Until the year of 1982, as a young man, I was running without any direction or goals in my life. I was far from God and without the possibility to find Him because Romania was a communist country and the Christians were being persecuted. By the age of 25, I didn’t find anyone to tell me about the salvation which comes through our Lord Jesus Christ. But one day came the time when I started following the cry of my heart which was telling me to look for Christ and I will find Him. Many months when I was going to my night job I was stopping in front of a Catholic church and saying, “God, if you exist I want to see you.” I would make the sign of cross and look on the roof to see if I can see God. But nothing happened. 

One day I asked my friend if he knows something about repenters (in Romania, Baptist Christians are called repenters). He told me that he went one time to their service but that was when he was a child. I told him if he took me to the repenters church I would take him to the bar and give him something to drink. He accepted my offer and in April 1982 was my first time when I step into a Baptist church. After fifteen minutes my friend said, “Let’s go to the bar.” I looked at him and I said, “I am sorry that I lied to you but I cannot leave this church until I see what happens.” He left the church but I remained there and I accepted Christ as my personal Savior. I went home and told my wife that I became a Christian and I accepted Christ in my life.  Later in that afternoon, she came back to the church with me and she received Christ as her personal Savior. Because of our decision we faced many problems.  However, because of that decision God blessed us in an amazing way. 

In Dec. 1988 I felt the calling of God to leave Romania and to cross the border in Serbia. I was afraid to cross by myself, so God told me to take my wife. It was a very hard decision because we would have to leave behind 3 small children. My mother accepted to watch over them until the time we come back for them. 

So, in the afternoon of Jan 26 1989 we took the road toward Serbia. It was dark outside and we had to walk on a path which was right on top of a train tunnel and next to a Romanian military station. When we were walking down the path toward the Danube River, my wife fell. I turn to her and I said “get up fast and let’s go. There is no time to lose!” Her respond was, “My feet don’t hold me anymore.” We were afraid because we knew that the soldiers from the Military Stations shoot many people as they are trying to cross the border. 

Minutes later, we were on the river in a raft trying to paddle toward Serbia. When we were far away from the Romanian border almost on the Serbia border, my wife saw something white and a small light. She ask, “Are we going toward a city?” I said, “No.” In that moment a big ship came from the dark and a strong light searching the water looking for us. The ship was coming straight at us. At that moment I was thinking, “I know how to swim. I can jump and swim, but my wife doesn’t know how to swim. If I jump, I can go and eventually raise our children.” But I promised my wife that we will be together and so I stayed in the boat and I said, “If we have to die, we die together.” As we watch the ship coming it almost hit our raft. We prayed and we saw God’s hands work. When the ship was like 7 meters close a big waved pushed our raft. Because the raft was round it started spinning and after the ship passed the waves pushed us very close to the Serbian border. The soldiers which were on the ship were looking on the Romanian side for us but we were in front of the ship and the waves pushed us on the Serbian side. 

When we got to the dry land we walked to the nearest village where we were capture by the Serbian soldiers and put in prison because we crossed the Danube River illegally. We stayed in prison for twenty-two days and after that we were put in a political refugee camp. There we had an interview with a representative from NATO and we passed. Being in the refugee camp God spoke to us again that He will take us to America through Deuteronomy Chapter 8. Here he promised that He will take us into a good country and that we will be blessed. After three months in the Refugee camp, we were transfer to a Neutral ground from where we could choose the country were we want to go. We chose America but everyone was telling us that if I was a communist in Romania, America is not the country we want. I was telling them that God told me to choose America. 

We prepared our papers and at the end of May 1989 we had an Interview with the USA Ambassador. We went there with another person. This person went first for the interview and as he came out he told us that he did not pass. He told us we do not have any chance either because they will give us a paper with questions and one of the question is, “Were you ever in the Communist party?” We went inside and waited for someone to come and give us the paper. No one came. After a while a lady came she said, “I am sorry we ran out on the papers with the questions. You will have to go straight to the interview.” This was God’s blessing and promise. We saw how God was with us every step during the six months of waiting in Serbia.

Finally, in July of 1989. we took the airplane to USA toward a new world. It was the place where we thought we would live the rest of our lives. Our children followed us in May 1990 and all things were great and we were very blessed as God promised us in Deuteronomy chapter 8. 

So America became our country and our dream start becoming reality until 1996 when one morning we had mission conference in our church. It was Victory Baptist Church in California. My wife came to me and said, “What do you think if we go as missionaries to Romania?” That was the moment when God started changing things in my life. After couple months, our pastor came to visit us and he said, “Rica, don’t you think that God brought you to America only to prepare you for the mission field back in Romania?” After that, I start praying and listening to God spoke to. As He worked in my life, I knelt down and said, “God here I am, I am ready to do whatever you want me to do.” 

So we start school with Louisiana Baptist University, from where I graduated in May of 2000. We start our deputation in August 2000 and in August 2001 we left for Romania. Since then, we are happy serving God on the mission field of Romania where we have started three churches along with two feeding centers and two fosters homes with MANNA worldwide. Please pray for us and our ministry as we are praying for you.