Vision, Values and Creed of the Richard Wurmbrand’s Academy

The following is the Vision, Values and Creed of the Richard Wurmbrand’s Academy In Romania

Vision

It is our vision that the Richard Wurmbrand Christian Academy will stand as a beacon, a light, a candle in a dark nation showing people Christ in all of life’s aspects, and that our students will be the carriers of Christian love, faith, honesty, courage and integrity to Romania and the world.

In 1989, after living through 50 years under a brutal Communist regime, Romania finally proclaimed its freedom as a result of a very bloody revolution in which many young people were killed. Romanians paid for their freedom with their blood and the lives of many martyrs.

Thousands upon thousands suffered the tortures of the dark social order. But even though the revolution brought about many important changes to Romanian society - it did little to change people’s mentalities. Liliana and the leaders of the RWCA quickly realized that freedom without God can be even worse than oppression or persecution.

They knew that freedom in Christ is the ultimate answer to Romania’s problems, but the challenge remained; how to speak about God to a society of people who were told for 50 years that there is no God, no heaven, and no eternal life? Liliana soon realized that in order to bring Christian values to her society, she should have to start with children and young people who have not been as affected by the communist evil.

Values and Principles

Respect
Each employee and each student at RWCA must manifest respect towards himself/ herself, their fellow human beings, the authority, the law, the property and the environment.

Responsibility
Each employee and each student of R.W.C.A. must assume responsibility for his/ her attitudes, acts and words, achievements and failures.

Love
Each employee and each student of R.W.C.A.. must love God with all his/her being and his/her neighbor as himself/herself.

Work
Each employee and each student of R.W.C.A. must carry on a quality work, individually and in a team, pursuing excellence in everything he/ she does.

Honesty
Each employee and each student of R.W.C.A. must be an upright person and manifest integrity and honesty in all his/ her relationships.

Creed
We value the human being as the supreme creation of God.
We value the freedom God gave to man and we believe that man is responsible for all his actions and decisions.
We value God’s love for people, shown in the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
We value honest work and claim excellence in everything that is done.
We value the honesty and integrity of each person, manifested in attitudes, words and deeds.

I will be a Father to you

In the human order it was not the little infant who first said, "Father", "Daddy" or "Mommy" before their child. The same is true in the religious order. The filial relationship between God and man was bestowed first by God, Himself, who said, "I will be a Father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters." (2, Cor.6:18).

Before any baptism humanity lived in sin which brought disharmony into the world. From that moment of baptism when we received a divine rebirth through the Holy Spirit we recreated in Christ everything in our life.

In the present time, there exist a high tension between the young generation and their parents and also between the children of God and Eternal Creator. In both cases the tension is generated by an affirmation of an independence of a young generation concerned with themselves.

They don’t lose their faith and it isn’t a frontier separating them and their parents, but rather is an agitated period of transition that exists in which something dormant in their life is disturbed.

Often it is the lack of spiritual training and the many temptations for the attractive pleasures in their lives in the worldly order. And so, in their formative years they easily glide out of a "sacral culture" and are encouraged by another cultural orientation to fight for a strange affirmation based on freedom.

Educated only by humanistic science and technology another climate is created where the dominant theme is Man and his freedom. But this new creed of life doesn’t resolve all the problems in our lives.

Indeed, many other unsolved problems exist which if not taken seriously will destroy all of the wonderful achievements of our life, and even we, ourselves, will collapse with all of our creations.

For these reasons, it is absolutely necessary to keep in highest regard all these ethic and religious problems that place in balance the whole of our life.

Nobody loves you more than your parents and your Eternal Creator. Only they who gave life, gave at the same time a deep secret to keep our life safe and progressive. It is a great error for us to think that our life will be preserved in an humanistic neutral orientation.

We all belong to our parents and to the ever greater family of God. Our parents and God want to defend us from the many errors in life that often are vain dreams of happiness which come and go with each downing life. And also, our parents with the Church have the same responsibility in the whole cosmos.

This is the focus of attention for our parents, to accord us an eternal guidance in our life. They don’t expect anything from their children except for them to enjoy a great success in their life. When the Creator of the Universe is our life on terra firma. Only then will be a new world with us.

Father V. Vasilachi

Joy at the Cross

Suffering is regularly related to trials, since suffering is what we usually allow trials to produce in us. But sometimes we suffer in ways which cannot be traced to our failure to face trials with faith and fortitude. What then? Suffering – especially if it is unjust or otherwise repugnant to reason – is often considered to be quite the opposite of joy. Yet is that how Scripture considers it? This time we will ask St. Paul to speak.

