Message for the Advent

Dear friends and benefactors,

Greetings from Laval! I hope this finds you well and enjoying these days of the Advent.

Thanks to those of you who have responded to our needs for our projects bringing our help to the poor and persecuted.

Our mission is celebrating its twenty years’ history in Quebec. Its aim is to practice charity. Our commitment does not fall solely to a moral system, to a humanist philosophy, or to a political ideology, because it is situated at a different level, the level of faith that gives meaning to our activity. In the parable of Last Judgement, the Christ, when He says that what we do to our neighbour is to Himself that we have done, He does not propose a categorical imperative, but He identifies him – self to the poor, to the smallest of His brothers. By serving him, we serve God. And that is what we translate into reality.

By that, we do what the apostle Paul himself did. He collected donations from churches situated far from the first church in Jerusalem and brought them to Jerusalem. We also collect donations from our friends and benefactors from here, and distribute them to the poor, sick, ignored, victims or to those who are hatred and discriminated here or elsewhere. We know that every being is created upon God's image, upon the image of Trinity, and precisely because he is created upon God's image, he can not be performed in autonomy but just in relation to the other one, to his neighbour.

"We are asked, wrote the bishop Kallistos Ware, to reproduce on earth the movement of the shared love, of mutual self-giving, of solidarity, of dialogue and reciprocity, as it exists eternally in the Trinity ".

In that way, we help to install the solidarity with the neighbour. My neighbour is my brother, is that the one that I meet in every step I make, the one that I try to avoid but he don’t let me to do that. As far as I try to run away, I always catch me up, he is here, he looks, he queries, he ask, he beg, mostly without words.

My neighbour is also the one who makes me uncomfortable by the intensity of his distress. "I was a stranger and you welcomed me," The Lord protects the stranger...

The theme from the stranger is common in the Bible, in Psalms, in the Gospel. How many times "you shall love the alien" is in the Bible? Thirty-six times, and, maybe forty-six or fifty-six? Regardless, after all, because the bottom line is this: try every moment to invent the living relationship with our neighbour to do more for us "whoever wants to deceive us, take us" but a beloved of God, rich in its history, his culture, his conscience, his faith, we want to meet him, to know him, to serve him.

In this time of Advent, think to our neighbour. Let you make a generous donation to help him with food, clothing, and medical care if he is sick, to consolate him if he languishes in prisons. Our mission is to receive your generous donations in order to transmit them to the most suffering of our brethren.

Give us the possibility to bring help to those in need.

May the Christ be born in your heart!

Thank you in the name of God.

Yours in Christ,

S. Prodan, director of the Mission, Rev. R. Roscanu, missionary

Believe in God, no matter what

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

A legend says that Moses once sat near a well in meditation. A wayfarer stopped to drink from the well and when he did so his purse fell from his girdle into the sand.

The man departed. Shortly afterwards another man passed near the well, saw the purse and picked it up. Later a third man stopped to assuage his thirst and went to sleep in the shadow of the well.

Meanwhile, the first man had discovered that his purse was missing and assuming that he must have lost it at the well, returned, awoke the sleeper (who of course knew nothing) and demanded his money back. An argument followed, and irate, the first man slew the latter.

Where upon Moses asked God, "You see, therefore men do not believe you. There is too much evil and injustice in the world. Why should the first man have lost his purse and then become a murderer? Why should the second have gotten a purse full of gold without having worked for it? The third was completely innocent. Why was he slain?"

God answered, "For once and only once, I will give you an explanation. I cannot do it at every step. The first man was a thief’s son. The purse contained money stolen by his father from the father of the second man, who finding the purse only found what was due him. The third was a murderer whose crime had never been revealed and who recieved from the first the punishment he deserved. In the future believe that there is sense and righteousness in what transpires even when you do not understand."

Yours in Christ,


Richard Wurmbrand

Our greatest guest

Our dearly beloved,

Jesus was once told that a Roman officer was worthy of being helped. We may pray for individuals, but our request alone is not sufficient. If others ask us to pray for them, we must understand that our entreaty alone will not help. They must also take steps to sweep with their own brooms--they must allow Christ to cleanse their hearts and lives too.

Jesus is the greatest guest you will ever receive into your life.

There is a story about a Christian father who told his son to clean up the garden “because Jesus and His disciples will visit us today.” The boy knew Jesus and loved Him, so he worked diligently in the garden before telling his father, “I’m finished.”

The father, after walking through the garden, said, “Everything is really clean, but not clean enough for Jesus.”

The child went back to the garden with renewed vigor, picking up every withered leaf and every scrap from the pathways. The father then had a second look, saying, “Bravo! The garden is really clean now, but not with the special cleanliness needed for Son of God.”

The boy asked, “What is this special cleanliness like?”

The father replied, “For such a guest it is not enough to eliminate what is ugly. You must also beautify the garden as never before. Quickly, as a friend of Jesus, plant in it beautiful orchids, roses, and lilies--things it never had before--to adorn it. Then add lights to give it a warm glow. Jesus is a guest of unsurprising excellence and must be hosted accordingly.”


