Swansea church reaches out to Romanian worshippers

Members are raising money to help build church in impoverished country

By JOHNNY DICKERSON - Special to The State

When Faith Baptist Church of Swansea member Emma Lee Lucas got the opportunity to travel to Romania as a missionary nearly four years ago, she was reluctant.

A friend had offered to bring her overseas as part of an outreach mission, but Lucas had never been out of the South, let alone traveled to a foreign country. Today, she’s convinced it was a trip God intended for her to take.

“God would not let me forget her invitation,” Lucas said. “I could constantly hear her words.”

It was that same journey that would plant the seeds of compassion in Lucas’ heart and eventually those of others at the church.

The 150-member congregation is nearing the end of a $20,000 fundraising effort to build a church in the Romanian village of Hasdate.

“This is a great effort to reach out to these oppressed people,” said Faith Baptist pastor David Carter. “It’s an exciting thing to be a part of.”

When Lucas first traveled to Romania, she found people she described as loving and generous who, despite their poverty, had a strong desire to worship the Lord.

“As we visited the poor families and widows, we always carried food,” she said. “But they would never leave let you leave without them giving you something, if only an apple.”

What she also found, however, was that the small, poor villages she visited lacked the churches needed for Romanian Protestants to gather and worship. The area is predominantly Roman Orthodox, and Evangelical churches are few and far between.

Following several return trips by other Faith Baptist members, the congregants decided they had to help change that.

“I went again in 2006 and more fully realized the need for more churches in the small villages,” Lucas said. “I thought about how great it would be to build a church there, but I never shared that thought with anyone.

“However the Lord put the same thought in my pastor’s heart the very next year,” she added.

“When he shared his thoughts with the church, I knew without a doubt God was telling us to build a church in Romania.”

To date, Faith Baptist has raised more than $17,500 toward the new church through donations, a barbecue, a breakfast and a wild-game banquet.

The church will send a team of 14 people to Hasdate in June to present a $20,000 check to Rev. Cornell Fedor of Emmanuel Ministries for the Romania Church construction and to help break ground.

Fedor has been working closely with Faith Baptist since he met Lucas on her first trip to Romania in 2004. He’s also visited the United States several times and had the opportunity to worship at Faith Baptist during some of those trips.

“He is a remarkable person,” said Esca Jumper, one of the Faith Baptist members who has traveled to Romania.

Faith Baptist members say they look forward to returning to the area to complete the work they’ve started.

“We hope they use the church in their own special way,” Jumper said. “The best is yet to come.”