by Gerald Whitely | Oct 7, 2015 | Friday Update
In the summer of 1993 my son and daughter went to Romania with me and stayed for a month with Pastor Florin in Haţeg while I traveled to other places in the country. Philip and Becky had Bible schools for the kids in several villages. The kids’ favorite activity was learning American songs. Pastor Florin’s son, Cipri and his daughter, Corina, were the interpreters. Corina, loved to wear Phillip’s sunglasses and borrowed them every opportunity that she had. All was well until the day they were all in Simeria, where a new church was being built. During construction, an outhouse was the only facility available. Corina went in to use the outhouse, but came out upset. She had dropped Phillip’s sunglasses into the toilet. Phillip told her to go and get his sunglasses, but Corina was cool. She told him exactly where they were, and he could go get them if he wanted to. It only took Phillip a moment to decide that he did not want to retrieve his...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 7, 2015 | Friday Update
The first time that I went to Romania was in August of 1990, just after the revolution. There were four of us. Ron Kuhns was the only one who had been there before. He told me of their hunger for gospel literature. I found a Mennonite publishing house in Ephrata, Pennsylvania that had hardback Romanian New Testaments for $5 each. I bought 200 of them along with several hundred gospel tracts, which were packed into two duffle bags. We flew into Frankfort, Germany and rented a small Opel Vectra car. The car was packed so full that two bags had to be strapped onto the trunk lid of the car – those two duffle bags with Scriptures in them! We crossed borders into Austria, Hungary, and finally into Romania. The countryside was beautiful, but the cities were crowded and drab. As we traveled across Romania to Braila, our destination, we would stop in a town and distribute some of the literature. We looked for a quiet park and would begin to give away tracts. Within minutes, we would attract such a crowd that we would have to move to another location. I have one wonderful scene burned into my memory: Our pastor, Clif Roth, was a big man. There he was with a handful of tracts and little kids crowding around him so much that he had to hold the tracts above his head with one hand while handing them down one at a time with the other hand. The children were so intent on getting their own piece of paper that they were a mobbing Pastor Roth! He...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 5, 2015 | Friday Update
In 1993 we took a team of twenty Americans to distribute John and Romans Scripture portions that we had printed the year before. We flew in to Munich, Germany and rented three vans driving through Austria and Hungary and into Romania. We stayed with Brother Florin Doboş in Haţeg in central Transylvania for a couple of days before going on to Braila on the eastern side of Romania. Charlie Frazier and his wife from Ft. Payne, Alabama were in the group. They had a kids meeting while we had evangelistic meetings for the adults. We had three days in Braila before moving on. The first night Charlie had about twenty children. Brother Charlie told them that if they brought a friend, their friend would get a piece of candy and they would get a piece of candy. So the next night he had thirty-eight children. The same promise was given. The third night, Brother Charlie came to me in a panic. He said, “We have a problem.” I asked, “What’s wrong, Charlie?” He said, “We have two hundred children tonight!” I answered, “That isn’t a problem; that’s what we have been hoping and praying for!” Brother Charlie relaxed, we rounded up more workers, and they had a wonderful time that...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 5, 2015 | Friday Update
In 1992 we stayed with Viorel Candreanu in the village of Impotesţi near the city of Suceava. Pastor Viorel had a large church in Suceava and preached at several smaller churches in the surrounding towns. We stayed at his house and distributed Scriptures during the daytime. As we drove our rented vans back and forth each day, we passed a soccer field that looked absolutely immaculate. The grass was short and well-manicured – the field looked beautiful. The village was Mariexus, but the local kids called it Marie-Texas. Obviously, they were proud of their little town. Our interpreter who was with us each day told us that the field wasn’t all that great. He knew the whole story: the grass was well cropped because of the sheep that grazed there. But with grazing sheep comes sheep manure. And the bare-footed kids of Mariexus had a reputation among their opponents. You could smell them a kilometer...
by Gerald Whitely | Oct 4, 2015 | Friday Update
It was a hot, hot day in Romania in 1991. We had a group of twenty Americans distributing New Testaments that we had bought from Couriers for Christ in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and shipped over to Romania. We divided up our group sending the three vans in separate directions in order to cover more territory in the town of Petrosani. We paired up taking as many New Testaments as we could carry. My wife, Kathy and her dear friend Wilma went off together. After some time, I went to find them. I found Kathy nearby on the sidewalk trying to get the lid off of a dark brown bottle. I took one look and exclaimed, “What are you doing!” She answered, “We gave this man a New Testament and he gave us a bottle of mineral water. I’m just trying to get the lid off of it.” I responded, “That’s not mineral water, that’s beer!” Haţegana bottled mineral water and beer and used the same looking bottles. You had to read the paper label carefully in order to tell the difference. Kathy said, “What should I do?” I said, “Just put it down on the sidewalk.” We both had a good laugh on the way back to the...
