Biography of SABINA WURMBRAND

Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand

Not many women have their faith tested like Sabina Wurmbrand. Her husband, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, was imprisoned and tortured for his faith for fourteen years.

During that time, Sabina selflessly helped other Christians of the Underground Church they had started together while struggling hard for her own and her little son's survival.

Sabina was subjected to unbelievable hardships and suffering. Yet, through it all, she never relented in her endeavours to continue the work her husband had begun, to unite the Underground Church.

Living in daily fear of discovery, her faith was tested to the limit--and held firm. She herself was arrested for subversive evangelism in 1948 in Romania and spent three years as a slave labourer on the never-completed Danube Canal. Nevertheless, she survived to tell her story.

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.

We absolutely need God

This is a text of Sabine Wurmbrand, this great missionary personality who spent all her life to accomplish good deeds in the Spirit of the Ressusrection of our Lord.


Dear brothers and sisters,

I was a slave worker in a Romanian prison camp and worked at building a huge canal with thousands of women. We were sad, but we had among us a young Jewish lady who was a doctor. She was sadder than all the others. Nobody could speak with her.

One day I was on my straw mattress. Near me was this Jewish doctor, and I tried to comfort her sad heart. I said, "You, as Jewish lady, should not be in despair. For God has promised to our forefather, Abraham, that the Jewish people will have a bright future. They will be like the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky."

She lifted up her beautiful, sad eyes, tears ran down her cheeks. She said, "Surely, like the sand on the seashore, trodden under the feet of everyone as we are trodden here under the feet of the prison guards… Don’t speak to me any more about your God."

She went away. Nobody could speak with her. A few days after this, I awoke one morning deathly sick. So in order not to die in this cell, I was thrown in a van of the police and taken to another prison that they called the hospital. Many dying women were there – two or even three in a small bed – everyone waiting to be taken out to the nearby cemetery.

There we were. In the evening the director of the prison entered. Together with about ten of his officers. He looked around among the dying women. We looked like ghosts. (Remember thousands like them, your sisters, are in prisons and slave labor camps today in dictatorial countries like China, Vietnam, North Korea.)

He looked around at the dying women and delivered a speech : "Now you see? We have all the power. We prevailed. We are stronger than your God. We have doctors and we don’t need your God any more, your Christ. In here, in our hospital, you are not meant even to mention the name of God or Christ".

A big silence followed. Nobody dared to answer nor did any of the women even have strength to speak. But the Holy Spirit was there. He gave me strength. He gave the right words. I said, "Mr. Officer, as long as death and sickness will be on earth and you see how near death we all are together, we absolutely need God. We need Jesus Christ the Son of God, the only giver of life."

The director went into a rage and answered. I answered him back. When he didn’t know any more what to say, he went out and banged the door. The women were so happy. It was the most beautiful event, which had happened in their sad prison life. On the beds of happiness they embraced each other because someone had stood up to this brute.

Early the next morning when it was still dark, a guard entered with a list of three names – women who were fit to go back to work. The first of the three names was mine, although I was dying. No question about going. I was thrown again into the van and brought back to the prison cell.

When the prisoners saw me, they started to cry. They banged at the door calling for help. Nobody came. The next morning when the thousand were gathered in order to be taken to the field, I had to go with them. The other prisoners took me on their arms, walking miles and miles. Who could ever describe what it meant – marching, hungry, sick, marching to the fields day by day, surrounded by the many prison guards with their rifles, surrounded by big dogs. Only seeing them, your heart would freeze.

So the weak women walked, having also to carry me on their arms. When we arrived, they had to put me down on the ground. Nobody was allowed to stand near me.

Everyone had to work. There I was. Many of the Christians worked and wept, being convinced that they had put me there in my grave forever.

While nobody was allowed to come near me, in a second, Jesus stood before me. He had passed the guards. Jesus touched my dying body and in the evening, when the thousands of prisoners were brought to the prison cell, I was with them. Like a fire, it spread all over the prison.

Late in the evening, when I was on my straw mattress, on the concrete, this Jewish lady doctor came. She confessed that, in seeing such a miraculous healing, she acknowledged now her belief in the Messiah who had touched my body and had healed me.

An American army officer in World War II told his men : "The enemy troops are in front of us, in our back, to the right and to the left. We are totally surrounded. This time the enemy cannot escape!"

The opportunity to help cannot be exhausted. People in desperate need surround us. Let us forget forever the sins that the Lord has forgiven. Let us forget our human heart in its despair. But let us also not forget what we need to remember : our beloved Lord Jesus Christ! Thanks for all your hard efforts in behalf of our persecuted family in dictatorial countries.

Yours in Christ,

Sabina Wurmbrand