freedom of religion - in Romania ????

Dear friends,
I am most fortunate to enjoy the fellowship of very fine co-workers.
Robert and Jody come from Crawfordsville, Indiana and have been in Romania now for a number of years.
They moved out into a small village near Sibiu - Ighiseu de Vecci - where they bought a house with plenty of acerage around it to start a Christian conference and retreat.
The LORD opened many doors into their community to fellowship and share the Gospel.
Now the Orthodox priest is offering stiff opposition, and using all his influence to stave off the well developed interest in the Gospel and contact to Robert and Jody.
Today I need to share their latest prayer request and ask you to take this matter with you before the Throne of Grace!

Here are Robert and Jody Frye:
Just wanted to keep you abreast of the situation and some interesting happenings today. Thank you for continuing to pray for the kids in our village and the work here. Just today, the children came to tell us that they have been prohibited by the priest to come to our house anymore. The three boys that came to tell us said they were going to come anyway, but the other children can't come because the teacher also told them that if they came, she would give them bad grades in school. Needless to say, the children are afraid. So we went to talk to the preist, after praying quite a bit, but he won't be back in town until Saturday. Then we went to talk to the teachers. After a good discussion for about 1 1/2 hours, we think they understand us a little better. Some people, including the priest, were upset because we handed calendars out, with Bible verses on them. We apologized for upsetting them, and explained that the verses are from the exact same Bible that they have.
After alot of discussion about Orthodox being the religion of Romania, we agreed to "work together" to help educate the children of the village, which is what our purpose was to begin with. We reminded them that the director of the schools invited us to work with the children, and also the children had a great desire to continue meeting once a week. I guess one of the boys, on Sunday was making fun of the priest, and they said that he must have learned it from us, so this prompted a little more discussion. We explained that we encouraged the children to show respect to everyone, but we can't be responsible for what the children do when they aren't with us. We will talk more with the children tomorrow, if they come, and explain once again that they need to be respectful. Then we visited with the councilman of the village. He told us what the priest said on Sunday also. He said he argued with the priest afterwards, because Romania is a free country and the people have a right to go where they want and do what they want, and there is no law against them coming to our house. He didn't say how the priest responded. He said we can continue to use the village building anytime we would like. Then we went to our cell group in Cisnadie. We were late quite a bit, after speaking so long with our neighbors. It was such an encouragement to hear the prayers our fellow laborers said on our behalf and the encouraging scripture they gave us. Our pastor read in Acts chapter 5, the last part, where the disciples were brought before the high preist. Our church was very supportive and wants to come out and be more a part of what is happening here.
It was just like Acts 6, when the false witnesses came forth to tell lies about what the disciples said. The teachers were saying we were teaching the children bad things and saying bad things about what we are doing, so we invited them to come anytime and be a part of it. I asked them if memorizing scripture is offensive to them, and they said no. I told them that is all that we have done, except playing some board games and card games. They agreed that this was good. They said they will work together, but we will see how long that will last.
Please continue to pray as the battle rages on. Also, please continue to pray for the priest. Saturday will be a testing day for us all. We pray that God will keep us calm and assured of the call and our purpose.

Keeping you all in our prayers.
Robert and Jody

P.S. - Come back tomorrow for news on the truck we loaded yesterday!