Romanian Martyrs

Thinking of this cleansing of the heart, I remember a Romanian martyr. In Communist Romania, many Christians died a martyr’s death. I knew a number of them personally. Nelu Sultaniuc was twenty, in prison for his faith. Hungry, cold, beaten, he fell sick of pulmonary tuberculosis, like so many other prisoners. The prison doctors were unable to help because they had no medicines, but his family brought him streptomycin, the cure for this disease. The political officer of the jail said to him, “I will give you the medicine on one condition: you must become an informer.” Now, the inmates were all there because of their anti-Communist stand. Since Communism is anti-God, what other attitude could a Christian have? Because of this, even their conversation with their cellmates were spied on, in order to provide an excuse for new accusations and longer sentences.

Sultaniuc refused. Matzkevitch, another young Christian (of Jewish origin), also refused. Both died of tuberculosis in jail. They sacrificed their lives to maintain their integrity. What would their lives have profited at such a price? They died as martyrs.

Virgil Ionescu was tied to a chair, with a strong electric lightbulb shining in his eyes. This meant certain blindness. He could escape this torture only by agreeing to be an informer. Today he is completely blind, in utter poverty, but happy to have remained clean in heart.


Problems of Conscience

While I was in Romanian prison ( and surely now in Muslim jails), individuals with a tender conscience had problems.

In the morning, the guard would ask through the opening of the door, “How many in this cell?”

Now, if a prisoner had died during the night and we still answered “Sixteen” rather than “Fifteen,” we would have an extra piece of bread that day. This was a great boon to a sick prisoner. Should we tell this lie? We remembered that David once did a forbidden thing in order to feed his hungry soldiers (I Samuel 21:1-6). But what about us?

Several times when some prisoner was scheduled for twenty-five lashes with a whip for some trespass against the rules, the Hebrew Christian Milan Haimovici stepped forward and offered to take the beating in place of his fellow prisoner.

Since the guard who specialized in beating did not know the people on his list for the day, it was easy to deceive him. But is it right to tell the obvious lie, “I am so-and-so” in place of another? Isn’t this being deceptive?

We also had other problems besides those of conscience. In winter the Communists would offer the prisoners hot tea and hot soup. We had the choice of declining these and suffering the piercing cold or accepting a little bit of warmth and then suffering the protracted pain of needing to void and not being taken to the toilet. In the end, we sometimes solved the problem by using for this purpose the bowls from which we ate.

The brethren living lives with such choices were far from being depressed. How could they be? They desired to live according to the Bible, which says nothing about being depressed! This word isn’t even mentioned in Scripture. Instead, the Bible tells us to overcome every difficulty with the joy that God is ready to give abundantly to those who ask.

In the Sudan, the priest Bagriel Dwatuka was whipped while he hung from a rope, then salt was rubbed into his wounds. He and others who were beaten were obligated to say “Thank you” after every ordeal.

A Christian can do this even when not constrained. Those who hurt us ennoble us if we understand the mystery of suffering.

In the Sudan, many Christians have been killed. Some were confined in churches and tied to chairs with thick ropes. A Muslim officer then said, “We are going to shoot you in your church. May God come and save you!” Then the soldiers emptied their guns on the helpless people and the building was set on fire. We are shipping help to Sudanese Christians.

The martyrs live outside of time. The apostle Paul wrote, referring to such martyrs, “We are surrounded by them as by a great could of witnesses.” they have been the inspiration of our mission, which publicizes the heroic stories of martyrs in over forty languages. They “surround” us when we preach, write, and minister to the needs of today’s martyrs and their families.

Jesus desires to work together with His church. If you are willing to let Him unite with you will continue on the path of the heroes of the faith, past and present.



Number of Christians Triples

Shanghai is the second largest city of China. In the last ten years, the number of Christians there more than tripled. Among its seven and a half million inhabitants, 127,000 are Evangelical Christians. They gather in 111 registered churches, but there are also many house churches. These latter are persecuted.

Three house church leaders were beaten to death by the Chinese police. One is Sister Zhang Xiuju, 36 years old.

The Christian Li Moxi, 90, wrote thirty letters in his own blood to government officials explaining to them that Christians love the Communists but cannot compromise their beliefs to curry favor with them.



Mission to Armenia

“You have made us a strife to our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves”

(Ps. 80:6).

These words could have been written for the Armenian people. Since the third century they have been Christians and have consequently left behind them a history of continuous persecution. The last holocaust of Armenians was perpetrated by the Turks in 1915.

Our Geman mission has printed Armenian language Bibles, Tortured for Christ, The Other Face of Marx, and What Christians Belive. These have been brought into the country and distributed freely. We have also created a Stephen Center in Armenia, as in several other countries. Cleansed through long suffering, Armenian Christians have a high spiritual tenor. The fire of love still burns in their hearts.

In our own Christian life and work we should all show ourselves worthy of the abundant blessings God gives us by being faithful to Him. May God bless you !


Your in Christ,

Richard Wurmbrand

I am tired

My body is so tired, my God. It’s wearing out. It has served me well, carrying me through this world with great care and service. And now I know that my bones and muscle and all my substance are weakened by the inevitable passage of time.

I thank you for my body, for all that it has done for me in this world. I thank you for all the blessing that have come to me through my senses and physical awareness, for the many things I’ve seen, touched, and known.

I thank you for the strength I’ve had, for the ability to work and move and do many of the things I’ve wanted and chosen to do. I thank you too for play and pleasure, for the enjoyment of so many of your tangible gifts.

I thank you for my ability to think, to reason, to appreciate, to be aware. When my time has come, my loving God, receive me and help me to release my body with gratitude and love. Thank you, God, for my body, wonderfully made and gratefully lived in.