Ioan Nita
A real story of my life:
In the time of the “Cold War” in Europe, behind the “Iron Curtain” (the
invisible border that separated two different political systems, the oppressive
communism and the socialist-democratic system), a nice, but unlucky country, Romania, had to suffer from the lack of
liberty, both physically and spiritually. For many inhabitants of the country to
escape from the “Huge Prison” was an obsessive, hard to achieve dream. Many tried
to run out, but ended up behind the gratings of the jails. In the summer of
1987 my friend John and I {my name is John too} planned to escape from our native country, Romania, to find a dream-country on the
other side of the Iron Curtain.
The idea came as a godly message to my closest
friend and church fellow John, a short, strong shaped man, good husband, father
of six, and a man of good faith, happy to help others, and of accepting help. To
leave a country we loved, with all our friends, relatives, and lovely places, and
especially for John to leave his family by throwing himself in an inexperienced
adventure, implied a great trust in God. We believed this idea came from God,
and we would have His support, and so it happened to be.
We
started with the most important thing: asking God for help. So we prayed and
asked Him to give us guidance on how to prepare, when to leave and where to
cross the country’s border. Romania, a country placed in the east side of
Europe, remained after World War II in the communist area, surrounded by other
communist countries. The thorny wire fenced border guarded by the state army
kept the people inside the country. The soldiers were heavily equipped with
guns and anything they found useful for catching or killing anyone who tried to
cross the border. For a Romanian, searching for a way to “run out” meant taking
the risk of entering into many troubles. First, we had to keep this a secret
because everywhere in the country, the communists had their informers ready to
sell them any information about the “enemies of the people,” a name given by
the communists for the nonconformists. One always lived in great danger even in
his own home if something “dubious” reached the ears of the communists.
At a point in
time we felt that God helped us to develop a plan. We had a target: Italy. We had to pass the Danube River, which separates Romania from Yugoslavia, (another communist country situated
on south-west of Romania), then to traverse Yugoslavia and reach the border of Italy, where another adventure had to occur.
That meant we had to practice swimming in order to become strong enough to swim
across a river wider than the Columbia River. We had also established the place and the time for
leaving.
On a Sunday at noon we entered a corn field close to the
river. The guards did not see us or hear us because it was raining from noon until midnight. We had planned to leave the cornfield
at midnight and walk to the river. At midnight, standing under our
umbrella, my friend and I prayed, “God, give us a sign that you will help us reach
Italy, and please make it stop raining.” A miracle happened--it stopped raining—and
our faith in God’s help became stronger. “Let’s go,” my friend John said.
We left the corn field, entered a forest, passed
through a wetland and then the--Old Blue Danube River--appeared before us, wide and silent
with the neighboring country on the other side. Luckily, no soldiers appeared.
We entered the water and began swimming. A big commercial ship slid down the Danube, its noisy engine covering our
splashing noise from the “rabbit ears” of the soldiers. Picture this: two
people swimming in the night, no sound of a rifle’s bullet, just waves made by
the ship and its engine getting quieter as it departed. “I am getting tired,”
said my friend John, after one hour of swimming. I replied, “Just a little more
until we reach the shore.”
Our feet finally stepped unto Yugoslavian ground, and after a break, we entered in a small village where we encountered no people on the streets in that early hour of the morning, about 2 am, “Did we enter Yugoslavia or Bulgaria?” we asked ourselves [Bulgaria is a country just hundreds of
Our feet finally stepped unto Yugoslavian ground, and after a break, we entered in a small village where we encountered no people on the streets in that early hour of the morning, about 2 am, “Did we enter Yugoslavia or Bulgaria?” we asked ourselves [Bulgaria is a country just hundreds of
meters away from Yugoslavia, and has a common border with Romania]. In order to find the country name we
searched behind the cars to see the country’s initials stamped close to the
license plates. “Yes it is” we exclaimed.
The first step of our adventure was over. But what’s next? And how will
we travel through a strange country with people speaking a very different
language, a country with policemen roaring for “Romanian runners” to be hunted,
packed, sent back to Romania and thrown in prison? “Buna
Dimineatza” a strange accented Romanian voice offered a greeting from an open
window, “What are you guys doing?” Savoring his cigarette a gentleman had seen
us in the street and no doubt he understood our matter.
