REACH Romania
September 2007
Dear Friends and partners in the Kingdom,
Greetings from Suceava! The summer is almost gone, though we are waiting for more than usual hot days and a month of September unusually hot! Watching the news, I can say that we have all had our share of weather this year – heat, storms, flooding and unusual weather. As a matter of fact, our little creek at Voronet was high again, and we’ll have to repair the bridge for the 4th time! Only a small part of it was destroyed – but enough to have to redo it again.
Our family traveled quite extensively in August– attended some weddings, visited relatives and friends in Transylvania, left our son Gabriel in Cluj, where he will have an exam to be accepted in the University of Music, and did some preaching and a lot of translation. Thank God for a tiring, but excellent time!
There is something that happened during this time that I want to share with you –something unique, at least in Romania. There is a village in the SE of Romania, Toflea, with about 7,000 people, most of them Gypsies. It is a place of extremes – small and old mud houses surrounded by literally palaces, worth several hundred $, people driving BMWs and Mercedes between horse pulled carts, people dressed in expensive clothes next to those wearing rugs…
Well, in this place, the Lord started a wonderful work about 15 years ago. From a little room, then a garage, they have now a 1,000 seat auditorium which is not enough for them all! They had huge water baptisms during the last few years, the largest one about 3 years ago with almost 400 people baptized in the same day!
This summer they were having “only” about 200 for baptism – and the American team I interpreted for was invited to be part of it, together with Esti’s brother in law, pastor Caba, from Oradea. He is going to Toflea on a regular basis, and is considered by the Gypsies their “spiritual father”. What I witnessed there is almost incredible –I only read things like that in history books.
Saturday, we had a special day for evangelism. Two services – and during both of them, there was excitement, clapping, singing, everything LOUD – but more than anything else, there were people continuously coming forward to be saved, without special altar calls! They kept coming during the sermons, songs, announcements – and after the second service Saturday night, there were already more than 100 who came forward to be saved! The same thing, but more intense, happened the next day, Sunday –during the morning service and then during the baptism service, held at a lake side.
After the morning service and lunch, they all came to the church, which is on a hill, and with the pastors who were there and the mayor of the town in front of them, they marched through the village singing “Glory, Hallelujah” (see pictures) – stopped and prayed for the village and then got on the 6 big busses that took them to the lake. There were several thousand people attending the service there, and a good number of those gave their lives to the Lord right there! I was asked to help with baptisms, and there were 5 teams of 2 ministers each baptizing. MORE THAN 450 people got baptized that afternoon – all happy and praising God as they were baptized! Now, the number of adult, water baptized believers is close to 2,000 – plus the children! Their next step is to build a 5,000 seat auditorium, which they really need!
It was a great day – and as it was mentioned there, the wonderful thing is that it is not someone’s work; it is a sovereign work of the LORD! He deserves all the glory for it! Personally, I have no merit in it – I was there for the second time now. Pray for them – they need help, and I offered our help with some good teaching for them. If the door opens, we’ll go – it’s about 3 hours of driving South of Suceava.
It is a long letter again – but I just wanted to make you part of this great joy! May the Lord bless you abundantly!
Serving the King of Kings in Romania,
Nicu & Co.
P.S. Pray for good weather for this week – Habitat for Humanity is bringing 650 international volunteers in Radauti, 20 miles North of Suceava, and they will build 27 houses in a week! Our big tent and 15 of the blue ones will be there, they need them to feed the people and for different things. More about it later.