Spreading Hope Tour 2004We are back!!! What a blessing was our trip to Romania from June 25th through July 9th!! It is very difficult to put into "brief" words, as there were so many memorable times that we had with our friends from Romania. Lives were touched, souls were saved, friendships were nurtured, projects were completed and we sang 13 concerts in 13 days!!! Wow!!! For those of you who teamed up with us with your financial contributions, we want to thank you from the very bottom of our hearts, as the money was put to so much good use that it is a shame that all of you were not there to enjoy these blessings with us. We also want to thank you for your prayers. We could not have had such a successful trip without this. Our health was perfect throughout the trip and our voices stayed relatively strong the entire time, except for the last concert, when the old voices started to gasp for new life! Hahahahaha! For those who did not receive them, here are some excerpts from my e-mail updates that Rich sent to people back home while we were in Romania: June 27th (Bucharest): "We got up on Sunday morning, had a little McDonald's breakfast and coffee and got on the subway and traveled 45 minutes to the are of the church. The church was approximately another mile away; so there we are, 18 of us walking and dragging all of our equipment. Pastor Razvan's church was being held in the Old Opera House in Bucharest, while his church is being built! So there we were, singing in this beautiful opera house auditorium with a balcony and a large stage & wonderful sound system! It was awesome!
The best part of this concert was that the power and grace of Jesus Christ was present and we, along with the congregation were so blessed, that I can hardly explain it! It was a powerful service with the GGQ performing a 1 hour and 20 minute concert, and then Pastor Razvan speaking powerfully for another 45 minutes! We ended our concert with the entire tem singing "Amazing Love" with the congregation. It was incredible to hear us singing in English with the congregation singing in Romanian. What an experience to see God move in such a wonderful way! During the concert, Rich gave his testimony before the song, "He Didn't Throw the Clay Away", with a translator, and prayed with the congregation with Pastor Razvan after the service. It was a moving service and it is so evident that the Romanians are hungry for the Lord!  We went to lunch and then had to be at the next concert at 5:00 p.m. to set up again at the Grace Church in Bucharest, pastored by Ioan Ceuta.
 The concert began at 6:00 p.m. and it was hotter than the dickens! We again performed a similar concert to the morning service, length wise, and the Pastor speaking after for 45 minutes. Again, the reception and response from the congregation was incredible, as the Lord was working through Bob Jones, and us as he gave his testimony before singing "Without a Valley".
After the service, the pastor had us come up to the front of the church and charged the entire congregation to come up to us and shake our hands, ask God to bless us and give us a "holy" kiss. One 80 year old man kissed Bob Jones and Rich McIntyre right on the lips!!! Hahahahaha!!!! It was great though! It was a "commissioning Service" for the books!" June 28th (Bucharest): "Gang, you would not believe the unbelievable time that we had on Monday night at our concert for the Caring Place; poor & street kids ministry!! Wow!!!!! We were able to hold the concert in the church sanctuary of the Grace Harul Church in Bucharest, where we had our Sunday evening concert. The place was jam packed with 185 kids and 15 parents!!! It was loud and the most fun ever! Our Glory Gates Quartet sung some of our more upbeat songs and the response from the kids was the most enthusiastic! They loved it! Plus, we taught them about 10 kids songs, such as; This Little Light of Mine, Do Lord, Down in My Heart; etc. Of course we had the transparencies of the songs in Romanian showing on the wall. The evening was indescribable and God's presence was evident in these hungry kids ranging in age from seven to 16!!!
 The kids were handed raffle tickets when they arrived, and we had a raffle after each song; at which time we read off a number and the kid with the winning number came up to receive his or her prize. You should have heard them screaming & the smile on the winner's face!
After the concert, we handed out clothes, candy and toys to all the kids. Thanks so much to everyone who donated these things! Wow! Marcela Popescu, who runs this ministry, was overwhelmed when she saw what we brought for the kids. I wish that you could have been there to experience this. The enthusiasm that they had for one little hacky-sack or a pair of socks was incredible. Or the little girl who came up to the microphone & recited John 3:16. It is something that we will never forget." June 30th (Petrosani): "Four o'clock in the afternoon was the children's conference. Again, wow! There were 40 kids there from this little area of Petrosani called the Colonia. Barb, Sharon, Kathleen & Alice conducted the conference, with Bob doing the games. The kids were singing, and the heard Bible stories, and the neatest part was seeing the littlest kids reciting John 3:16. It is incredible how God is working in the lives of these kids!