“We escaped
from Romania and are heading to Italy,” we answered. “You have to go to
the train station, two kilometers from here,” said the man, pointing his finger
to the west direction. Then he granted my friend a glass of fresh water. We thanked
him for his great help, and departed.
We took the train for about fifty
kilometers, when a good man told us that the trains were inspected by policemen
looking for “Romanian runners” so we decided to use the bus only. We stepped
down to the Bus Terminal Station of Beograd, the Capital of the Country,
looking for the next step in our long and dangerous trip. “Buna Ziua” a lady
greeted us in Romanian. “What is the best place to pass the border to Italy?” we asked her.” You must be
careful, don’t approach the area of Trieste, because it is supervised by the police
and by the Yugoslavian army; go to Nova Goritza. Not many runners use that
place to pass the border, so your chance to enter Italy would be better.” The good lady,
whom we knew God had sent, gave us very good advice and so we followed it and
after a long trip on the bus we arrived in Nova Goritza.
The border between Yugoslavia and Italy split the city in two halves, the
Yugoslavian side named Nova Goritza and the Italian side, Goritzia. The winners
of World War II decided that, which was good luck for us. We wandered along the
border hoping to see a place to cross the border into Italy when a police car stopped near and
we got arrested just meters away from Italy. “Romanians? Your place is back in Romania” sounded a policemen’s angry voice.
We were deposited not at the police station as we expected, but at the border’s
checkpoint were the pedestrians and the cars were inspected before passing to Italy. The police car departed leaving us
in the supervision of the checkpoint guards. “What happened to us?” we
questioned one another. The Italian checkpoint, only one hundred meters in our visual
field and our eyes are begging to the people traveling freely and indifferent
by the two Romanians longing for liberty.” Did we fail our last chance or does
God have something else in plan for us?” we questioned ourselves. “This is the
place to pass the border. You have to run between the checking points,” said a
voice inside of me, which I knew was from God {In a vision given to us by God before leaving Romania was shown two tunnels whose entrances were guarded by two lions at each. At one entrance, the lions were sleeping and at the other, they were awake. The message accompanying the vision was that the entrance where the lions were asleep was not the crossing point, but where the lions were awake. Indeed, before we were caught by the police, we tried to go through a place where two soldiers had lied down near the border}.
I told John, “We have to run to Italy from here, be ready when the guards are busy with the passers.” We waited for a moment of weak supervision and on--a green signal--we ran away from Yugoslavia to Italy under the powerless sight of the guards. After a --Hundred Meter Sprint-- we found ourselves on Italian ground. An Italian guard from the--now Italian checkpoint—received us with a jovial, smiling face, and offered us two chairs in the office of the checkpoint.
I told John, “We have to run to Italy from here, be ready when the guards are busy with the passers.” We waited for a moment of weak supervision and on--a green signal--we ran away from Yugoslavia to Italy under the powerless sight of the guards. After a --Hundred Meter Sprint-- we found ourselves on Italian ground. An Italian guard from the--now Italian checkpoint—received us with a jovial, smiling face, and offered us two chairs in the office of the checkpoint.
The
rest is easy to imagine: how happy we felt after a long and adventurous trip praising
God for His faithfulness in helping us until the last point of His plan. We
remained in Italy, a democratic country, with nice
people and a government that helped “Runners,” such as us. Today, my friend
John lives in Sacramento, California, and enjoys the sun of liberty in a blessed country with his family that followed him out of
Romania through another great adventure that would make the subject of another story,
if God will help us write it. I live in
Portland, Oregon, with my family, praising God for the opportunity of being a
witness and a subject of a few of His miracles, and to show others how trusting
in God, people can create and accomplish their goals.
06/25/11, Portland, Oregon
http://toallrunners.blogspot.
http://acryinthedesert.blogspot.com/
http://thefertility.blogspot.com/
The Power of God at Work
In my first story, "How a Dream of Liberty Became Reality " I wrote about the wonders that God had made by helping my friend John and I cross the border between Romania and Yugoslavia, the journey through Yugoslavia and crossing the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, and that my friend John ended up in California. In that story, I wrote that his family came from Romania, following him through another adventurous journey which is going to be the subject of this writing.
