A little girl dreams....

.....of meeting her Eastern European Polish / Czech family when she would one day grow up. She has a mild obsession with genealogy and with the mystery of who she is connected to in the world (from both an anthropological, genealogical, and spiritual perspective). A few years later this little girl begins to explore the four major world religions via her encyclopedia. She finds herself most intrigued by one called Christianity. Her mom invites her to go to church with her and so she goes....and clearly on that Wednesday night....she hears a voice that says, "Kelda, I have called you to be a peacemaker and not a peacekeeper." She was eleven and this is where her story begins.

A year goes by and her grandmother, who is terminally diagnosed with brain cancer, has one of the last heart to heart conversations and walks around the block with her granddaughter. The grandmother asks her granddaughter what she would like to be when she grows up. The granddaughter"s response is to either be the first female president (like some little girls dreamed) or a pastor. The grandmother encouraged the girl's heart and told her to pursue her dream. The grandmother passes away within a few months of this conversation.

The young girl becomes a young woman. During her high school years, she pursues following this person called Jesus. She believes she has been called to pursue full time pastoral ministry yet is disheartened that some in her community did not believe that women could have such a role in the church. She settles for pursuing youth ministry as a compromise. She goes to college to a place that was clearly confirmed to her - Colorado Christian University. She brings with her a lot of baggage. Mommy and daddy baggage. Church baggage. A whole U-haul trailer full of baggage. She spends the next several years unpacking the baggage. Spreading it out. Sorting it out.

She graduates CCU at 20 and soon gets a real job working with street youth that are runaways and castaways. She begins to believe she has found her cause. At the agency she works at she meets a young Romanian Orthodox nun who has moved to Denver from Bucharest. The nun had worked with street children in Bucharest and had come to experience working with street youth in Denver. The nun shares her stories with the young woman and something clicked in her heart regarding the street children and the city of Bucharest. The young woman and the nun work together until 2003. Two years go by and the friends part ways. In early April, 2005 the young woman hears from God, "Remember Romania. Remember Eastern Europe. " Two weeks later, the two friends run into each other again and catch up for a bit. One more week later, the young woman meets another Romanian lady from Bucharest who had worked with street children there. Soon thereafter, a good friend directs the young woman to get connected with a team that goes every summer from Denver to northern Romania to run camps for children in Romanian rural orphanages. The young woman signs up, raises her support, and learns bits of the language.

The summer of 2006 changes her life forever. She finds herself amongst a people that feel more like home to her than the homeland she knew. She connects with emotionally starved orphaned children, pastors of churches that love their people with a neverending well of compassion, and finds herself in the city that she came to visit - Bucharest. It is here that the young woman finds the most peace and yet the place that once was the epicenter of Communism. She feels the weight of oppression in the air (ie the residual affects of "informers" turning in their own friends and family to the authorities) and barely hears Romanians talk to each other on the train. Amongst towers of Communist bloc apartments she finds a small yellow fragrant rose in a crack of the cement sidewalk. The aroma gives hope for the smell of a new Romania.

She returns home to share her story with her pastor. He acknowledges she has been sent to scope out the territory and now it is time to prepare to be there one day. The next steps include saying "no" to a couple of hot and attractive alternatives (boys and the opportunity to tour doing back up vocals for a friend's trip hop band) and saying "yes" to starting up classes that would help prepare her for the "real deal" of ministry and starting up a young adult ministry at her Jesus following community - Mile High Vineyard.

Throughout the next several years she serves and loves those before her. She faces internal and external challenges of all kinds. She makes serious life changes to pursue ministry by quitting what is comfortable as a social worker. She become a nanny. She interns at her church. She sucks at trying out the Starbucks barista role. Quite frankly, she is turned inside out and upside down and it is good. She grows in what it means to be a follower of Jesus and is changed and challenged in every day of it. She finishes her training and then goes back into Social Work. She finds comfort in Jesus and does her job and continues to love young adults. She is content.
She never veers too far from the thought of Romania because Jesus keeps bringing it literally in front of her face. She meets several Romanian friends in Denver. She meets a ton of people that are connected to people that she knows in Bucharest. She still is content.

Then WHAMO happens in 2010. She keeps hearing and seeing God trying to bring up Romania in sooo many ways but she ignores it. Remember - she is content. Then she totals her car in a scary hydroplaning car accident in June. Then in July lightening strikes the ground 30 feet from her brand new car. God has her attention. God says that he will speak to her at an upcoming conference and well he does. He speaks about it being time for her to take serious steps and to set goals to leave the country a little over a year from that point in August 2010. She comes up with the quirky date of 11.11.11 to be living in Bucharest. Her leaders approve and the journey REALLY begins.

The next year continues to build crazy momentum as more and more and more people pop into her life that also have a heart for Romania. She goes on a 8-day trip in January 2011 with a couple from her church that desire to check out Bucharest with her. Her goal is to see what Jesus is up to. He confirms that it is time for her to church plant. He clearly confirms it. She makes great connections with a couple of pastors in Bucharest. They have heard similar things from Jesus for the city as the young woman. For example, some have heard from God the same key passage of Isaiah 61 and others have heard that Jesus wants to bring joy to the city. The Romanian root word for Bucharest is "bucuri" which also means joy. The young woman encounters many confirming moments but the one that really gets her is at her friend's church prayer meeting. A woman asks the young woman to share her story and as she does the woman in the prayer meeting begins to weep and says in Romanian that she has been praying for someone just like her to come to Bucharest for years. The fear of God rests on the young woman in this moment. She knows that she MUST be there to be a part of something way way bigger than herself.

The story comes full circle because through facebook the young woman has connected to some of her Czech family. The little girl's dream has become way bigger than when she was 8 and is now a lot less self absorbed. Jesus is now at the epicenter of this story. All she knows is to take the next step. This will be a 6 month journey to Bucharest to get more clear vision of what God is doing there. She knows it will involve the young people of Bucharest, disheartened street children, and the Kingdom of God raising up a generation in Romania that follow Jesus like no other generation before them. The rest will unfold in due time.

Will people join in this woman's vision? Will some pray for her? Will others support her as she needs to raise $14,500 out of $16,000 to reach her goal? The rest remains to be seen as she hopes to be in Bucharest on 11.11.11.