Pavel Purcaci serves with HeartCry missionary Igor Serement and the Philadelphia Church in Anenii Noi, Moldova.  His ministry includes leading the evangelistic outreach, the Awana program and one-on-one discipleship of those who come to Christ.

Testimony of Conversion

My name is Pavel Purcaci. I was born on the 8th of April, 1984 in Anenii Noi, Moldova. I am the third child of Nicolae and Nadejda Purcaci. I am married to a wonderful woman, Lydia, and have a son named Alberto.

I grew up in a family that did not know God, although my grandmother (my father’s mother) was part of the Adventist Church. When I was seven years old, I was baptized in an Orthodox Church together with my little brother, who was about two months old. A few months after this event, my mother became convinced that the Adventist Church was the right way, and we started to go to that church. This is when I first started to have contact with Bible teachings, but I was too little to understand their true value. A few years later, my mother realized the errors of the Adventist doctrine and moved to the Pentecostal Church. She took my brothers and me with her.

After I finished elementary school, I wanted to study in a high school in Romania. I asked God to help me with the exams and promised Him that if I succeeded I would truly follow Him. God answered my prayer, and I was granted the option to enter the foreign language department and study in Romania.

I soon left for Romania, but for two years, I kept running away from the promise that I had made to God. I had the Bible with me, but I was ashamed to draw it out of the travel bag and read it.

After I finished the 10th grade, I returned to Moldova for my summer vacation. During that time, my mother always invited me to go to church, but I refused every time. There was a fight inside of me. On one hand, God advised me through my mother to go to church and repent; but on the other hand, Satan was fighting against God’s advice and giving me thoughts of rejecting it.

The fight continued until the beginning of August, when my grandfather died. I began to think about the purpose of my life here on earth and finally decided to give my life to God and let Him do with me whatever He wanted. I prayed to God and asked Him to take my life in His hands. At that moment, I became a child of God.

I began to read the Bible, and when I returned to Romania for the 11th grade, I attended the local Baptist church. I began to grow spiritually, even though I was still fighting my past temptations. On the 20th of October 2002, I publicly confessed Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal Savior by being baptized. In this way I became a member of Bethany Baptist Church in Orsova, Romania.

When I was about to finish high school, I had the strong desire to study both English and the Bible. For this reason, I decided to study further at the Faculty of Baptist Theology at Bucharest University. God helped me with my exams, and He gave me a vision for my future ministry. In my mother’s village, as well as many villages in Moldova, there were no evangelical churches. God put in my heart a desire to see Baptist churches planted in such villages and to work for the spiritual growth in the local church.

Call to Ministry

I understood that God wanted me in His ministry, because He made me have a desire to see people come to Him and become His children. When I look at people around me, I realize that they live a life without purpose because they do not know Him. After graduating, I prayed for God to show me which way to take. He answered my prayers and called me to work for Him in the local church. Now I am asking Him to make me grow and to prepare me for new challenges in the ministry. My vision is to work hard in everything that God gives me to do. The knowledge of English that I possess can be helpful in this respect. My motto is: “If people in this world think hard and work hard in order to provide for their material needs which are temporal, then we who are called to be God’s servants should think hard and work hard in order to show them the things that are most important and have eternal value.”

I ask God to give me power and to equip me in order to have a fruitful ministry. I also pray that He might teach me and my co-laborers to work together as a team. We read in the Bible that we are not involved in a competition for fame, but for the benefit of the church of Christ and the glory of God.

I have been involved in the ministry of Filadelfia Baptist Church in Anenii Noi, Moldova for five years now. My role is to be part of the working team in the church. I supervise the children’s ministry; the English-teaching ministry; the teenager ministry; and different social ministries, which include visiting shut-ins to deliver groceries and the Gospel to them. My desire is to bring people to God.

Mission Updates by Pavel Purcaci

Mission Update Eastern Europe

Preparing For Every Good Work

Mission Update Moldova

Opportunities Amidst the Ordinary

Mission Update Moldova

Faithful in Small Things

All Updates by Pavel Purcaci