In my first story, "How a Dream of Liberty Became Reality " I wrote about the wonders that God had made by helping my friend John and I cross the border between Romania and Yugoslavia, the journey through Yugoslavia and crossing the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, and that my friend John ended up in California. In that story, I wrote that his family came from Romania, following him through another adventurous journey which is going to be the subject of this writing.
It was in August, 1987,
when after our entrance into Italy we received approval to stay in a town near the border with Yugoslavia called
Goritzia. We stayed in a hotel, awaiting dispatch to Rome where the procedure
of emigration to the USA would take place. The hotel offered everything for
free, we did not do anything but rest, eat and walk. We visited town beauties
including Fidardo Castle. We were mostly interested to meet Christians like us,
so one Sunday we went to a church of Reformed brethren. They were very good to
us, and a family named Zidarich invited us to her house. Thus we became close
friends with this family. In another Sunday we visited a Mormon church.
For us who had lived under a communist regime, it was something special to see a very clean city with very nice people and where people were treated as people. It was like a wonderland. But something grieved my friend. There was plenty of food, and his six children who had remained in Romania and his wife could not enjoy all this. At that time there was a famine in Romania, caused by forced industrialization by those who governed the country through purchasing of industrial equipment from abroad in exchange for agricultural products. Whenever my friend took a meal, he remembered his children, and crying would say, "Here I eat good dishes, but I wonder what my kids are eating there in Romania?" For me it was easier because I was not married. But this situation made me think. There was a tension that even sat between us.
After a stay of approximately 40 days in Goritzia, a Sunday morning I went alone to meditate while I was walking the quiet streets of the city. I was telling God that I was concerned about the situation of my friend and that I wanted to help him but I did not know how. I remember asking God to fill my heart with His love. It was dusk and I found a garden on the edge of the city where I went and spent the night praying. I asked God saying, Lord, give me love, or take me off the earth for I am not worthy to live as I see it now. When it was dawn, He gave me an answer that I did not expect at all. God said to me, "You must go back to Romania to help your friend's family escape."
I told God, "If it is Your will, please give me two things that I ask of You as signs so that you send me back in Romania. First, I need you to provide someone to help me with money for the trip, and second, give me a man of Yours in Yugoslavia to guide me on where to cross the border back to Romania, by land because I came from Romania crossing the Danube river, swiming, and now I need to go ashore to be able to bring friend's family since they had children. "I was filled with His love as I had asked Him. I felt that no commandment of the Lord seemed too hard. I was at His disposal, even unto death. I loved the Lord and people. But over that he gave me faith in Him that He will be with me all the time and what He promised, He will do. I felt doubled by another person who was inside of me, I communicated with and knew that this person was Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.
I did not eat anything from Saturday night and I decided to not eat and not drink anything until the crossing of the border to Yugoslavia the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, which was when the Holy Spirit told me to go. I needed these days of fasting to be sufficiently sensitive to the Holy Spirit's voice guiding me and always to know what to do.
I returned Monday morning at the hotel where I found my friend very worried because he did not know what happened to me. He drew a rebuke as between brothers. Then I said, "God sent me back to Romania to get your family out of there." Then my brother was quiet and concerned. "If it is true that God sent you, please remove my wife and our two daughters and the four sons to stay with our relatives." But I knew that God had told me to help escaping the whole family, the mother and six children.
In the same hotel, there was another Romanian that heard that I want to go back to Romania. He told me that he wants to go with me to bring his wife who was left out in Romania. I prayed to God saying, "Lord, if it be Your will for him to come with me let him come, but if it is not Your will, make him change his mind."I asked this because I saw that his condition was not quite right between him and God. Something strange happened on the last day when we were in the Zidarich family’s yard and we made a parting prayer. Holding hands, we formed a circle. That Romanian was next to me and his hand caught mine. While praying, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon me as something like an electric current and flowed through my hand into his hand. Suddenly seized with fear, he exclaimed, "I'm not going, I'm afraid." I saw that everything that I had asked God was fulfilled.
