As would be expected back home, Sunday is about finding time for God and devoting time to his worship. It's exactly the same in Romania. All bar one of the fourteen voluntary workers attended a service at the Biserica Sfanta Trieme Church in Bacau; a Free Christian church in the main city close to Casa Albert. A modern white walled church, the service was conducted on the first floor which housed a stage for the music.

The music and singing was lead by Lyviu and his wife Anna who are both directors for Cry in the Dark in Romania and ensure that the charitys' projects are functioning and progressing smoothly. Although all lyrics were in Romanian, the music was evangelical and very infectious and this spirit remained throughout the service. Both Keith and Nicholas offered prayers which were translated into Romanian by Pastor Marion.

The crux of the service circled around the sermon conducted by Pastor Marion. The theme was "joy". Fortunately we had translators on hand. Joy comes in many forms and the obvious form is through entertainment such as theme parks, theatres or even watching our favourite football teams winning a match. This form of joy is short lived. Some other forms of joy last longer, such as the contentment gained from marrying our partners.

Once discovered, the joy found through God will be everlasting, but in order to find this joy we need to repent our sins and seek forgiveness. When we know that forgiveness is given we remove the barriers that prevent us receiving the joy of knowing god.

This seemed to be the message delivered through the translation.

Towards the end of the service, Lyviu and Annas' little boy, who must be about two or three years old, made an impromptu and unintroduced appearance on stage. His face and actions were one of innocence and rather poignantly demonstrated the presence of joy without barriers.

There are three messages that I gleamed from our visit to church in Romania this morning.

1. As Nicholas said in his prayers, the cross as was magnificently mounted on the wall above the stage crosses all borders, all cultures and all languages to create a fellowship between us all.

2. The joy of God is eternal once we have sought forgiveness from all our sins.

3. The last message came from the motif printed on the tee – shirt of a little boy who performed fantastically a song along with other children from the congregation. It said "Pick noses, not fights".

Terry Norrington