Fieldwork News
WCF Brethren Visit Romania and Turkey, March, 2005

NOTE: For purposes of security, only initials are used to identify individuals referred to in this report. Their freedom and their very lives could be in serious jeopardy in their homeland because of their baptism into Jesus Christ.

At the invitation of Bro. Graham Jackman, “Linkman” for Romania, CBM, UK, it was decided that two brethren from WCF should visit Romania to view the “flats” that WCF had recently purchased on behalf of CBM, UK, for the use of the Brothers and Sisters in Brasov and Craiova, Romania. It was also decided that, if possible, the brethren would make a side trip to Istanbul, Turkey which is about 400 miles (643KM) from Bucharest, Romania. This part of the trip would be coordinated with Bro. H, an Iranian now living in the US who has many contacts in Turkey and Iran due to his very successful internet preaching efforts in that part of the world.

We thank our Heavenly Father for all His tender mercies, His care for us in our travels, His provision of wonderful Brothers and Sisters who were so warm and gracious in receiving us where ever we went, who were truly exhortations to us of the true spirit of being in Christ Jesus. May our Heavenly Father continue to bless and care for these our Brothers and Sisters in Christ whose daily lives are so different from are own but yet in many ways the same as we all strive to follow the Master.

Visit to Brasov, Romania (March 2005)
On Tuesday, March 8, after arriving from North America via Heathrow, UK(Tom) and Milan, Italy(Kyle) we met in Brasov where we stayed for the next few days in the flat purchased by WCF. Accompanying us on this portion of the trip was Bro. Tony Jarvis, editor of the Bible Missionary magazine and Bro. Geoff Purkis, both members of the CBM, UK, Romanian team.

The flat is ideal for missionary and ecclesial use. Nestled in the idyllic medieval town of Brasov in the Carpathian mountains, the flat has a nice size entry foyer, a very large bedroom for visiting missionaries to stay in, a large full bathroom (in the process of getting a shower), a half bathroom and a good size ecclesial hall.

It was cold and snowy that Tuesday evening when we had dinner with Geoff and Tony at the house of Sister Vuta Aurica and her husband, Mihai. Geoff and Tony were staying with the Auricas during their visit to Brasov. The Auricas spoke little English, but conversation was facilitated by Bro. Tony who is learning Romanian and visits the brothers and sisters in Romania on a regular basis.

On the way back to Bucharest from Brasov, we again shared a compartment on the train with Bro. Tony Jarvis and Bro. Geoff Purkis. Geoff and Tony were catching a train to Caracal, Romania while the WCF directors would be boarding the train bound for Istanbul, Turkey.

It was interesting that on our 3 hour trip from Brasov to Bucharest the train had a dining car. However, much to our chagrin, we discovered our train to Istanbul did not have a dining car. Unfortunately, this was after the train pulled out of the station. This 20 hour journey to Istanbul would be without a dining car or any food whatsoever. The “rule of thumb” in third world countries would seem to be “always expect the unexpected.” We were thankful for a couple of granola bars, packed for just such an emergency, to fend off the pangs of hunger. This was the “night train” to Istanbul so we had reserved a “sleeper car” hoping to at least get a few hours of sleep.

We did get some sleep but it was constantly interrupted by boarder guards who boarded the train at various stops to inspect and stamp our passports. This happened just before leaving Romania and again in Bulgaria as we entered and several hours later as we left the country and when we crossed the boarder into Turkey we again had to produce our passports for inspection.

The next morning we arrived in Istanbul during a flurry of snow which was quite a shock as we had assumed that Turkey’s climate was a little more tropical than this. Upon our arrival, we found that our translator, Bro. H from a city in central Turkey was going to be late as his wife, Sis. C was ill with a cold. As it seemed hopeless to try and call the Iranian contacts without a translator, we decided to wait until Bro. H arrived the next day.

Brother A, an Iranian brother now living in the USA had amazingly set up everything in the few weeks since we had contacted him to tell him we might be able to make a side trip to Istanbul. Bro. A was actually apologetic that he could “only” get four people to travel from Iran to Turkey in the short notice we gave him and all of this during the celebration of the Iranian New Year.

