When Cristi and Monica Boseff first met the Nazarene missionaries to Bucharest, Romania, in 1992, Cristi was convinced they were American spies.
The Boseffs had gone to meet the missionaries Jon and Margaret Scott, because Monica had been asked to serve as a translator for them. The Scotts shocked the Romanian couple by welcoming them into their home with hugs, smiles and friendliness unusual in that culture between strangers.
“I said, ‘Something is missing, because nobody is nice and polite with strangers, only if they need something from you,’” recalled Cristi. “When I suspected them of being American spies, I decided to catch them and I was very alert.”
Those who were raised under Communism developed a mistrust of others, even friends, Monica said.
“You definitely didn’t trust your neighbors, or not even some of your relatives,” Monica said. “You never knew who was an informer for the security.”
Despite Cristi’s objections, Monica agreed to translate for the couple, and over the next two months she was exposed to something she had never seen in anyone before – the love of Jesus Christ. She was so moved by what she felt around them that one day she told her husband, “I don’t care what you think, but I need my life to be changed. I really want to have what they have.”
In October 1992, she prayed with Margaret to receive Christ, beginning a long journey of transformation in the image of Jesus, and became part of the Church of the Nazarene in Bucharest which was just beginning to form at that time.
Cristi did not share her enthusiasm for her new faith, but did not discourage her. They’d gotten married after knowing one another just two weeks. When Monica became a Christian, they had only been married a few months.
In training to be a nurse, Monica received a scholarship in 1993 to study in Oklahoma, in the United States. The Scotts connected her with the Calvary Church of the Nazarene in Tulsa. They helped her through a difficult adjustment to American culture. And they helped to carry Monica’s burden for Cristi’s salvation.
“The most powerful lesson about prayer I learned in the church,” she said. “What I learned is that a whole church that has never seen this man knelt at the altar crying out for him Sunday after Sunday. I didn’t even have a picture of Cristi to show them. I would even get calls throughout the week [saying], ‘I’ve been praying for your husband.’”
God answered the church’s prayers through Cristi’s job in working part-time for the Scotts and their nonprofit organization.
“I was surprised because they started every working day with prayer. They eat together, they fasted together…. And I wanted to have what they have,” Cristi said.
Over time, God wrapped him up with love and mercy until he began going to church with them while Monica was out of the country. Over time, listening to the sermons and what was said at church, he gradually realized that he had come to love Jesus.
At Christmas, Monica’s mom called her and told her to sit down for some news. Then, her mother’s voice announced, “Cristi accepted Christ at church.”
The leaders of the Church of the Nazarene wanted Cristi to pursue theological education. It seemed they sensed a potential pastor in him. But Cristi was virulently opposed to entering studies. He had a list of excuses: he didn’t speak well in public; he stuttered; his memory was poor; he was too old to study and didn’t like it, anyway.
Then, eight years ago, Cristi was running out of excuses in face of an increasingly clear call from God. The pastor of the Blessing Church of the Nazarene in Bucharest had left, and Cristi needed to serve as a temporary leader. He did such a good job that the church officially asked him to be their pastor.
He came home and sat down with Monica and their two children. He asked his kids, “I need you to tell me if you think I should be the pastor of the church. If you think so… you’re in this with me, because this is not my ministry, it is not something I do. If we do it, we do it together.”
Their children looked up at him and told their father to “go for it.”
Cristi has been the pastor ever since. It’s tough for Nazarene churches in Romania. By law a church cannot be registered officially with the government until it has 10,000 members. But it’s difficult to get members without being seen as a legitimate, government-recognized organization.
So the church registered as the Nazarene Christian Evangelical Organization for Aid and Development. Compassionate ministries are a strong focus of the Blessing church, which is located in a poor community. The congregation has been steadily growing in recent years. In 2010, the church expanded the sanctuary and remodeled several rooms to accommodate the growth. They also built a tank for baptisms.
“We find that people are so open to hearing god’s plain and simple truth,” Monica said. “You would find 99 percent of the Romanian population says they’re believers – they believe in God and belong to religion and the church – but their life is messed up. We are still very high on abortions and extramarital relationships and sex before marriage.”
Monica said that she and Cristi are not trying to bring people to the church but to a relationship with Jesus Christ. She tries to live her life in a way that demonstrates becoming a Christian and joining an evangelical church doesn’t mean the end of fun or freedom in life.
“We laugh so hard together and we enjoy life so much together in a clean and nice way. They realize that in Christ you are full of life and joy and so they start to understand that belonging to a church is vital to your Christian life. And so meeting with some of my friends makes them say, ‘When do you have your service?’”
Also published in NCN News.
