SBCV Missions: Making a Difference in Romania

by Glen D. McLaughlin                                                                              Vol. X, No. 6, June/July 1997

In the southern Romanian town of Bals there is now an effective gospel witness where there was none two years ago. It is the story of a team effort by two Virginia churches, a Romanian pastor, a Virginia pastor, the Romanian Baptist Home Mission Board, and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. Here is the story.

It began in the spring of 1995 when Mike Palmer, pastor of Greenridge Baptist Church, Roanoke, Virginia, engaged in hands-on missions in Romania with a team from First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia. The experience gave him a burning heart for Romania, which resulted in the Romanian Baptist Home Mission Board assigning Bals, a small city of 10,000-12,000, to him and his church as a place needing a church plant. Southern Romania had seemingly been by-passed by the outbreak of revival in Eastern Europe in 1989-1991, and Romanian Baptists wanted to get soul-winning churches planted there. Bals had no evangelical church.

Pastor Palmer's church accepted the challenge, and soon enlisted West Salem Baptist Church, Salem, Virginia, to join them in the effort. These two churches agreed to provide monthly support for a pastor for two and a half years, as well as to secure the funds to purchase property in Bals. The cost of property prompted them to approach the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia with an invitation to join them in this venture. In 1996 SBCV added $6,000 to their joint commitment of about $10,000 to make the project a reality.

Romanian pastor Nick Maior and Romanian Home Mission Board Director Sammi Saviuc have worked together to purchase a house and a small adjacent tract on the main street of Bals. Worship began in December 1996, although renovations to the house are still being made. The purchase of property has given credibility to the Baptist witness in Bals and has greatly encouraged Pastor Maior and his people.

In April 1997 Pastor Maior baptized fifteen people in Bals! He has also started a mission preaching point in a town 7 kilometers north of Bals, and recently had seven or eight awaiting baptism there. (They have probably been baptized by now.)

Two towns that did not have the gospel now have the Good News as a direct result of the missions outreach of Green Ridge and West Salem Baptist Churches and of Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia.

The two Virginia churches continue their monthly support with a plan to phase it out so the Romanian church can become self-supporting. A team of ten people from these two churches is going to Bals in August (18-27) to minister and witness with medical work, evangelism, and children's work, and to equip key church leaders in discipleship and evangelism.

(This mission effort is not to be confused with the current Romania Chapel Project, a venture being joined by people of SBCV churches and some from Tennessee in a team led by Pastor Ken Gooch of Warwick Baptist Church, Newport News. That is another story!)

[Glen D. McLaughlin is vice chairman of the SBCV Missions Committee and pastor of Crossroads BC, Leesburg.]