Part Two
I had solved the mission board problem. Support was secured for at least another term. Yet, there are always problems. There was a group of men that had come over to Moldova and had been a help to me. One of those men was my former youth pastor; I love this man like a brother and pastor. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. At first it was a great honor to have him come over to visit and help. I needed a humanitarian organization in Moldova, and my friend helped me set this up using his stateside organization as a base. This worked out for a while, and I was happy to have such good friends. However, on one of his trips over I discovered he had brought a Charismatic pastor with him. On this trip everything fell apart; the Charismatic man ridiculed me several times and later wrote letters to my Moldovan youth advising them to leave my church in favor of a Charismatic church. For the first time in my life I had to separate from a man I loved. I could not allow this kind of negative influence in my churches. I failed to secure his permission to keep the organization we had founded together in Moldova, and I had no choice but to look toward registering a new organization upon my return to the field.
Before we left for the field again in the spring of 1998, I talked on the phone to a long time friend of mine, missionary Tom Gentry in Romania. I explained my problem, and he offered to allow me to register my camp under his humanitarian organizational name: Hope for the Future. Tom was running a good camp ministry in Romania and had run a few weeks of camp in Moldova for Romanian speaking churches. I agreed to consider this, and Tom seemed eager to help me under his organization.
We returned to Moldova in the spring of ‘98 and met with my men and, later, with Mr. Gentry. We were all eager to run camps that summer, even if it meant renting a camp until one could be purchased. After meeting with Tom and a Moldovan pastor named Vasili, I decided to use Tom’s organizational name until I could register Eurasian Baptist Mission. It also made sense to run camps in Moldova under the humanitarian organization rather than the religious organization. There were few regulations in those days, but if you were registered as religious, the authorities could cause great hassles. We started looking at camps that spring. Most of them were run down, and many were unusable. Later, just before summer, Vasili found a camp to rent; it was an hour from the capital. After inspecting this camp we all felt that it might be the one God had for us - not only to rent, but also to purchase.
We ran three weeks of camp that summer, and many souls were saved. I did most of the preaching, and it was the best of times. Not only were young people saved, but Christian youth were greatly encouraged. I was convinced we had found God’s will to proceed with this camp. Vasili began negotiating a purchase price. In the end, he had a price of $93,000 in Moldovan money. The camp sat on 25 acres surrounded by the National Forest. It was at the end of a road just past the village of Vatich. There were three completed dormitories, a cafeteria, amphitheater, administration building, club house, sports field, care-takers house, utility buildings, and a small lake. It would accommodate 240 teens and could be easily enlarged to accommodate 300. There was also an unfinished dorm that we would later finish as a school dormitory. It was far larger than anything I had ever even dreamed of. Of course, there would be a lot of repairs, and it would always need work, but it was the dream camp. There was one other problem: we were short $50,000.
I decided if we were going to buy a camp in Moldova, it would only be through clear leading of the Lord. I wrote one letter to my supporting churches and explained the situation and asked for prayer and wisdom. One of my supporters responded and offered to give half of the money - up to $25,000 - if my other supporters would match it. A second newsletter explained the situation in more detail, and I included the matching fund proposal in that letter. I asked the churches to consider giving $1,000 each toward this purchase. The response of my supporting churches was overwhelming. Many of them took offerings and within three months we had raised the $25,000 and the matching funds were quickly made available. We had our $50,000, and we were ready to buy the camp.
These were really exciting days, but we were also under constant attack from the enemy. Just after the New Year in 1999, we entered the offices to sign the final papers for the camp. At that meeting everything fell through. I did not understand it at the time, but my faith was about to be tested; I was about to get a real lesson in patience. There were three board members from the corporation selling the camp that needed to sign the papers. We were told they had changed their minds, and the camp was not for sale. My Moldovan friend, Vasili, was our spokesman, and he reentered the building to find out why they had changed their minds about the sale. Later, Vasili explained to us that the problem was that we had offered no bribe. The company had debts to the government and had to turn over all the funds of the legal sale. The three men negotiating felt like they should have something for themselves from the sale. Vasili, being a Moldovan and raised in the Soviet system, thought that their request was reasonable: add $3,000 to the sale and get the camp now. My thinking was different: what if God was shutting the door for the purchase of this camp. No, I could not give a bribe to get what I personally wanted. I needed to know for certain that it was God, and God alone who had given us this camp, and not my own actions. We waited nearly six months for this sale to be finalized. It was six months of on-again-off-again behavior from the corporation. In the end I learned to trust God and give all things into His hands. We rented the facility again in 1999 and were in our second week of camp before the sale was finalized. This is the amazing thing: because of the drop in value of the Moldovan Lei since the previous autumn, we actually paid $63,000 instead of $93,000! In the end we had the camp and funds to start the repairs. This is really only the beginning of this remarkable story.