The time was near for the adventure to begin. It was Tuesday evening at five o'clock when two young men of the Mormon church came to our hotel, asking us to go to their church at eight o'clock because their pastor wanted to talk to us. We went there as we were told. We were introduced to the pastor's office where there were several brothers of his. Pastor turned to us and said, "We want to help you." Then I said, "If you really want to help us, behold God sent me back to Romania to bring my friend's family and I need money for the trip. The pastor replied, if God sent you, then let Him tell us too. Then we were asked to wait in an adjoining room. After a while we were called back and I was told, "Yes God told us that He should send you and we must help you not only with money, but with the whole church to support you in prayer until you do the work of escaping your brother's family from Romania. " They gave me, in the name of the LORD, a hundred thousand Italian pounds worth at that time about eighty dollars. We embraced, and they entrusted me in the hands of God.
Midnight was the time when the Lord informed me that I had to get on Yugoslav soil. The Zidarich family of Reformed brothers lived right beside the border with Yugoslavia. I remember that Mrs.Zidarich stood on a balcony of the house to watch for Yugoslav border guards patrolling along the border. At a signal I jumped the fence of their yard adjacent to the border and I was on Yugoslav soil.
During the forty days of my stay I learned to get along in Italian, so I could communicate more easily with Yugoslavians as some understand this language. I went into a Yugoslav town, Nova Goritza where after I exchanged my Italian money to Yugoslav money, and then took the bus to Beograde. As I arrived at a Beograde bus station, a taxi driver kept on insisting that he would take me to Romania. I left myself pulled in his cab waiting to see what follows. After leaving Beograde I asked how much he would charge me to go to Romania. The amount that he said was almost all my money. I said I could not go on. Then he said, "Behold, I will let you in the city of Pancevo, which is 20 kilometers from Beograde to Romania." When I sat on a bench waiting for the bus to Vrsac, another city closer to Romania, suddenly the Spirit of God said to me, "Speak to the man beside you in Romanian." Then I said to the man who sat on the same bench, "Excuse me, does the Vrsac bus stops here?" "Yes it does, but how do you know I am Romanian?" "God told me," I replied. "Oh, yes I understand, you are a Christian. I am a Christian too, an Orthodox." Then I told him all that I wanted to do, that I came from Italy and wanted to go to Romania to help a family escape out of there, a mother with six children. I also told him that I did not know any place where they could escape ashore in Romania because I escaped out on the water. But God told me that the man had to tell me where I could enter Romania on land so that I could take them back through there, because among them were children, even a girl that was only a few years old.
His answer was very telling, "I really am born in a village near the border known of old that is a place blessed by God where you can pass easily. I do not live there anymore but I will explain how you can get there. Here you go by bus to Vrsac, then take another bus that will take you to the village Marghita. There you will find Romanian Christians who will tell you what to do. "
He went with me on the same bus towards Vrsac for a few stops. Before he got down, he gave me some Yugoslav money and hugged me making sure that he will support me in prayer to let God to do the work.
I arrived in Vrsac at nine o'clock in the evening. The Marghita bus was gone. There was not going to be another bus until the next morning. I took a walk and asked few Yugoslavians for directions to Marghita. "You're crazy, I was answered, no one walks for such a long distance (about 20 kilometers), especially at night." God gave me a wind from behind and even though I was physically weak after fasting days held in Italy, I came to the village of Marghita after only three hours. The Yugoslav police cars did not stop me, though they were seeking to arrest Romanians and to give them back to be thrown into the hands of Romanian border guards. But I guess they could not think that an illegal would go towards Romania, because all the Romanians that were illegal were running away from Romania.
