Mission Trip and Evangelism in Romania
October 9th – October 18th, 2013
My mother's illness got worse and her suffering ended when she passed into Glory on October 3, 2013. This reminded me of the wishes of my father when they immigrated to the USA in 1992. He told me the story of Jacob when he left their land and moved to Egypt because of the famine. When Jacob died, his son Joseph brought the body to be buried in the native land and at the same time, Joseph told his descendants that when the Lord will visit them and they will move to their native land, to take his bones and bury them there. My father told me that he and his wife don't want to be buried here in the adopted land. Honoring their desire, I decided to travel to Romania and bury her body there. I used this as an opportunity to evangelize in Romania especially to my Orthodox family that walked into a Pentecostal church. We had a wake of one night at Golgotha Church in Chicago where family and friends were able to visit and hear the word of God preached by 12 pastors from Chicago and other US churches. My father, Viorica, Rodica, Samuel, Viorel, Lidia and I traveled to Romania and arrived there on October 9, 2013. Since the news spread quickly about my mother's body being brought to Romania, almost the entire village came to attend the wake and the funeral the next day. Since my parents donated their own home to a nonprofit organization and the house was being used by a family, there was no place to lay her body. The Pentecostal church board of members decided to receive the body inside the church and allow the services to be held there.
My mother loved the word of God preached by Godly people and she always ran to the churches when she heard that some preachers were coming. The Lord honored her desire at the wake and funeral for about twenty-five speakers shared their heart with the crowd. Some of them walked for the first time in the Pentecostal church just to see the body and coffin that was brought from the USA. Seeing so many attendees, I said this was the best way to evangelize because even though I had brought evangelist and missionary speakers and was never able to attract the whole village in the 70 times I have visited Satu Mare in the past 26 years. After the funeral, I was able to help the poor and needy from the village and we offered a lunch in the name of the Lord for all that attended at the place of Radu Muresan's restaurant (across from the house where she lived).
I visited the elderly house in construction and Pavel Sav came from Timisoara to be with us and visited the project of the elderly home. At my mother's funeral, I met Emilia who came with her parents and Eli. Two days after the funeral, since the relation was going well, I talked to the parents and we agreed to have a formal engagement at my cousin Florin's restaurant. Pavel Sav, my friend that came from Chicago, led the procedure of engagement and friends and family attended. The rest of the days, we ministered to churches and families in need. As I was departing from Satu Mare to the Bucharest airport, I was called by Pastor Florin Mitrig to meet missionary Ovidiu Pater that came from Kalahari Namibia and wanted to meet me and Pavel Sav as he was going towards Timisoara to continue with the mission. It was a great time meeting and sharing with Ovidiu and he made us an invitation to visit Namibia, Africa in the month of January 2014. I told him I would pray about it and let the Lord guide us. All of us returned back to the USA, even though we lost our mother, we have the insurance that we will see her again in heaven. We have the fulfillment that the mission was accomplished because, at her funeral, many people that we could not reach before attended and heard the word of God. We praised the Lord who gave us strength and comfort to do His work even through sad circumstances. His name is Glorified for all of these works. I conclude this report with the words of Apostle Paul; “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” Philippians 1:20.