“I am overflowing with joy all the more because of all our afflictions,” sayeth sagacious Saul (2 Cor. 7:4). And again, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings…” (Col. 1:24). What is he, nuts? Well, maybe. He did call himself a fool for Christ, after all (1 Cor. 4:10).

It's the “for Christ” part, though, that should keep us from being too hasty in our judgment about the Apostle's sanity. James and Peter gave us spiritual growth unto perfection and hope for everlasting reward as reasons for enduring trials joyfully. Now Paul expands our horizon by adding the elements of mission and mystical union with Christ to our reasons for rejoicing.

The full text of the passage quoted above from Colossians reads: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the Church.” So we can rejoice in our sufferings because of our mission to others, for the sake of their salvation. It is not only our perfection and eternal life we are concerned with, it is also that of our brothers and sisters. In this we become more like Christ, who came to give His life as a ransom for the many (Mk. 10:45).

The more we put on the mind of Christ and begin to love as He loved (which is not an option, but a commandment; see Jn. 13:34 and 15:12), the more we will joyfully accept whatever sufferings God permits to befall us. This task is beyond human strength (as you will readily agree), but despair not, for here is the answer: "“he joy of the Lord is your strength" (Neh. 8:10).

This passage should make us realize, though, that the joy of the Lord cannot be identified with mere happy feelings. It has been said that joy is not found in the absence of suffering, but in the presence of God. Similarly, it has been said that Christ did not come to take away our suffering, but to fill it with His presence. But how can we be sure, since it is only His presence that makes suffering bearable (and even fruitful and meaningful), that we are in Him and He in us “This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us, that He has given us His Spirit” (1 Jn. 4:13).

The Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude enables us to bear our crosses courageously (and dare I say even joyfully?) and to make our sufferings contribute to holiness, rather than create obstacles to it.

Now what is holiness if not union with our Lord Jesus Christ (with all the implications thereof)? He was willing to suffer anything, if only he could be united to his beloved Lord. No price was too high, no affliction too discouraging a prospect. So what was his goal? “To know Him and the power of His resurrection, and to share His sufferings by being conformed to His death…”

St. Paul thus teaches us that suffering is not something to avoid, but something to embrace – not as something good in itself, but insofar as it draws us into the mystery of the Crucified One and helps prepare us for an eternity with the Risen One.

Those who believe in Christ are to live “no longer for themselves but for Him who for their sakes died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:15), and hence must follow in the footsteps of the Master and adopt His perspective, that which sees the ultimate good (see 2 Cor. 4:8 – 18 and 1 Pet. 2:21 and 4:12-16). Those who are most intimately in union with Jesus are those who share willingly in what was closest to Him – i. e. the Cross, for it was the means whereby He could express most fully His infinite love for us.

Fr. Joseph

Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord

Prayer

Give praise with one accord, O peoples and nations: for the King of the angels rides now upon a foal, and He comes to smite His enemies with the Cross in His almighty power.

Therefore the children sing to Him with palms in their hands: “Glory be to Thee who hast come as Conqueror; glory be to Thee, O Christ the Saviour; glory be to Thee, our God, for Thou alone art blessed”…

O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is Thy Name in all the earth! (Ps. 8:1)…

Blessed is He who cometh in the Name of the Lord: The Lord is God and hath appeared to us.

Matins, Palm Sunday (Triodion)

In God's Beauty Parlor

This is a transcription of an audio biography done by my mother Sabina Wurmbrand, as transcribed by Andrea le Roi Hendrix.

It is wonderful to pass in the beauty parlor of Jesus, the Son of God, who has given His life for you and wishes to be Lord and master in your heart. He forgives your sins, He takes over your problems.

He brings His grace and His peace and His richness in your life. And you become beautiful like the angels in heaven. It is quite a beauty parlor, set apart but the best, which can exist.

And you will read further Acts 7. We see there another picture; the picture of those who were the enemies of Christ and the enemies of Stephen. And you saw how they are described. Ready to throw stones and to put to death Stephen.

Righteousness, love from heaven makes you beautiful. Anger, and fight against God and against his people makes you ugly. Remember these two. And I invite you everyone, come into the beauty parlor of Jesus. You need it. Your heart will be washed clean and will be filled with the joy of heaven.

And now I would like to tell you how God loves you. How He knows everyone of you. First we learned in prison how rich we are. Having such a Savior and having the Word of God. And now I would like to tell you, how beloved you are; every one of you. How God knew us. It is written that Jesus calls those who are His by their name. He calls us by name that means He knows everyone.