It was midnight and the entire village was dark. There was a single lighted window so I went in there. It was the tavern. One man was there, the tavern keeper. I asked whether he had any knowledge of any Romanian Christians. "I'm not of here, so I do not know anyone," he replied. As I was talking to him, two children pased on a moped. The tavern keeper whistled and they came back. They were Romanians. I told them that I'm looking for a Romanian Christian. "I live right next to a Romanian christian" said one child. "I’ll go with you and leave you at the gate and I will tell you his name. You have to shout his name, but I will not stay with you so that nobody will know I helped you (The Yugoslav policemen tried to catch Romanians and those who helped them cross the border). "
I remained alone at the gate and I called the Romanian Christian’s name. I was introduced to the house. It was a family of two elders. We prayed together, I narrated my story and what I wanted to do. They made me an outline of the road that I was going to take next. They told me to go back one kilometer on the road by which I came and I will see a channel called Moravitza. You will need to go seven kilometers along that channel. On your right you will see many lights. That is the customs crossing between Romania and Yugoslavia. So you get to the border with Romania to a place that is close to that customs point. I parted in peace after they entrusted me in the Lord’s hands. I took the instruction I received and after walking seven kilometers having at my left the channel and at my right a very high and green corn field, I came to a barbed wire fence. I went through that wire fence into Romania without being seen by those border guards which being busy with incoming and outgoing control at that hour after midnight, they did not see me although customs was just a few hundred meters from my crossing place.
Now I wanted to be sure if I really entered Romania, I entered a village just outside the border. Everything was deserted at that late hour of the night. I tried to find any Romanian inscription and I had seen a writting above a shop which read: "Cooperative” (a Romanian name for a store). I thanked God for helping me to get well in Romania. That vilage is called Stamora Moravitza.
I crossed the village and was informed by the Spirit of the Lord and left the main road and was going over the fields. My aim was to reach a train station named Gataia for going to the city of Timisoara. Something unexpected happened to me going over the fields. Suddenly I was surrounded by a pack of dogs that made great noise. The shepherds were sleeping near the flock. However one shepherd woman woke up ordering them to shut up their mouths and I was freed from the dogs. I witnessed how the Lord had watched me and made sure not to wake the shepherds, for He knew that they were informants of border guards. Some Romanian runners were caught by shepherds and handed over to guards, who after mocking them and beat them, sometimes very seriously, sent them away to be put in jail.
Gătaia village was still far and I was very tired because I had walked about 40 kilometers. I said, “O Lord give me transportation to get to Gataia.” I did not go very long and shortly afterwards I saw in the field a brigade of tractors and I asked one of the woman. Brigadier said to me, "Wait here for a tractor which will go there at 12 o’clock." It was about 9 am.
I went there. I used that time to rest, I kept my feet in cold water for they were swollen. One thing that caught my attention sitting in the tractor brigade was that was a big difference between the cornfields of Yugoslavia and Romania. In Yugoslavia the corn was very high and beautiful, while in Romania it was small and yellow. The Brigadier said,"Look, we have nothing to reap." It seemed like the difference between blessing and curse.
After we got there, I went to a restaurant near the station where I ate and I got Romanian money by selling a tape I brought from Yugoslavia. I traveled by train to the town of Pitesti, then took a taxi to the Mioveni village where the family of my friend lived. It was three o'clock in the morning when I called the apartment door. I told The lady to prepare the family for departure. I did not enter the apartment, but I went immediately to another friend and Christian brother named George in the village where I hid so that I would not be found by the police. George wanted to go with us to Yugoslavia. There was also a girl that came with us that I thought I would marry, but it was not so. We were in total ten people. The children were fully persuaded that God was going to help them meet their daddy. We traveled by train to a neighboring town on the border called Jamul Mare. From there we went down the road that parallels the border to Stamora Moravitza.
I remember, a miracle happened out of the village Gherman. It was approximately seven o'clock in the evening. We were walking on the left side of the road. George had into his arms the litlle girl. I was the last in the series of ten people. Suddenly I saw in front of us on the left side of the road two guards who stood in a booth. When I saw them I cried, "Lord block them, so that I would remain still." We passed all ten in front of them about a meter away and they did not move until we departed out of their visual field. I knew from the Lord that the border crossing had to take place at around three o’clock in the morning. Therefore we rested under a bridge until the time to pass came. We started towards the border on the same route that I had come from Yugoslavia.
Another miracle occured when crossing Moravitza vilage. We had to go right through the front of the guards headquarter. There was no sentry to see us. We approached the customs point where cars enter to and from Romania. We were not seen by the customs guards.
We reached the fence and I held apart the wires of the fence, allowing one by one to cross to the other side of the fence, and then I went too. We walked seven kilometers near the Moravitza channel until we reached the road that went to Beograde. We stopped a bus that took us straight to a police station in the town of Pancevo.