Bro. H and his wife, Sis. C, live in the ancient province of Galatia which is where the seven churches of Revelation once flourished. They are refugees from Iran because of the threat of religious persecution for their faith. They are scheduled, Lord willing, to immigrate to Canada as soon as the details can be worked out.

Bro. H speaks English, Kurdish, Farsi and Turkish and he was the key person in Bro. A’s plan to arrange for the interviews and baptisms of the four who had journeyed from Iran. Sis.C speaks Kurdish, Farsi and Turkish and is working on her English.

When Bro. H and Sis. C arrived the following morning, they had been on a bus all night and despite being sleep deprived and Sis. C still suffering from her lingering cold, we set out to make contact with one of those seeking an interview for baptism who we’ll call Mr. S.

Mr. S is a young man in his 20s from Iran. He is married and was a Shiite Muslim until he came across information about the Christadelphians on the Internet. He traveled 45 hours on the bus one way to, God willing, meet up with these two total strangers from North America in the bustling city of Istanbul with it’s teeming millions. When he arrived in Istanbul, he stayed in his “seedy” hotel room, for two solid days not daring to leave waiting for our phone call because he was afraid that if he went out he would miss us.

Arriving by taxi at Mr. S’s hotel we were able to conduct an interview in his hotel room with Bro. H acting as translator. Mr. S gave a good confession of his faith and certainly demonstrated his faith just by the effort he had exerted to find us.

We then made arrangements for Mr. S to come to our hotel that evening at 7:00 PM so that we could baptize him into the saving name of Jesus. We left him at his hotel and made our way to a hotel in another part of the city where the others from Iran were waiting for us. We should point out that even though Mr. S and the other family of five Iranians were from the same city in Iran we kept their identities a secret from each other so that in the event that they were arrested and perhaps tortured by the Islamic authorities in Iran they would be unable to give any information that would incriminate their fellow countrymen. This sort of treatment is a distinct possibility if Iranian Muslims are discovered converting to Christianity.

The other Iranian contacts, Mr. and Mrs. V, and their two small children and Mrs. V’s brother in the flesh Mr. F, welcomed us and were eager to begin the interviews.

We did the interviews in the hotel lobby one at a time. This was a much slower process than doing them all together, but we wanted each to have the opportunity to speak on their own. Each gave a good confession of their faith and we agreed to meet tomorrow and baptize them at a place yet to be determined. The hour was getting late, so we rushed back to the hotel to meet Mr. S.

The baptismal options (bathtubs and pools) in Istanbul are fairly limited. The hotels have tiny baths and most indoor swimming pools are closed during the winter months. It was snowing when we arrived so we nixed the idea of baptism in the frigid waters of the nearby Bosphorus. We decided to use our little bathtub in the hotel.

Bro. H read Romans 6 from the Farsi version of the Bible and we immersed Mr. S into the saving name of Jesus Christ. It never left our minds that what we were doing was a capital offence in Islamic Iran and our new Iranian brethren could lose their lives for participating in this simple act of faith. The WCF directors had the option of returning to North America where people can really care less about your religious beliefs, but not so for our new brethren in Christ, we pray that our heavenly Father will keep them safe and preserve them for a place in His Kingdom.

We commend Bro. H our translator and his wife Sis. C for their dedication and endurance, they have been awake now for about 36 hours and are starting to feel a little weary. Having procured a room for them in our hotel that afternoon, we convinced them that they should call it a day and get a good night’s sleep.

The next morning was a flurry of activity. We had to find a suitable place for the other baptisms having determined that after our experience the night before with Bro. S the hotel bathtubs were not large enough. After much searching we finally found a “Turkish Bath” in a local hotel that would rent us their pool for long enough to baptize Mr. V and his brother-in-law Mr. F. Mrs. V needed to tend to the children and put them down for a nap back at the hotel so it was decided that her husband and brother would baptized her on their return to Iran. The Turkish bath was an excellent choice and the owner seemed glad to have some business on a slow Sunday afternoon.

