Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Ward Baptist Church in Tempe Arizona. I'm here with Alex
He's from Romania and we're going to talk about the spiritual state of the nation in Romania
Now first is a few facts about Romania. Romania has a population of about 20 million people
Geographically, it's the size of Michigan. It's in Eastern Europe
It's adjacent to Hungary and you know other Eastern European countries. Now a lot of people think that
Romanian is a Slavic language. It's actually one of the romance languages
So it's connected to like Spanish and Italian and stuff like that
Well, the religious makeup of the country 81% of the people there are part of the Romanian Orthodox Church
And then about 5% of people are Catholic. There's about 3% are
Lutheran and
Baptists are like
0.6% so like a little more than a half a percent so
Not a lot of Baptists a lot of the Orthodox Church and if you don't know what's wrong with the Orthodox Church
Then just listen to my sermon called
Orthodox Church in Light of the Bible. Okay, because it's pretty much
The same as being Catholic. It's in some ways even worse than a Roman Catholic. It's pretty bad. So I went there
I'll get my testimony then we'll talk to Alex, but you know, I went there back in
1999 I spent a week there when I was just an 18 year old young man
And I felt like there's a very receptive place to the gospel. It was a great place
I really enjoyed being there. In fact out of all the European countries I went to on that trip when I was 18
I really liked Romania the best so I actually went home and learned Romanian and I started going to a Romanian Baptist Church in Sacramento
California just to practice Romanian
So I used to be able to speak Romanian
But I've forgotten a lot of it just because if you don't use it you lose it
but when I was over there, I went to a church by missionary Brian Dibby and
The church was doing great. It seemed like I think they had like a hundred people coming or something
It was a pretty thriving church met a lot of great people and they had two Bible versions back then
They had the Orthodox Bible which was more like the King James and then they had the Cornelescu Bible
Which was more like the NIV
But the Orthodox Bible had some problems
So Brian Dibby, he actually ended up putting out his own Bible version called the Biblia Fidelis
And that's what I've got in my hand right here. You can order these online and this is basically a
Romanian Bible that matches up with the King James
So, you know the Orthodox Bible was from the Textus Receptus
but it had some kind of Orthodox stuff stuck in there and some problems that it had
Issues, so this is a great Bible. So they've got a great Bible and I think they're pretty receptive
Now you're actually from there. Tell me about your experiences with finding a church soul-winning. What's it like there?
Finding a church is very difficult actually
Because well personally I live in Bucharest, the capital
It holds two million people and I've been looking for a good church for a while now for
about two years and
I found one in the northern side an independent animal Baptist Church
But they weren't soul-winning before I got there. So I got them starting going soul-winning again
I know right with the pastor now, so that's good
It only has like 20 members
so and the majority of those are
Elderly, so they don't feel like going out soul-winning. Right because they're older. Yes, sir
And so it's really difficult to do the work because
It's only the two of us. So you and the pastor get to go out soul-winning together?
Every Saturday we go we should go more but yeah, that's great
That's great to just to go out on a weekly basis is awesome. So have you seen some people saved out soul-winning?
Well, there are some great
Areas where you can go you can get a lot of people saved but since yeah
It's only the two of us we didn't get
As many as you we wanted only about four four people saved in two months. Well, that's great. I mean four people in two months
I mean, it's an eternity actually, so we praise God for everyone gets it. Amen
So these four people that you got saved over the course of two months
What kind of people were they were they were they what did they used to be?
Were they Orthodox where they just kind of know religion or where were they at spiritually when you got there?
Well, all of them were Orthodox so they were all with us that's 80% of the people yes, sir, okay
So what what is your typical Romanian Orthodox? What do they believe about salvation before you give them the gospel?
Well, since it's a false religion all of them say that you have to do the works
But they have a knowledge of the Bible they have knowledge of Jesus Christ
Of
The gospel, but they just they're just deceived by the priests
Yeah, just it's just that religion of the Orthodox Church the priests got them on work salvation today
and they would they got baptized as a baby yes, and
All that kind of stuff. So are you planning on when are you going back?
I'm going back in about two months. I'm here with the working visa. Okay, I'm gonna be here for four months in total
But I wanted to be here and be part of a good church a good soul soul-willing Church and right now
I'm part of brother
Perry's Church brother manly Perry in San Antonio. Yes. Okay, cool
So hopefully you can learn some stuff and then take back to Romania
That's what I'm planning to be effective now
Do you have any other friends in other parts of Romania that are into soul-willing? I have
Two friends in total one of them is actually located in
Polka, which is where I was when I was there. Yes, I mean and I also have another friend that I know so many
sometimes with
But since he will be the third member we don't go as much just because we don't like going
With a free
Group of three. So yeah, I just trade off
So that makes sense
Okay, cool, so you think a mission strip to Romania would be pretty successful
Yes, sir, but we have to speak Romanian because the most people there don't speak English do that. You're right
Yeah, they know some you've been sharing they can understand some of it but not at the level as they could understand the gospel
So to be effective you have to speak Romanian, but if somebody if somebody speaks
Spanish French Italian or Portuguese then Romanian is not going to be that hard to learn
I used to be able to speak Romanian and and and I still give the gospel in Romanian and do everything
But I need to brush it up because I'd like to do a mission strip to Romania someday if I can brush up my Romanian
So anyway, the fields are wide under harvest in Romania. I've talked to other people that Alex doesn't know
that
that have also done soul-willing there and they they told me that they had great results and that
It was pretty receptive in the places that they went and like I said for the bride
Maybe seemed like he was having success when I was there
Almost 20 years ago. So we've got some materials in Romanian on our website. We you know, all our major films have been
Subtitled at least into Romanian after tribulation new world revival versions marching design. We there's a version of
Marching design that was supposed to be fully dubbed into Romanian
I kind of dropped the ball on that so I need to I need to finish that
There's just so many things that I got overwhelmed with
But also you said you were working on subtitles for Babylon USA, sir
And then also yeah
And then also revelation series the first seven chapters of the remaining at the revelation series have Romanian subtitles
Galatians 1 2 & 3 sermons so that the orthodoxy in line of the Bible you said you did subtitles on that, right?
so we've got a lot of materials in Romanian a lot of stuff with subtitles and
It's a receptive place and so, you know, hopefully we can turn around that
0.6 percent statistic huh turn that place upside down with the gospel is great talking to you