The mother and six children were staying at a motel for ten days, and after legal proceedings they were moved to a hotel in Beograde. My friend who was in Italy came to his family in Yugoslavia, then they all emigrated to the USA. The vision that this family received while they were in Romania, that they will go to brother John in the same way and will have abundant food while in their own country would be famine, became reality. Indeed there was plenty of food in Yugoslavia. I can not forget that very tasty bread, which you could not get enough of. Myself, I went back again to Romania where the Lord had done other miracles, some of which I wrote in my writing, “The Power of Prayer.”
I wrote these words to strengthen the faith of those who want to see that the Lord did not change, but He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
For us who had lived under a communist regime, it was something special to see a very clean city with very nice people and where people were treated as people. It was like a wonderland. But something grieved my friend. There was plenty of food, and his six children who had remained in Romania and his wife could not enjoy all this. At that time there was a famine in Romania, caused by forced industrialization by those who governed the country through purchasing of industrial equipment from abroad in exchange for agricultural products. Whenever my friend took a meal, he remembered his children, and crying would say, "Here I eat good dishes, but I wonder what my kids are eating there in Romania?" For me it was easier because I was not married. But this situation made me think. There was a tension that even sat between us.
After a stay of approximately 40 days in Goritzia, a Sunday morning I went alone to meditate while I was walking the quiet streets of the city. I was telling God that I was concerned about the situation of my friend and that I wanted to help him but I did not know how. I remember asking God to fill my heart with His love. It was dusk and I found a garden on the edge of the city where I went and spent the night praying. I asked God saying, Lord, give me love, or take me off the earth for I am not worthy to live as I see it now. When it was dawn, He gave me an answer that I did not expect at all. God said to me, "You must go back to Romania to help your friend's family escape."
I told God, "If it is Your will, please give me two things that I ask of You as signs so that you send me back in Romania. First, I need you to provide someone to help me with money for the trip, and second, give me a man of Yours in Yugoslavia to guide me on where to cross the border back to Romania, by land because I came from Romania crossing the Danube river, swiming, and now I need to go ashore to be able to bring friend's family since they had children. "I was filled with His love as I had asked Him. I felt that no commandment of the Lord seemed too hard. I was at His disposal, even unto death. I loved the Lord and people. But over that he gave me faith in Him that He will be with me all the time and what He promised, He will do. I felt doubled by another person who was inside of me, I communicated with and knew that this person was Jesus, through the Holy Spirit.
I did not eat anything from Saturday night and I decided to not eat and not drink anything until the crossing of the border to Yugoslavia the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, which was when the Holy Spirit told me to go. I needed these days of fasting to be sufficiently sensitive to the Holy Spirit's voice guiding me and always to know what to do.
I returned Monday morning at the hotel where I found my friend very worried because he did not know what happened to me. He drew a rebuke as between brothers. Then I said, "God sent me back to Romania to get your family out of there." Then my brother was quiet and concerned. "If it is true that God sent you, please remove my wife and our two daughters and the four sons to stay with our relatives." But I knew that God had told me to help escaping the whole family, the mother and six children.
In the same hotel, there was another Romanian that heard that I want to go back to Romania. He told me that he wants to go with me to bring his wife who was left out in Romania. I prayed to God saying, "Lord, if it be Your will for him to come with me let him come, but if it is not Your will, make him change his mind."I asked this because I saw that his condition was not quite right between him and God. Something strange happened on the last day when we were in the Zidarich family’s yard and we made a parting prayer. Holding hands, we formed a circle. That Romanian was next to me and his hand caught mine. While praying, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon me as something like an electric current and flowed through my hand into his hand. Suddenly seized with fear, he exclaimed, "I'm not going, I'm afraid." I saw that everything that I had asked God was fulfilled.
