Bucharest 2007 Crusades Update! 

The GGQ Romania Team is back!!!

Hello Everybody!

The Glory Gates Quartet and its Bucharest 2007 Crusade Concerts team has returned from Romania with huge smiles on our faces because of how God was present and worked in not only the lives of the Romanians, but our lives too! The opportunity that we had to serve there again in this capacity and forum was truly a delightful blessing.

Everything went as planned. No problems or hitches. The sound system was excellent, as they had 110 VAC to both venues at which we sang. We were in Sala Dalles for the first 3 concerts, which is a concert hall, and then the large Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Bucharest, which holds close to 1,000 people, for the "lively" Sunday night concert. It was standing room only for both our Sunday morning and Sunday night concerts!!

The Romanians in the churches that were involved were to use this weekend as an evangelistic time and opportunity for which to bring their unsaved friends and family to hear us sing and the pastor we brought, speak. They did just that! Many people came up to us after our concerts and told us that they brought non-Christians with them. One young woman in her 20's said that she brought 10!! We planted the seeds and now the Romanian Christians are to do the follow-up with those unsaved who attended. Let's all commit ourselves to prayer for those and allow God to work in their lives. There was one young woman who traveled on a train for 9 hours all the way from Cluj to come to all of our concerts. We invited her to be with us at our last couple of dinners just to share with her. Her name is Dora, so please be praying for her. She has the typical Romanian story of an alcoholic father and a mother who feels hopeless after the years of abuse from her husband. There are many other stories like this of people traveling to come to hear us 

 concerts, we really feel compelled to include her comments, as they really mean so much to us and is a true indication that we are truly making an impact there and that God really does want us to be in Romania. Dora had told us that she loved our songs, and explained herself as follows:

“The melody, words and rhymes captured me mostly and those songs are like ballads with a very deep meaning.....I felt the closer to God because I felt the words to the songs almost like touching my soul somehow in a very subtle way.

Some feelings of emotions were awakening inside of me.....about faith about the way you feel so close God to yourself. Those songs are odes and ballads and odes were written to those who you love and adore the most.....so these songs awake in me a very deep and profound way of love adoration & veneration of God, of the divine....it’s better this way.

The song “Little is much When God is in it”.....says a very strong meaning for everyday people......we should appreciate and recognize in everyday life the eternal presence of the divine, and things get sacred & precious when God is in it. Little happenings get a profound meaning when God guides our way,

This is hard now to describe..it was easier during the concerts because I had the feeling....as I told you right after the concerts.

I felt a lot of affection, emotional openness and the feeling that we all were connected in some spiritual level. The message in your songs is that the most important this is to accept Jesus Christ into your hear. When you have faith and trust in God, you will receive eternal life in Heaven. This is what it is all about! I cannot stop listening to your "Best of GGQ 2007" CD!"

What a wonderful, humbling opportunity this is to serve him in such a way. We cannot begin to describe to you how we felt. The Crusade weekend was so very encouraging for all of us. The group that went to serve included the following:

Rich McIntyre - Lead Singer 
Bob Jones - Baritone 
Tim Shoemaker - Tenor & directed all technical aspects of our sound systems at each concert. 
Rob Marton - Bass 
Pastor Al Wilsey - Speaker- Pastor of Paloma Community Church in Scottsdale, AZ. 
Roberta Wilsey - Pastor's wife & photographer 
Barb McIntyre - Rich's wife and handled the CD sales table after each concert & handled the money of our trip. 
Sharon Jones - Bob's wife and helped at the CD sales table 
Alice Shoemaker - GGQ rep responsible for Pastor Al & his wife
Bobette Craycraft - Videoing entire weekend 
Kathleen Schlick - Photographer
Jerry Herling - Setting up sound equipment for each concert. 
Kathy Herling - Help with meals and greeting and CD sales. 

Before we left, we put together a "Best of GGQ" CD of 22 of our songs and brought 300 CDs with us and sold almost all of them!! Because the Romanian people do not have a lot of money, we reduced the cost of each CD to 15 Lei, which is about $6.00.

We have documented our entire crusade weekend with pictures and video and will edit these to put together a presentation for our next Romania Benefit concert.

Even though the weekend was filled, we also went to visit the kids with Leukemia at the Marie Currie Hospital in Bucharest. We always do this when we go there, as we do support the ministry of trying to make life for these kids and parents just a little better or somewhat less painful. It's always an eye-opening experience for us to visit these kids, as every time we return, there are always those kids who are no longer there, as they have gone to meet the Lord. We love these kids and it is so humbling to be there with them. Rich's wife, Barb McIntyre and Cindy Sheek knit and crochet hats and slippers before we leave for Romania, and we pass those out to the kids and parents. We always buy yogurt to bring to them too. They just love us being there with them.

We also support a missionary in Petrosani, Kelly Stark, who has a ministry of taking in kids who are orphaned and who has a place called the Isaiah House. You may see what Kelly does there at her website: www.isaiahshouse.org. Because of situations in Petrosani, Kelly is moving to a little town just outside of Brasov called Codlea. It so happens that we performed a concert there last July at a prison there! Small world! Kelly's best friend in Romania, Rebekah Magher-Holmes, is also a missionary in Brasov and she and her husband, George' have a Family Center there for orphans and street kids. Kelly will be a part of this ministry.

We brought Kelly and 5 of her kids, along with George', Rebekah and their 4 kids, to Bucharest to stay with us for the weekend and enjoy themselves in an apartment near us in Bucharest. They came to all of our concerts and were with us at our meals; etc. It was good for them to get away on a little vacation and be with us. We love them and always can't wait to see them.

On that Tuesday, 8 of us took a 3 hour train ride to visit Kelly, George' & Rebekah in Brasov. Kelly & George drove us to where Kelly's new house will be. It was exciting and much better than where she is currently living. Once school is over in June, she will be leaving Petrosani and moving to Brasov. (Codlea)

Suffice it to say that it was a trip that was totally blessed by God. Everyone stayed healthy, our voices stayed strong and we saw God working in peoples lives while we were there. Be praying for them! We sure are!

Thank you so much for your support! Thanks to those who supported us financially at our Romania Benefit concert before we left. As we told you, we all paid for the trip itself ourselves and the money that was received will go towards Kelly Stark's ministry and other ministries in Romania with which we are involved.

Many, many thanks to Pastor Radu Oprea of the Bethany Baptist Church in Bucharest for planning the crusade concerts with other pastors in Bucharest. I do want to say that Pastor Radu told me that one of the delightful things that happened from the planning 7 implementation of this crusade was that it brought all of the pastors together. It caused them to all meet a couple of times per month and discuss other things besides this crusade. They will be continuing this now and in the future. This will help in spiritually growing their own congregations and reaching the unsaved and plugging them into the local churches.

Also, so many thanks, once again, to Cristi and Rebecca Tocaci for all of their usual help with travel, translating; etc.

Now it's time for me to plan our next bigger and better trip to Romania next March!!! It will be the GGQ Bucharest 2008 Evangelistic Concerts! More on this later!

The Glory Gates Quartet Foundation