I would like to tell you that in Communist prisons when it was very, very hard. And it was very hard. There are no human words that could ever describe what it means for Christian women in the hands of the Communists. And when it was very, very hard. We thought, “Are we forgotten, nobody cares, no help from anywhere", and then the Lord Himself reminded us that He cares and knows us.

As I told you, our children, we did not know anything about them. Some were on the streets, hungry, eating from the garbage if they found something in the garbage. Mothers did you every think that the children of your sisters in the hands of the Communists, without father, without mother, hungry.

So working at the canal, hungry and sick, we got so weak that we could not work anymore. So the Communists thought to lure us, and they said,” If you work, and make such amount of work, (it was very, very hard), you will be able to see your children”. They will come on such and such a day.

Could any human words express what it meant for us, after, let me say 2 or 3 weeks, you will see your children. Nights and nights we did not sleep, preparing everyone, the words we will speak with our children. Because there was only 10 minutes fixed and the guards stood around, we could not speak whatever we have liked.

So during nights we did not sleep, and prepared the words we would tell our children. Then we had a very big problem, we were very dirty, and the stones had got our clothes and made them just like rags. We were ashamed to appear before our children. We tried to have a scarf from somewhere which went around to every women, somewhere a skirt in order to appear before our children.

Perhaps dear sisters, you know how we are the women, we always have the impression that we do not have enough clothes, and we absolutely need a new dress and we are ready to quarrel and to fight, “I need it, absolutely “.

Perhaps, when your heart is so unhappy about your new dress, which you need, remember your sisters, in rags, hungry, beaten, put to shame by the Communists. Pray for them and praying for them thank God for all you have. And learning to thank God your heart will be blessed and will be happy and you will be a blessing to those around you.

So the nights passed quickly, composing and recomposing and again composing the words we would speak to the children. And the great day came when 2 guards took me out from the prison cell let me say like this room. At the door, I being there stood my son, 2 guards around him. I looked at him.

He was so pale so frail, and while I looked at him, he looked at me, and all I had compose at nights and nights, in a second it was forgotten. And I did not know to say one word but neither would him speak. He told me he had prepared something to say. And the minutes passed and the guards were already taking him out, taking him out taking me back to the prison cell.

And while I saw him, leaving already, trying to give him my best, perhaps I would never see again, my child so I said, “Mihai, love Jesus with all your heart”. With these words he was taken out, I was brought back to my prison cell. The prisoners, the mothers, the women, came around me, gathered all around me, “How does your child look, what I did he tell you, how is it out in the free world?”

Many, many days I could not speak a word, but after a long time when I was freed, I had the great joy to find my son a young Christian ready to fight for the Kingdom of God. These few words, God has blessed them as a sign of His love.

As a sign that we were not forgotten. As a sign that our children were in His care. We have a Savior whose name is wonderful. All Praise be to Him. In Communist prisons, in tears and mocked by the Communists, we have seen the glory of God and there we have understood that our Lord and Master, Jesus, the Son of God, His name is wonderful. Wonderful are His deeds and my very, very beloved ones, wonderful are all those who are His.

And may God bless you and may God help you not to forget the beauty parlor. For whosoever takes Jesus in his heart, as Savor, as Lord, as master, as heavenly friend, He will be brought into the beauty parlor of Jesus and the glory of God will shine over him. Not only the Christians have seen it, even Communists saw the glory of God shining over those beaten and tortured by them. And therefore, in our country, in the Communist block we did not have Bibles.

We have changed a song of yours, you sing here, Jesus loves me, and this we have seen,” Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” Since we did not have the Bible, we changed the song, Jesus loves me so, for their faces tells me so.” Hungry, sick, beaten and mocked by the Communists, the faces of the Christians shone with the glory of God, And even Communists could learn this song, “Jesus loves me this I know for there faces tells me so.”

May God bless every one of you? May God fill your heart with His glory in order that your faces and your life should witness to all those around you that Jesus the Son of God loves you and loves all those who need Him as Savor and Lord.

God bless you all.

Proverbs

Mothers carry their children in the morning, children carry their mothers in the evening, but God carries us all through the night.
Flemish proverb

The little kids step on Mother’s skirt. The big ones step on Mother’s heart.
Flemish proverb

More things happen through prayer than this world ever dreams.
Tennyson

Out of compassion, God takes upon Himself the suffering of each person. In his love, He suffers mysteriously, to the end of time, with the same suffering that is in each of us.
Mammos the Confessor

Meditation (2)

Alms-Giving
Alms giving moves God. Even when you may not know the way to eternal life but because of your giving to the poor and needy; God can be moved to save you and your loved ones. He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done. (Proverbs 19:17)

A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. (Proverbs 11:25) Dorcas was brought back to life from the dead because she was a generous person

The Story of Dorcas
(Acts 9:36-42)

In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which, when translated, is Dorcas ), who was always doing good and helping the poor.