The time was near for the adventure to begin. It was Tuesday evening at five o'clock when two young men of the Mormon church came to our hotel, asking us to go to their church at eight o'clock because their pastor wanted to talk to us. We went there as we were told. We were introduced to the pastor's office where there were several brothers of his. Pastor turned to us and said, "We want to help you." Then I said, "If you really want to help us, behold God sent me back to Romania to bring my friend's family and I need money for the trip. The pastor replied, if God sent you, then let Him tell us too. Then we were asked to wait in an adjoining room. After a while we were called back and I was told, "Yes God told us that He should send you and we must help you not only with money, but with the whole church to support you in prayer until you do the work of escaping your brother's family from Romania. " They gave me, in the name of the LORD, a hundred thousand Italian pounds worth at that time about eighty dollars. We embraced, and they entrusted me in the hands of God.
Midnight was the time when the Lord informed me that I had to get on Yugoslav soil. The Zidarich family of Reformed brothers lived right beside the border with Yugoslavia. I remember that Mrs.Zidarich stood on a balcony of the house to watch for Yugoslav border guards patrolling along the border. At a signal I jumped the fence of their yard adjacent to the border and I was on Yugoslav soil.
During the forty days of my stay I learned to get along in Italian, so I could communicate more easily with Yugoslavians as some understand this language. I went into a Yugoslav town, Nova Goritza where after I exchanged my Italian money to Yugoslav money, and then took the bus to Beograde. As I arrived at a Beograde bus station, a taxi driver kept on insisting that he would take me to Romania. I left myself pulled in his cab waiting to see what follows. After leaving Beograde I asked how much he would charge me to go to Romania. The amount that he said was almost all my money. I said I could not go on. Then he said, "Behold, I will let you in the city of Pancevo, which is 20 kilometers from Beograde to Romania." When I sat on a bench waiting for the bus to Vrsac, another city closer to Romania, suddenly the Spirit of God said to me, "Speak to the man beside you in Romanian." Then I said to the man who sat on the same bench, "Excuse me, does the Vrsac bus stops here?" "Yes it does, but how do you know I am Romanian?" "God told me," I replied. "Oh, yes I understand, you are a Christian. I am a Christian too, an Orthodox." Then I told him all that I wanted to do, that I came from Italy and wanted to go to Romania to help a family escape out of there, a mother with six children. I also told him that I did not know any place where they could escape ashore in Romania because I escaped out on the water. But God told me that the man had to tell me where I could enter Romania on land so that I could take them back through there, because among them were children, even a girl that was only a few years old.
His answer was very telling, "I really am born in a village near the border known of old that is a place blessed by God where you can pass easily. I do not live there anymore but I will explain how you can get there. Here you go by bus to Vrsac, then take another bus that will take you to the village Marghita. There you will find Romanian Christians who will tell you what to do. "
He went with me on the same bus towards Vrsac for a few stops. Before he got down, he gave me some Yugoslav money and hugged me making sure that he will support me in prayer to let God to do the work.
I arrived in Vrsac at nine o'clock in the evening. The Marghita bus was gone. There was not going to be another bus until the next morning. I took a walk and asked few Yugoslavians for directions to Marghita. "You're crazy, I was answered, no one walks for such a long distance (about 20 kilometers), especially at night." God gave me a wind from behind and even though I was physically weak after fasting days held in Italy, I came to the village of Marghita after only three hours. The Yugoslav police cars did not stop me, though they were seeking to arrest Romanians and to give them back to be thrown into the hands of Romanian border guards. But I guess they could not think that an illegal would go towards Romania, because all the Romanians that were illegal were running away from Romania.
It was midnight and the entire village was dark. There was a single lighted window so I went in there. It was the tavern. One man was there, the tavern keeper. I asked whether he had any knowledge of any Romanian Christians. "I'm not of here, so I do not know anyone," he replied. As I was talking to him, two children pased on a moped. The tavern keeper whistled and they came back. They were Romanians. I told them that I'm looking for a Romanian Christian. "I live right next to a Romanian christian" said one child. "I’ll go with you and leave you at the gate and I will tell you his name. You have to shout his name, but I will not stay with you so that nobody will know I helped you (The Yugoslav policemen tried to catch Romanians and those who helped them cross the border). "
I remained alone at the gate and I called the Romanian Christian’s name. I was introduced to the house. It was a family of two elders. We prayed together, I narrated my story and what I wanted to do. They made me an outline of the road that I was going to take next. They told me to go back one kilometer on the road by which I came and I will see a channel called Moravitza. You will need to go seven kilometers along that channel. On your right you will see many lights. That is the customs crossing between Romania and Yugoslavia. So you get to the border with Romania to a place that is close to that customs point. I parted in peace after they entrusted me in the Lord’s hands. I took the instruction I received and after walking seven kilometers having at my left the channel and at my right a very high and green corn field, I came to a barbed wire fence. I went through that wire fence into Romania without being seen by those border guards which being busy with incoming and outgoing control at that hour after midnight, they did not see me although customs was just a few hundred meters from my crossing place.
