Why we are going to Romania

I think we need to think strategically about God's heart for the world. It used to be that when we talked about missions, we would always think about Africa. That's because it was a "dark continent". Well, today Africa is the most evangelized continent on the planet. There is no continent with a higher percentage of the population that is Christian than Africa. However, it still seems to be the glamor place for mission teams to go. On the other hand the new "dark continent" is now Europe. With the atheism that was proclaimed under the communist regimes, Eastern Europe is now a wide open field for the gospel to take root. Western Europe is now entrenched in a post-Christian culture. The percentage of those who are evangelical Christians on the continent is almost in the single digits. However, missiologists are saying that the fastest growing evangelical community in Europe is in Romania. The other statistic is that there are more Romanians in other parts of Europe than any other ethnic European community. In fact, in Spain, the Romanian minority is second only to Moroccans. And projections are that they will surpass that within the next two years. As we evangelize or help the Romanians evangelize their own people, we will see more Christian Romanians in other parts of Europe. And they are beginning to be more deliberately missional in how they evangelize. Strategically, Romania is the place where we should be because Romania could become the shining beacon of hope and light to a dark continent. The ultimate salvation or re-evangelization of Europe may very well begin in Romania.