Before we left for the field again in the spring of 1998, I talked on the phone to a long time friend of mine, missionary Tom Gentry in Romania. I explained my problem, and he offered to allow me to register my camp under his humanitarian organizational name: Hope for the Future. Tom was running a good camp ministry in Romania and had run a few weeks of camp in Moldova for Romanian speaking churches. I agreed to consider this, and Tom seemed eager to help me under his organization.
We returned to Moldova in the spring of ‘98 and met with my men and, later, with Mr. Gentry. We were all eager to run camps that summer, even if it meant renting a camp until one could be purchased. After meeting with Tom and a Moldovan pastor named Vasili, I decided to use Tom’s organizational name until I could register Eurasian Baptist Mission. It also made sense to run camps in Moldova under the humanitarian organization rather than the religious organization. There were few regulations in those days, but if you were registered as religious, the authorities could cause great hassles. We started looking at camps that spring. Most of them were run down, and many were unusable. Later, just before summer, Vasili found a camp to rent; it was an hour from the capital. After inspecting this camp we all felt that it might be the one God had for us - not only to rent, but also to purchase.
We ran three weeks of camp that summer, and many souls were saved. I did most of the preaching, and it was the best of times. Not only were young people saved, but Christian youth were greatly encouraged. I was convinced we had found God’s will to proceed with this camp. Vasili began negotiating a purchase price. In the end, he had a price of $93,000 in Moldovan money. The camp sat on 25 acres surrounded by the National Forest. It was at the end of a road just past the village of Vatich. There were three completed dormitories, a cafeteria, amphitheater, administration building, club house, sports field, care-takers house, utility buildings, and a small lake. It would accommodate 240 teens and could be easily enlarged to accommodate 300. There was also an unfinished dorm that we would later finish as a school dormitory. It was far larger than anything I had ever even dreamed of. Of course, there would be a lot of repairs, and it would always need work, but it was the dream camp. There was one other problem: we were short $50,000.
I decided if we were going to buy a camp in Moldova, it would only be through clear leading of the Lord. I wrote one letter to my supporting churches and explained the situation and asked for prayer and wisdom. One of my supporters responded and offered to give half of the money - up to $25,000 - if my other supporters would match it. A second newsletter explained the situation in more detail, and I included the matching fund proposal in that letter. I asked the churches to consider giving $1,000 each toward this purchase. The response of my supporting churches was overwhelming. Many of them took offerings and within three months we had raised the $25,000 and the matching funds were quickly made available. We had our $50,000, and we were ready to buy the camp.
These were really exciting days, but we were also under constant attack from the enemy. Just after the New Year in 1999, we entered the offices to sign the final papers for the camp. At that meeting everything fell through. I did not understand it at the time, but my faith was about to be tested; I was about to get a real lesson in patience. There were three board members from the corporation selling the camp that needed to sign the papers. We were told they had changed their minds, and the camp was not for sale. My Moldovan friend, Vasili, was our spokesman, and he reentered the building to find out why they had changed their minds about the sale. Later, Vasili explained to us that the problem was that we had offered no bribe. The company had debts to the government and had to turn over all the funds of the legal sale. The three men negotiating felt like they should have something for themselves from the sale. Vasili, being a Moldovan and raised in the Soviet system, thought that their request was reasonable: add $3,000 to the sale and get the camp now. My thinking was different: what if God was shutting the door for the purchase of this camp. No, I could not give a bribe to get what I personally wanted. I needed to know for certain that it was God, and God alone who had given us this camp, and not my own actions. We waited nearly six months for this sale to be finalized. It was six months of on-again-off-again behavior from the corporation. In the end I learned to trust God and give all things into His hands. We rented the facility again in 1999 and were in our second week of camp before the sale was finalized. This is the amazing thing: because of the drop in value of the Moldovan Lei since the previous autumn, we actually paid $63,000 instead of $93,000! In the end we had the camp and funds to start the repairs. This is really only the beginning of this remarkable story.
