The Republic of Moldova is located between Romania and Ukraine, and is considered the poorest country in Europe. It has a gross national income of roughly 300 Euros per month. It's GDP per capita is about the same as Zambia.
Since many of the European countries have already been supplied with Agapao Tablets from our European office, we have been looking into planning a trip to this remote area, located in the far-eastern corner of Europe.
Romanian is widely spoken, as well as Russian. Moldova is hardly heard of in the news, and no doubt many people hardly know that this country exists. Our VGR office in St. Petersburg, Russia has supplied our Russian speaking believers with the Message through the past years, and so has our Romanian office also supplied the Romanian speaking believers with Romanian sermons.
Since VGR in Russia had already been in touch with the Russian believers in this country and already started to mail the Russian tablets from their office, we had to make sure to supply our Romanian speaking families with tablets.
Since the Coronavirus outbreak has already shut down various areas in Europe, we knew we had to act quickly before more restrictions would be implemented on mail shipments or air travel. The virus could actually work to our advantage. Because of the heightened security for health reasons, Customs might not focus on our suitcases of tablets. We knew that the Lord would make away! I personally had just read all the chapters about David, how he faced Goliath, and it all ended up with five stones, F-A-I-T-H. This, of course, gave me enormous encouragement.
We did our best to come up with a plan, either to hand-deliver the tablets to the believers’ homes while we were there, or to mail them from our office. We contacted a brother, and he was able to provide a few home addresses and contact for a local pastor.
So, we flew to Moldova, and picked up our bags upon arrival at Chisinau airport. Since Moldova is a non-European Union State, there are stricter rules than other EU countries. I noticed a second checkpoint that all passengers had to put their suitcases on another belt for extra screening, before you could exit the airport. We simply walked a different way without making eye-contact, and miraculously made it through Customs without a check. It was only the hand of Almighty God that helped us get through these barriers.
I am sad to say that once the Lord brought us through Customs, we met resistance from a couple of the brothers. However, the Lord was with us, and He provided a way to get the Message into the hands of the people.
I asked the Lord, “Where do we go next?” Thoughts went through my mind, “If we can't get along down here on earth, how is this ever going to work in Heaven? I don't think that this brother was aware of the sacrifices that are made by believers worldwide that help sponsor these tablets, and that we were willing to go through all that risk to take it right to their doorstep.
I wasn't planning to stay at the airport, and I started thinking of the story of the time when Brother Branham's plane was grounded in Memphis, and he didn't know where to go. He just started walking, waiting on the Lord to lead him right to the person that was waiting at her gate since early that morning.
You can imagine how I felt since I have been traveling and distributing this Message material for more than 25 years, passing through many borders with truckloads of cassettes and books, but never had I ran into a situation like this.
I remembered the thousands of miles that we had to drive and sometimes arriving at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning because of long waiting hours at the borders, having my entire family, my wife and three little kids in the truck, tired and worn out from the trip, but every time, the people were happy that we made it in with all the Message materials through the former communist borders. The believers back in those days could not wait until we arrived to get their hands on the newest messages that were available each trip that you made, and I remember no matter what it took, they wanted every new message as quickly as possible. There was a real hunger for the Word of God!
I was thinking that now, we are about 25 years down the road with some new gadgets that make it altogether a whole lot easier, and we only have to come one time and don't have to come back to bring them new books and tapes because the Tablets can get the translations automatically, all they have to do is connect to the internet or to another tablet. It gives them everything available in their language!
As we were waiting there in the airport with all the tablets, I knew that somehow the Lord would give us another miracle! We ended up giving a tablet to the brother who did not want us to distribute tablets. He also took one for his mother and his sister.
We then quickly started with the few addresses we had. As we visited them personally in their homes. We were so heartily welcomed by each family that we visited, and almost every family told us about other believers that we didn’t know anything about. We ended up meeting with believers that we otherwise would have never met in our lives, had we gone with our original plan. We quickly went from one village to the other to bring them their tablets, and the believers received the Agapao tablets with joy in their hearts.
We thanked our Heavenly Father for opening the doors where there first seemed to be no way, and we truly say PRAISE THE LORD for everything He did to get these precious gifts to the predestinated seed of God!
Brother Gerald Buitenkamp
VGR Europe Office