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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