Soon after his arrival, Eduard met Cristian Moraru, who was serving time for murder. Brother Moraru converted to Seventh-day Adventism from Judaism while in prison by the workings of the Holy Spirit and the dedicated workers of Laymen Ministries sponsored Humanitarian Prison Services. Interestingly, Brother Moraru came from a traditional Romanian family of Orthodox priests.
The two men became friends because of the things they held in common. One was a priest, the other came from a family of priests. One went to school in Jerusalem, the other was Jewish. Now both were in prison.
Eduard Crivinca tells the story:
“When I arrived at the Margineni prison, I was depressed and felt that my life had ended. I was told to assist the local priest of the city who also works in the prison chapel. One day I met Cristian Moraru, and soon we entered into several discussions on biblical topics. Since I was a priest before coming to the prison, Cristian asked if I believed everything I read in the Bible. I answered that I had only read small portions of it, and that I had not studied much of the Scriptures while a student nor during the time I was a priest. He invited me to study with him. Cristian convinced me to spend all of my free time studying the Bible!
“I studied about the Ten Commandments and was shocked when I understood that all my life I had broken the Divine Law. I realized the depth and perpetuity of the Ten Commandments and the fact that they were true, valid and confirmed by God Himself while living on the Earth. I became aware of the fact that the Sabbath is a special day that should be observed now and will be in Heaven, too! I also realized how sinful I was to worship idols and images. I made a serious decision, and since then I have participated in all the meetings of Humanitarian Prison Services.
Brother Titel Balbaie, a worker from HPS, and now a very close friend, helped me to get The Desire of Ages and The Great Controversy, and other books that taught me about health and about God. All these have spiritually sustained and strengthened my faith greatly. I also gave these books to my father and to my wife (Orthodox priests do not practice celibacy). My father, who has served the Orthodox Church all his life, read The Desire of Ages three times! As a confirmation of my father’s deep belief in Present Truth, he agreed for my child not to receive the traditional Orthodox communion!
“Now I am still in prison, but I do all I can for God’s work here. We have a radio station inside the prison, and instead of broadcasting secular music we broadcast Christian music, passages from the Bible, quotations from the Spirit of Prophecy, personal experiences, health topics, to all 2,500 prisoners (and staff!) in the Margineni Prison. We also have two libraries where inmates or staff can find Bibles, Spirit of Prophecy and health books. My greatest prayer is for all my beloved brothers here in prison, and myself, to follow God forever, and meet together in heaven with our Lord.”
After long discussion with brother Cristian, Eduard Crivinca decided to quit his assigned job as priest at the prison chapel, thereby losing the opportunity to reduce his sentence through doing prescribed religious work. But through God’s providence, in a short time he will be released and will be baptized to join the SDA Church!
The Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy books are the best friends of the inmates in the Margineni Prison. We have a group of believers there, but they are not yet baptized. They often ask us: “Brother, when are we going to be baptized?” For some, this is the most anticipated event—even more than release from prison. Not all of the inmates are well educated in the traditional sense, but most are now highly educated in spiritual things! They have not based their knowledge on secular learning, but on love and understanding the truth as found in the Bible
We would like to thank the donors of Laymen Ministries who help us here in Romania to work with these dear inmates in the prisons. God bless you all!
—Olimpiu Celea, Humanitarian Prison Services.
Currently, Laymen Ministries is sponsoring nine workers in Romania’s prisons. Also in our monthly budget are requests for funds for literature, Bibles, and simple amenities for the inmates. If you would like to help with the Romanian prison ministry, please designate your donations for “Romania.”
Romanian Video Production
One of the main reasons we built a video production studio at Laymen Ministries was to produce programs for national TV broadcast and videos for laymen in third world countries. Pastor Nicu Butoi will soon be visiting our studio to produce a few more videos on his life experiences and to share with us the news of an exciting evangelistic meeting he held a few months ago in Romania. (If you have not seen any of Pastor Butoi’s video presentations, call our office for a list of programs. You won’t be sorry!)
While Pastor Butoi is here, we will be laying plans to produce an entire evangelistic series in the Romanian language, designed to be used for TV broadcast and video distribution in Romania, and for Romanian speaking people in America and other countries. Presented in the Romanian language by a well known Romanian, Pastor Butoi’s message will be easy to understand and culturally identifiable to Romanian people. There will be no translation from English to Romanian to slow the message down.
