Preaching the Sunday Message!

Preaching the message on Sunday had to be the highlight of my trip. This has been a fulfillment of God's promises to me from years ago. Women have never been allowed to preach the Word of God in this church (and in Romania in general). They can "share" and give testimony but that's all. This year Carmen's pastor told her that instead of 15 minutes to share, we can have 35 minutes and we can bring the message. He did not preach at all but gave all his time to me. Everyone was shocked that heard of this! (shocked in a good excited breakthrough kind of way!)

As I prepared the message (which I did right there on Friday afternoon before camp)I prayed that God would entirely guide me and lead me in what to say. I knew I would be teaching "line upon line, precept upon precept" and God just gave me the whole thing very easily.

One of my main prayers was that the pastor would be blessed. I prayed a lot over the next couple days that not only would God touch the people, but really that He would bless the pastor for allowing me to preach God's word.

My message consisted of two main points. The first, BE RECONCILED TO CHRIST (from 2 Corinthians 5:14-21)...The second, LIVE A LIFE WORTHY OF THE CALL (from Colossians 3).

When I was done preaching and sat down, the pastor cam eup and was speaking to the congregation and I kept hearing my name "Eileen". I asled Carmen what he was saying and she told me that he said "Men, this message is for you too. Maybe you didn't think a woman can bring the Word of God , maybe you have never heard a woman deliver a message, but man and woman come from the same source and this is God's word and you need to listen to this"

After the service, men and women came up to me and thanked me and told me how it really was good, etc. That was encouraging and exciting!

Throughout the week, I kept getting feedback form people who were there or knew someone who was there about how God moved. Very cool. Very humbling and so wonderful!