About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.

Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, "Please come at once!"

Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.

He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive.

This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in Christ.

The Beatitudes
(Matthew 25:3-12)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this are the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Meditation - What do we have to give in alms?

What do we have to give in alms?

Jesus Christ asks us to give the poor of our surplus. He asks us to give even our little.

In Marc 12, 41-44, results that He asks us to give all that we have, all our richness. (It is about the parabola of the widow which gives two pennies in the church).

But Christ asks us to give even what we do not have, which we do not have. He asks us the impossible one. A famous French writer this fact, as follows:

In a monastery where he wished to enter, introduces himself an applicant wishing to become monk.

Would you know, father, that I have neither the faith, neither the light, neither the courage, nor confidence in myself and by consequence I cannot help myself and of as much less the others. I do not have anything.

It would have been normal that he should be returned instantly by the higoumen

But, this one says to him:
It doesn’t matter! You do not have the faith, you do not have the light, but, by giving them to the others, you will also acquire them for yourself. Go and take possession of your room of retirement in this monastery.

Not of his surplus, not of his little, nor even of his indigence, but of what he misses. While making alms to the others what you do not have, - the faith, the light, the confidence of oneself, the courage,- you will also acquire them for you. You can make alms with what you think that you don’t have, but which perhaps exist at the bottoms of your heart, and you will take conscience thus.

Paradoxically, Christ says to us:
If you want to lead, then become servant; if you want to be glorified, then humiliates yourself; if you want to save your soul, then take the risk for Me; if you want to regain your innocence, then recognize yourself to be guilty, and know that if you will give what you don’t have, you will acquire also what you gave to the others.

By making alms what we do not have, we will acquire by rebound what we dared to give to the others.

This is valid for any Christian, for the clerks and for the laymen. Even the monk or the deacon or the priest who cross the desert of the doubt or of the spiritual dryness, which is in the doubt or tempted by despair, must give to those which come to require from him assistance, which they await that one gives them, and even what he knows well that he cannot give them. In their making the gift, this gift will return on him, he will receive the mercy in return of those alms.

By giving the light that you do not have, you will have it also yourself. The gift that you made returns you like a boomerang, like a ray of light reflected by a mirror. And this gift will fill you, will enrich you.

It is that what Christ wants that we give in alms: the surplus, the little, our indigence, all. The monk, the deacon, the priest, have to give to the others the faith, the light, even if they misses those for short time or for more long time. Even if they are in a state of loss of their zeal.

Will they be able to do that? Yes, because they belong to the group of the friends of the Christ, who said that they are not world, as Me I am not world (Jean 17, 20).

And Paul also had known as:
You must help the weak ones and to remind you the words of Christ
Are happier those who give than those who receive. (Acts 20,35).

Fine words

Let us think of the crucifixion of Jesus. He is nailed on the cross, his body is bloody, he awaits the anguish and the death. On his right and on his left there are two other crosses, with two thieves, both offenders of the common right. The sun is to the zenith, Jesus is thirsty, all is desolation, and pain. The scribes, the Pharisees, defy him dying. Even the thief of his left causes him. He insults him.

The thief of the right-hand side finds the respite and the nobleness of heart to say fine words to his neighbour. He cannot help him, but he tells him fine words.

Jesus says to him:
Today you will be with me in the paradise.

Jesus gave him this single privilege to enter in the paradise with Him, who is either God and man, privilege which neither Isaiah, neither Moses, nor Noah will not have like privilege. The thief received for himself only, this single privilege.

Those fine words of the thief could soften the suffocating atmosphere, of spite, of venom, which reigned on Golgotha. Like a miracle, the fine words of affection, of confidence, of compassion, changed suddenly all, and transformed Golgotha - space vitiated by iniquity, by cruelty, by revenge, - into an anteroom of the paradise.

The thief did not remain closed in the world, isolated in its self-centredness, he became that which has seen, which has recognized, which comforted Jesus, who took his defence, by his fine words.

We also, can make the good deeds by giving our alms in the form of the fine words of encouragement, of confidence, of compassion, of participation in the distress of the others.

Never let us lose the occasion to make the good deeds by the word which brings the moral comfort to the suffering ones, to the poor, to the old men.

Let us be like the good thief.