heaven. He brought out a book that looked a lot like a devotional, explaining that this was the book that his wife had prayed before she passed. To watch him hold something that the person he loves had adored and clung too broke my heart to see.

We sat with him in his anger and allowed him to express what he needed to with us. Then we asked if it was okay to pray over him and he allowed us to. Our prayers were filled with sadness yet so much hope for him. That he would not be angry at the Lord and that he would come to find him through his angry and greef. That the Lord would meet him where he was at and that he would find peace that the Lord freely offers.

Leaving him with his potato’s, we said our goodbye’s and followed our host back to the van, driving back through the rolling countryside of Romania.

The potato’s that we were able to give brough nourishment to the families in the villages. It brought food for a while that would sustain them. These potato’s were able to bring the gospel. I hope that these two people, alongside the other families that we visited that day felt the love of Jesus. I pray that as the potatoes are eaten, the gospel is remembered and lives would continue to change and flourish.