Sighişoara, Romania – Relu Cristurean clearly remembers the night he called out to a God he didn’t know.Walking home alone from a disco, he noticed how clear the night-time Romanian sky was. You could see every star. He walked with his head tilted back so he could take in the vast, sparkling dome.
“God, you know what? I know you exist. I know you’re there somewhere and I know you can hear me now,” he recalls saying.
“I was just talking out loud, ‘cause nobody was [around],” he added. “And I said, ‘You know, I think something’s wrong with my life. It’s not what it’s supposed to be. Something is missing. This is not [a] good life. So, if you have something else for me, please lead me or send someone to me so I know that’s the way.’”
Afterward, the 20something young man continued with his lifestyle of working, smoking, drinking and having fun.
Several weeks later, the answer to his midnight question stood on his doorstep.
An old schoolmate, Claudiu, showed up for an unexpected visit. Relu had always liked the young man, and always sensed something different about him.
The friends had dinner and spent the weekend catching up on life. Relu enjoyed it so much he asked if he could in turn visit Claudiu and stay with him for a short time. The young man eagerly agreed.
The first night at Claudiu’s town, he surprised Relu by taking him to a Church of the Nazarene.
In some Eastern European countries, evangelicals are viewed as cults and looked on with suspicion. As a result, Relu was skeptical about the experience. He observed the people singing on the stage and listened to the sermon. Every time he tried to question his friend, Claudiu said, “Just listen.”
In Romania, where more than 80 percent of the population claim membership in the Romanian Orthodox Church, part of the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity, Relu and almost everyone he knew already considered themselves to be Christians. He described the popular image of evangelicals as boring, singing slow, plodding music, adhering to too many rules and so conservative in their dress as to be marginalized from mainstream culture.
“Here, the songs were alive, or had rhythm,” he said. “And then the sermon … was so different, I said ‘Whoa.’ And I can understand what was said there.”
After the service, Relu demanded Claudiu tell him more about these “strange” Christians who call themselves Nazarenes.
Claudiu and another former classmate later took him to a Youth With a Mission service, where Relu realized he enjoyed these meetings. A man shared his testimony of how God called him from a life as a rock singer and changed him and now he was a missionary.
Relu was amazed.
“Is this God? It’s not the God I knew and not … that image of God I had before,” he thought.
When the speaker invited people to come forward for prayer to accept Christ, Relu wanted to invite Christ into his life, but didn’t have the courage to move to the front. Instead, he prayed silently in his seat.
“Something happened then,” he said. “I felt like something was lifting up, lifted off me. You know that feeling, like, ‘Whew.’” Relu sang to himself all the way home.
Not long after, an English missionary arrived with a vision to build houses for poor people in the community, working with a Nazarene-founded compassionate ministry called Veritas. Relu offered to provide translation services for the summer. When the ministry team went to a community to build, they also shared the Gospel. The man gave Relu a book with Bible stories and asked him to explain the stories to the local children.
Afterward, Relu applied to and attended a small Bible school to deepen his faith and relationship with God. For the next seven years, he continued working with Veritas; in 2003 he married Oana, whom he met in his local Nazarene church.
In 2008, during a Southeast Europe Field (now the Central Europe Field) conference, he became aware that God was calling him to full-time ministry. He realized he’d been resisting the call for several years.
“I’m a practical guy, I can work with my hands,” was his protest to God. “’Lord, you already gave me this gift, this way of serving you. I’m involved. I am the guy who’s in the back somewhere just making things work. You don’t need this ministry of pastoring or leadership.’ I was scared of leadership.”
Relu was in a losing battle, because what he didn’t know was that Roberta Bustin had been praying for Relu to hear and accept God’s call. As pastor of the Sighişoara Church of the Nazarene, Roberta had been working closely with Relu.
“I really prayed that this would be the time – at this conference – when he would recognize and affirm his call, if indeed God was calling him,” she said.
God persisted with Relu over the five days of the conference. On the final day, during a time of open testimonies, a district superintendent asked, “Is there anyone who felt God’s calling for ministry for being a pastor?”
“At that moment the chair was burning,” Relu joked. “And I said, ‘OK, this is it.’”
He stood and publicly announced that God was calling him to ministry, and now he was willing to make himself available.
“I will be your feet. I will be your hands. I want to be your mouth,” he recalled saying. “But you have to do everything. You have to teach me step by step, you lead me.”
Roberta burst into tears.
“I don’t show my emotions much, but that night I cried and cried,” she recalled.
From that point, she began mentoring him. Although he was terrified of public speaking and had no formal training in preaching or teaching, he sweated and trembled through his first sermon. Through repeated preaching, he gradually gained confidence.
“I’m so amazed by God’s faithful and grace and love,” he said. “I have to prepare a sermon, and I pray, ‘Lord, what do you want me to tell to your people?’ I read through the Bible and sometimes some passage comes alive and I can only explain how it works but the words and the story and everything becomes alive and I can see the full picture, I can see the message.”Relu takes turns with Roberta on preaching, and also has led Bible study groups. He’s taking courses through European Nazarene College, and recently his wife, who teaches children’s Sunday School, began taking courses, as well.
“Throughout the years I have witnessed the miraculous ‘hand-work’ of the Lord in Relu’s life,” said Magda Balaban, who served the church alongside Relu for several years. “Because of his strong Christian character, wise and balanced thinking, as well as real approach to life, I believe he could and will influence the lives of many in Sighişoara.”