After the baptisms, we rushed back to see Bro. S off on his 45 hour bus ride back home and to wish him Godspeed. We tried to talk him into flying back to his home at WCF’s expense, but he declined our offer as well as our offer to pay for his hotel room. Experiencing his tremendous demonstration of faith was a great exhortation to us, who sometimes take our very blessed and privileged life in North America for granted and find it too easy sometimes, to absent ourselves from a meeting of the ecclesia for little or no reason.

Our two new brethren V and F and their family will spend a few more days in Istanbul sightseeing and then travel back to their home in Iran. We pray for our heavenly Father’s blessing on them as they begin their new life in Christ in a very hostile environment.

The prospects for the spread of the “Truth” in this area of the Middle East are very good but efforts to preach the Truth need to be attempted with sensitivity to the dangers associated with Muslims converting to a belief in Christ. Much work via internet preaching has already been done with very encouraging results. This could, with a little effort, be expanded with perhaps a website where brethren and sisters in this part of the world can meet over the internet, with complete anonymity and without fear of being “discovered” by the Islamic authorities, and participate in a virtual “Breaking of Bread”, or the establishment of a local website, that preaches the good news of the Kingdom in Farsi, Kurdish and Turkish, with brethren available for immediate and personal follow-up.

It was exciting to think about the fact that for the first time in 2000 years it might be possible, once again, with the Father’s help, to repopulate the area of the seven ecclesias in Revelation, with true brethren in Christ. That is hard not to get excited about.

Back to Bucharest
It was very sad for us to say goodbye to our new brethren and Bro. H and Sis. C but we rejoiced that we were able to experience firsthand their wonderful example of a faith so strong that they are willing to risk their very lives to follow Jesus.

We boarded the train (this time food in hand) for the 20 hour trip back to Bucharest. Much of the return journey was during daylight hours and we were able to see some of the Bulgarian countryside. A few impressions of this former Communist country slowly emerging into the 21st century, as seen from the window of the train as it carried us back to Bucharest, derelict, rusted factory buildings dotted the landscape, Russian Lada cars everywhere, vast parcels of unfenced farm land as far as the eye could see, but too early in the spring to see any signs of new growth, here and there flocks of sheep with a lonely shepherd to tend them and as the train passed through many towns and villages on it’s way north, not a church to be seen anywhere. In spite of what might appear at first sight an unlikely place for the Truth to take hold there is a small ecclesia of believers in Sofia the capital city of Bulgaria.

We had left Istanbul at around 11:00 PM on Sunday evening and arrived in Bucharest at 7:00 PM on Monday a little late for a prearranged dinner with the tiny Bucharest ecclesia and Brethren Tony and Geoff who we were to meet us at the local Pizza Hut after a public lecture at a downtown hotel. We arrived at the Pizza Hut a half an hour late but found that they were not there. Making our way by foot to the hotel were the lecture was to be held, we found them just emerging from the hotel, the lecture having run a little later than expected. We all trouped back to Pizza Hut and enjoyed a meal together three members of the Bucharest ecclesia three interested friends and four of us from the decadent West.

That night, the four of us stayed at the Hotel Astoria. This is not to be confused with the Waldorf Astoria. This is an old communist train workers hotel. It was clean and cheap which was fine for our needs.

The next morning we held a breaking of bread service in our room at the hotel with one of the western visitors delivering the exhortation and Sister Elena of the Bucharest ecclesia translating. After a whirlwind walking tour of downtown Bucharest, brethren Tony, Geoff and Tom headed off to the airport and the beginning of their journey home. Bro. Kyle would stay on for a few days in Bucharest and then fly to England to visit with friends.

It was for the two directors a very stimulating but humbling experience to be able to see the ecclesial halls that had been purchased with WCF funds but more importantly to be in the company of brothers and sisters in Romania and Turkey who demonstrated such a love for their Lord that they were willing to go to great lengths to live a life of faith. We commend them to the love and care of our Heavenly Father and pray that He will bless them with the strength to hold fast till His Son comes to begin the work of establishing His Kingdom were righteousness will prevail time without end.

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WCF Brethren Visit Romania and Turkey, March, 2005
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