Woman on a Mission

By Gina Pottenger
Reprinted from Where Worlds Meet, Year 10, Issue 7

Magda Cini was distraught. Her 22-year-old son, his girlfriend, and Cini’s daughter were in a car accident on a road in their village of Tigmandru that was notorious for fatal accidents. Her son, Nelutu, was hospitalized with a piece of the vehicle having penetrated his forehead and he had amnesia. Cini was afraid he would die. She had already lost a niece in another car accident on the same road.

She begged God to save her son’s life. In exchange, she would dedicate herself full-time to Christian ministry; she was not yet a Christian at this time, but her daughter Paula had found Christ as a teenager through the Nazarene church and  been active ever since, starting a kids’ club in Tigmandru.

Through the relationship with Paula, Nazarene missionary Roberta Bustin visited the hospital and prayed over Nelutu. Ten minutes later, he opened his eyes.

As Nelutu recovered, Cini remembered her promise and began a prayer meeting in her village, inviting people to join her in praying that God would stop the numerous car accidents on that infamous road. Today, there are very few accidents there, which Cini attributes as a direct answer to the prayers of that group.

Since the accident in 2002, Cini’s efforts – along with Paula’s equally hard work – have led to a Nazarene
church plant in Tigmandru that has grown into an established church with 50 to 70 active attendees. Cini is the compassionate ministries director, the full-time pastor, and holds a local preacher’s license; she is working toward her district license.

Magda Cini used her background as a professional
 seamstress to start a sewing workshop at the
Tigmandru church for women who needed work.

She is responsible for launching multiple, long-term community outreach ministries, ranging from greenhouses and an aquaponics project, to a sewing shop and a ministry to young mothers and their babies.

Cini drew on her various occupational experiences to organize the projects, all of which are designed to provide small jobs for the many unemployed people in the church, and to teach vocational skills so they can later get full-time work. Very few people in Tigmandru have jobs, and they struggle to feed their families.

For instance, there is a clothing factory in the nearby town of Sighisoara where Cini worked for several years. When some unemployed women in the church expressed interest in working there, Cini took them herself. But the women didn’t have the skills needed and weren’t hired.

So, in 2008, just after the Nazarene church moved into its own building, Cini established a sewing room at the church with donated sewing machines and materials. She teaches basic sewing skills and techniques. The women who participate sew dolls and cloth bags, and various Nazarenes help to sell the items, returning the profit to the women. Several of the women have since gotten jobs at the factory.

Cini also worked as a nurse in a hospital for several years, specializing in massage for babies. So she started another program in the church for the many teenage girls with babies.

“I have 30 babies and 20 mothers, and I help the mothers learn how to care for their children. One day in a week I bathe the children, I change the clothes, and I make massage for the children,” Cini said. The massage helps improve the babies’ strength and circulation, because many are malnourished and don’t receive all the vitamins and minerals they need, she said.

The greenhouse was Cini’s idea, too. It serves a dual purpose: to offer a little work for several
women in the church, as well as to supply fresh produce from which the church can feed 100 village
children at the kids’ club weekly.

“A lot of these children are hungry,” said Bustin. “Sometimes they eat several bowls of soup and many pieces of bread; it’s obvious they’re hungry.”

 Cini’s next big dream is for the church to open a bakery. The village doesn’t have one, and there’s not a bakery nearby. The space is available, all they lack is the equipment to get it started, she said. Cini gained experience coordinating a bakery run by an organization in another town.

“I’m very happy and glad because God used me in many things,” Cini said. “This is God. God gives me this vision for people, because I was a very poor woman. I really want to help the people because I trust in God. And all the time, my prayer I share with God and God gives me answers for everything.”


Pray for God to bless and expand the social work led by Magda Cini and the Tigmandru Church of the Nazarene. Ask God to bring many people to relationship with Christ through these vocational trainings and jobs.