Ion and Ani serve Providence Church of Brasov under the oversight of Sporn Prodan. Ion shares their ministry this month:
My heart is seeking the Lord and I want to understand Him better, so that I can worship Him better.
Another desire of my heart is to pastor the people in the church where the Lord has put me. Some of them are not our church members officially, but they said they wanted to attend our church. Whenever they can’t come to church, they call me and tell me that. Therefore, I consider them to be part of our church.
I would like to tell you the story of a family. Cecilia and Mugur are coming from Orthodox families (an Orthodox branch that was revived in the ‘20s through a priest). When Mugur was a student, he turned to God in a real way and gave his life to the Lord. He is a sports teacher at a high school in Brasov and Cecilia is a doctor. They got married and the Lord has blessed them with a son, Andrei, who is 16 years old now. We met them in 2011, when we started our church. They used to attend another church, but they believe that they don’t need to be baptized again (because they had been baptized when they were babies), so they didn’t feel accepted in that evangelical church. I realized once again that we can’t get over our prejudices. We developed our relationship with them, as Cecilia is our doctor. They could feel our care for them and the freedom they had with us. I explained to them that it was important for them to get baptized and to become part of the church. They still hold on to their beliefs, but they have started attending our church and now feel they are part of it. They made a bank loan in Swiss francs, but the Swiss franc has increased in value substantially since then. It doubled actually. So, they’ve paid a lot of money to the bank and still have a lot to pay. This is a great burden for them and now realize that they had made a big mistake when they took that bank loan.
Mugur is also suffering from a genetic disease that affects his sight. He can only drive with Cecilia’s help. He can’t see very well now and he is only 40 years old. This is also a burden for them. Besides all this, their son has a girlfriend, a non-Christian girl from Bucharest. Andrei is part of the Romanian Olympic fencing team and has really good performances at his age. Still, in spite of all his good parts, his is disobedient to his parents and to the Gospel call. I talked to him and saw his confusion. He is a moral person, but he is vulnerable to many bad things. This family is under great pressure. We are praying for them and have encouraged them to persevere in faith. God is faithful and can change Andrei. Please pray for Cecilia and Mugur. Please pray that the Lord would fight for them.
We kept being involved in street evangelism, but not as much as before, due to the colder weather. We passed out Christian literature and talked to the people we met. We pray that this ministry would be fruitful. We met a lady in a jewelry store and talked to her. She was very friendly and said she would come to church, but she didn’t attended yet. Then we met another lady, who listened carefully to the Gospel message. She also promised she would come to church. She is divorced and is raising her child by herself.
We believe in the power of the Word of God and in God’s providence. Please pray for us to find wise ways to do the ministry and be fruitful. I believe we need to pray and be dependent more on His Spirit, rather on our strength, wisdom and experience.
Don is serving as the HeartCry Coordinator for Eastern Europe. As an itinerant evangelist, his pulpit ministry is directed toward preaching on the inner life of the believer and the spiritual need of the lost. With HeartCry, his ministry includes organizing Bible conferences and corresponding with the HeartCry missionaries in Europe. He and his lovely wife Cindy live in Tuscumbia, AL.
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