We have just sent the paperwork to obtain a visa for an Adventist video producer from Romania to help with this project. The graphics, title pages and Scriptural references will all be in Romanian.
THE PLAN
After the series is taped, we will have the Romanian producer help us edit the footage together. Then we will use the videos in three ways:
1) Broadcast on Romanian TV—in some cities and villages, we can get local program time for very little money. Unlike expensive satellite TV, thousands of people who have cable or even a simple antenna can watch these presentations.
2) Laymen can use the videos in homes. In one case, several people were won to Christ and baptism by a layman who set up a TV and played videos of some evangelistic meetings in Romania by Pastor Butoi. The people who came were so touched by the messages that they came night after night, even though the picture quality was fuzzy and very poor. What if they had professionally produced, high quality video tapes for distribution? Think of the impact it could have!
In many poor countries it is amazing how people can hardly afford food or transportation, but for some reason they can afford a color TV and a VCR! This is why Laymen Ministries wants to continue producing cultural videos (and DVDs) for outreach.
Bible workers can also use these tapes to draw more people to attend Bible studies. (These will in no way take the place of personal “one on one” Bible studies, but are used to get the message to those who might not initially respond to other methods.)
3) Colporteurs can sell the videos door to door. When an interest is shown, but the person cannot afford to purchase a tape, the videos may be loaned. The borrower will sign a paper agreeing to return the video in one week. At the end of the week the colporteur will return to pick up the tape, answer questions, and see if they would like to borrow the next tape in the series! This will most likely lead to a visit by a Bible worker or church member for Bible studies. I guarantee that if the video is well liked, people will pirate the video (make copies) for friends and family. That’s OK, we will not copyright these tapes!
We also have open doors to show these video presentations in prisons. We have had wonderful experiences in the past in distributing thousands of books, Bible lessons and Bibles, not only in the prisons, but across Romania. (Call our office if you would like to hear more about these exciting events. Request Video #9, The Word That Changes Lives).
The options open through using high tech media are great. We have already been producing video presentations in Southern India. It is time to begin production for other countries as well!
As in India, we will make these videos into VCD and DVD disks that can be played on computers, small hand-held players, or larger home players. These disks are small, easy to carry and even the player is portable, which means laymen can show video presentations in a home by simply carrying the disk and player in a coat pocket! We have been using these in India since December of 1999 with good success.
We Need Your Help
Many of you have been gracious to the mission programs of Laymen Ministries around the world. We are now in need of funding to produce these video and DVD programs for various countries. India and Romania are our first two big advances using this technology. Project cost includes: production and editing; an additional editing system (so we do not tie up our existing system for our regular programming); and duplication and mastering costs. We are also praying that we will be able to have a system for mastering the DVD disks. These expenses could be rather high, considering the number of tapes we want to put into circulation.
The time to move forward is now. If God has brought us this far, we are sure that He will provide to finish the work He has begun. Please pray with us about this matter! If you would like to help with the video project, please mark your donations for “Media Ministry.”
Thanks so much for your prayers and support. Each of you is making a difference in the lives of the many souls for whom Jesus Christ died.
Left to right: Cristian Moraru, who became a Seventh-day Adventist in prison in Romania; Titel Balbaie of Humanitarian Prison Services; and Eduard Crivinca, who was an Orothodox priest before his imprisonment.
Brother Titel Balbaie (center) with some of the group of prisoners he studies with at Margineni Prison in Romania.
Today, inmates have access to Spirit of Prophecy books, Bibles, and other helpful materials in Romania's prisons.
Humanitarian Prison Services and Laymen Ministries are committed to meeting spiritual needs, and providing other basic necessities, to prisoners in Romania. Here, Jeff Reich (center) meets with Romania's Director of Prisons, Magistrate Mihai Eftimescu (next left) and some of the staff and leadership of HPS.
Above: Nicu Butoi is one of Romania's most powerful and best known evangelists. Tapes of his messages are being shared from home to home all across the country.
Below: Even poor quality copies of his presentations are popular. Laymen Ministries will soon produce high quality video recordings of his message for distribution and broadcast.