At 7:00 p.m., we had our first concert in the church. What an exciting time to see these spiritually hungry people worship with us. It was cool to see many of them singing the G.G.Q. songs with us, as we left a lot of G.G.Q. CD's with them last year. So, they have been listening to the CD! Tim Shoemaker gave his testimony before the song "He Lifted My Burdens" and did a wonderful job. It very definitely had an impact on these people.  By the way, one of the things that we are doing to help Kelly & Joe is Rob Marton & Edy are going around in both houses figuring out what things need to be fixed. For example, plumbing fixtures that need to be repaired or replaced, electrical work that needs to be done etc. It's awesome to see Rob & Edy go out each day and get the materials, come back and do the work. Obviously, Kelly & Joe are ecstatic! For example, the girls in Kelly's house were unable to take a shower because the fixture was broke. The girls in Joe's house had to use a wrench to attempt to turn on the faucet in the shower. If they were lucky and strong, it turned on. These are examples of "emergency" items that we are taking care of. Praise the Lord for the funds to do this! Thank you so much everybody! You have no idea how far your money is going here!"
July 1st (Petrosani): "We continue to take care of "fix-it" matters on an every day occasion. Rob & Edy, and today Bob are doing some miscellaneous things around the houses. We got 4 new tires put on Kelly's car and replaced some other parts on her car, so that she is safe now. The guys are adding plumbing fixtures, towel racks, new toilet seats, shower fixtures, repairing toilet leaks; etc. Let's give a hand to these guys!!! They're awesome!
 Again, the children's conference was awesome! The kids are coming out in droves! I told you that 40 kids attended on Wednesday? Well, it almost doubled on Thursday!!! There were 78 kids!!!!! The gals are doing an awesome job, & they are receiving so much help from the Romanian young adults. Bob runs the games for the kids & by the time they are done, he has to go home and take a nap! He's not as young as he used to be!
We had another very successful concert in the church here at Petrosani. We have 50 songs, so we are changing on a nightly basis. Unbelievably, our voices are holding up fairly well. Bob gave his testimony before we sang "Without a Valley", and it definitely touched the hearts of these people." July 2nd (Petrosani): "Friday was the same, except we added the women's conference, with Bobette teaching. She is getting a great turn out, but I forgot to get the number from her. The Bible study runs for about 2 hours." July 3rd (Petrosani):"Saturday was probably our best day. When we woke up, it was pouring rain, and this is the day that we had all of our outside activities planned. Oh brother! By the time we finished breakfast, the rain stopped and we were ready to go to the state orphanage in Uticani. That was a special time with those needy kids. We brought candy & toys for them & the GGQ taught them kids Christian songs. We had a great time in a very depressing complex that looked like communism never left. Many of the kids from Petrosani who came with us have very vivid and horrible memories of this orphanage. You wouldn't believe the stories.  Saturday night was something that we had been looking forward to; our concert in the main city park. We did not sing in the littler park like last year, but the larger park with the huge Gazebo in the center of it, for those of you who were with us last year and not this year. The Gazebo was built in respect of communism during the days of communism, and it was eerie being on stage there, knowing the history of the park and Gazebo. The concert was the best we have done, both in terms or performance and crowd reaction. There were hundreds of people there, many of whom wanting to know more about what we were singing. The missionaries and Romanians were in the crowd talking to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was incredible to watch and we wish that we could speak fluent Romanian so that we could make a larger impact in witnessing without a translator. Oh well, God was truly working. Believe me!
 One of the Romanian girls who goes to the Bible college in Bucharest with Mihaela and Catalina tagged along with us to Petrosani. Her name is Natalia, and it turns out she has a fabulous voice and we put her to work at the concert, where she sang, "No Place to Lay My Head". Wow! It was beautiful and brought tears to our eyes!
 The man in the Mayor's office, who issued the permit to us, was in attendance at the park with his wife to hear us. Edy told me that he wanted to meet me, so after the concert, I went to him to tell him thank you for allowing us to use the premises for our type of concert. He proceeded to tell me thank you for coming and helping. He invited our entire team and missionaries and kids to an outdoor restaurant for sodas, which was very nice of him, but the reason why I am telling you this is because he said that he was an orphan until he was 18 years old, and wished that people like us would have come to help him. Now he wanted to thank us for helping the orphans in Romania, and because of his position in the city, he was able to take care of us! Neat story, huh?"
July 4th (Petrosani):"This morning, we had a wonderful service at church. We sang, but not as much. The teaching was on gossiping and saying things about people that shouldn't be said, causing divisions in the church.  After the service, some of the Romanians came up to the front with the GGQ and we had an old fashioned "jam" session with old hymns, such as "Mansion over the Hilltop", "How Great Thou Art", "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", "I Surrender All", etc. That was great!!! It was such a good time with them!!
