CEE Story From The Mission Field
A Modern Day in Lydia - Part 2
March 2003
“We’re a Church”
It seemed like 5pm would never arrive! IMB missionaries to the Deaf were eagerly waiting because it was the time they would meet with Helga and her friends. Helga--an 84-year old deaf Romanian Christian who is crippled and partly blind; Helga—who was saved at a conference led by these misionaries 8 years ago; Helga—who hosts her friends each week as they meet for bible study and prayer; Helga—a modern day Lydia!
She had invited the missionaries to come to their next meeting and teach them! Now they waited. They waited to share with this unsuspecting group that their Bible study meetings could actually be called “church!” They knew the excitement from such a discovery would be great because it would bring freedom and validation to a group of believers who, because of their deafness, were always overlooked and often disparaged. Five o’clock finally arrived.
As one of the missionaries shared with the group from Acts 16, there were many questions. “What is a church?” “What does a church do?” “When and how does a church meet?” These questions and more were discussed among themselves as Vesta waited for the Holy Spirit to do His work.
"I will never forget,” she says, “when, almost simultaneously, the group signed/said to us and to each other, ‘We are a church?!?!’” They kept repeating over and over again, “This is a church!” “Helga, this room-your room- is a church!”
The missionaries and the others with them, watched years of guilt and pain fall from their faces. One of the group, Mia, said, “Not knowing we were a church, out of duty every Sunday morning, I have gone and sat in the hearing Baptist church. I don’t know anyone there. I can’t talk with them. I rarely understand what is being taught. But I go because I want to obey God, yet I am always sad about it. I always looked forward to meeting with the Deaf believers.” Then as tears fell down her cheeks she said, “I love this room. Now I can say I love this Deaf church.”
Odette, a young deaf woman added her comments, “We meet here, often in fear. We wondered if we were wrong. We thought maybe we should be meeting in the hearing building. I never understood we could be a church, too. We take our money to the hearing church because here, we learned that we should give; but then after we give the money to the hearing church we have no money left to help minister to and evangelize the deaf of Brasov. Now I know we can take care of this ourselves.”
Then Helga said, “I have asked God to forgive me everyday. My feet hurt so badly that I cannot walk to the Baptist Church. Now I know that I have not been sinning.”
As they closed in prayer they prayed for the 350+ deaf people in this Romanian city. Mia said, “I have many deaf friends. I didn’t know and it didn’t occur to me that I could bring them to my home and that I can start a deaf church in my home, too.”
What a night! The missionaries couldn’t sleep in their hotel room. They were in awe of what God had done—fully in His power alone. They marveled over the fact that a mere 30 hours earlier they had been standing in the city square trying to decide where they might be able to start a church. They didn’t know that God had already done it.