Everyone is still healthy and our voices are holding up fairly well. To be honest, this is an all out miracle, as we are singing a full 1¼ hour concerts each night!!!! Ok, let me see. The last time I left you, it was after the morning service on Sunday, July 4th. On Sunday night, we had a concert outside of the church in Petrosani. We were on the steps singing and the people were in the church yard. It was great! The GGQ sang "God Bless Romania", and they loved it! We changed some wording around to make the song applicable to them and then we ended the concert on singing our acapella version of God Bless America. July 5th (Petrosani): "Monday was a very special day, as it was our "vacation" day! We were not singing that night, so we went to the mountains with a group of Romanians to spend the day. It was an awesome time! They brought grills and we had sausages of various kinds and Romanian bacon & ribs!! My kind of food!! Of course, we brought the Romania food staple....bread! The bread here is unbelievable.
We settled in at a nice spot by the stream. We played soccer,  talked and relaxed. I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of the young adults who are not Christians, and through the grace of God, I was able to lead our Romanian friend Cristy to the Lord, with Mihaela translating. It was an awesome time, as we prayed together and he accepted Christ into his heart. Praise God! Be praying for Cristy's growth now. I also spoke to Lenuta, but she is a tough, little gal. Be praying for her salvation. We planted the seed, now it is up to God to work in her heart. (P.S. Since we returned, we received an e-mail stating that Lenuta accepting Christ into her heart and is going to the Bible college in Bucharest!!! Praise God! The seeds were planted and God worked in her heart!)  By the way, we brought this game called Speedstacks with us and the kids are going crazy playing this! Go onto www.speedstacks.com to see what this is. The company donated six of them to us for our trip and it is a big hit!
July 6th (Petrosani):On Tuesday after breakfast, we went to the nursing home. The GGQ sang about four acapella songs for them and we sang Amazing Grace as a group. Rob found some Hungarians to talk to, which was cool to see. He speaks fluent Hungarian. Actually, he speaks better Hungarian than English!! Hahahahaha!  The Director of the Nursing Home was very proud of her facility and gave us a tour. It actually was in very good shape. It was a neat time with those old folks. Oh by the way, Laurie, that little, old guy was looking for you!!! Hahahahahahaha!
This was our last day in Petrosani, so we had a "goodbye" concert at the church in the evening. What a night! As we sang our songs, the Romanians were singing right along with us! By this time, they knew all of our songs. Do you remember me telling you about Paul, the city councilman who issued the permit to us to sing a concert in the park, and then took us out to the pizza place after? Well, he & his wife Magda are not Christians, but Magda's friend from work is & goes to the church where we were singing. They came to our goodbye concert and after presented us with beautiful gifts, as they were overwhelmed by our ministry and the message that we brought. They told me that they were going to start coming to church now and be a part of what they see in us and the folks in the church. Wow!!! How awesome is that? We were so moved by the fact that God did allow us to have an impact on non-Christians! Be praying for Paul & Magda, and that they will be saved. July 7th (Petrosani / Bucharest): On Wednesday morning, we left for Bucharest and went straight to Grace Church, where we did another concert for them there. If you recall, we sang there on Sunday night, June 27th, which now seems like a month ago!
To be honest, we could barely make it through this concert, as our voices were finally telling us, "that's enough!!" Whew! But, Pastor Ioan Ceuta, who is also the Director of the Bible college and heads up the "Caring Place" kids ministry, was so appreciative of the three concerts we did for him, that he took us all out to dinner afterwards. It was a great time of fellowship!" July 8th (Bucharest):Today, we had time to relax and reflect on what we did in Romania. How blessed we were! We did some sightseeing in Bucharest and said goodbye to our friends there. It was a great trip! We had given Kelly Stark, our missionary, $2,300.00 to have central heating installed into her home.  We are going to send 5 of the young adults to college with the money that was donated to our trip, and praise the Lord for Dino DeMarco of Extreme Dream for donating 5 laptop computers to these kids for their use in college! We can't thank Dino enough!
So, in retrospect, things could not have gone better for us! Our health was of no problem throughout the trip and we all sincerely thank you deeply for your prayers. They were felt in a deep way each & every day! We will be continuing our Romania ministry and still have lots of projects to attend to, one of which is the completion of the addition to Kelly Stark's house, so that she can use that as a "halfway" house in which her older kids can live and so that she can bring in younger kids from the orphanages. So, please, if you feel led, continue to contribute financially to our ministry and click on the "Romania" link on our website; then click on the "Donations" link and print out the form and send in your contributions per the instructions. Thank you again and God bless!! The Glory Gates Quartet Romania Mission Team
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