Now I wanted to be sure if I really entered Romania, I entered a village just outside the border. Everything was deserted at that late hour of the night. I tried to find any Romanian inscription and I had seen a writting above a shop which read: "Cooperative” (a Romanian name for a store). I thanked God for helping me to get well in Romania. That vilage is called Stamora Moravitza.
I crossed the village and was informed by the Spirit of the Lord and left the main road and was going over the fields. My aim was to reach a train station named Gataia for going to the city of Timisoara. Something unexpected happened to me going over the fields. Suddenly I was surrounded by a pack of dogs that made great noise. The shepherds were sleeping near the flock. However one shepherd woman woke up ordering them to shut up their mouths and I was freed from the dogs. I witnessed how the Lord had watched me and made sure not to wake the shepherds, for He knew that they were informants of border guards. Some Romanian runners were caught by shepherds and handed over to guards, who after mocking them and beat them, sometimes very seriously, sent them away to be put in jail.
Gătaia village was still far and I was very tired because I had walked about 40 kilometers. I said, “O Lord give me transportation to get to Gataia.” I did not go very long and shortly afterwards I saw in the field a brigade of tractors and I asked one of the woman. Brigadier said to me, "Wait here for a tractor which will go there at 12 o’clock." It was about 9 am.
I went there. I used that time to rest, I kept my feet in cold water for they were swollen. One thing that caught my attention sitting in the tractor brigade was that was a big difference between the cornfields of Yugoslavia and Romania. In Yugoslavia the corn was very high and beautiful, while in Romania it was small and yellow. The Brigadier said,"Look, we have nothing to reap." It seemed like the difference between blessing and curse.
After we got there, I went to a restaurant near the station where I ate and I got Romanian money by selling a tape I brought from Yugoslavia. I traveled by train to the town of Pitesti, then took a taxi to the Mioveni village where the family of my friend lived. It was three o'clock in the morning when I called the apartment door. I told The lady to prepare the family for departure. I did not enter the apartment, but I went immediately to another friend and Christian brother named George in the village where I hid so that I would not be found by the police. George wanted to go with us to Yugoslavia. There was also a girl that came with us that I thought I would marry, but it was not so. We were in total ten people. The children were fully persuaded that God was going to help them meet their daddy. We traveled by train to a neighboring town on the border called Jamul Mare. From there we went down the road that parallels the border to Stamora Moravitza.
I remember, a miracle happened out of the village Gherman. It was approximately seven o'clock in the evening. We were walking on the left side of the road. George had into his arms the litlle girl. I was the last in the series of ten people. Suddenly I saw in front of us on the left side of the road two guards who stood in a booth. When I saw them I cried, "Lord block them, so that I would remain still." We passed all ten in front of them about a meter away and they did not move until we departed out of their visual field. I knew from the Lord that the border crossing had to take place at around three o’clock in the morning. Therefore we rested under a bridge until the time to pass came. We started towards the border on the same route that I had come from Yugoslavia.
Another miracle occured when crossing Moravitza vilage. We had to go right through the front of the guards headquarter. There was no sentry to see us. We approached the customs point where cars enter to and from Romania. We were not seen by the customs guards.
We reached the fence and I held apart the wires of the fence, allowing one by one to cross to the other side of the fence, and then I went too. We walked seven kilometers near the Moravitza channel until we reached the road that went to Beograde. We stopped a bus that took us straight to a police station in the town of Pancevo.
The mother and six children were staying at a motel for ten days, and after legal proceedings they were moved to a hotel in Beograde. My friend who was in Italy came to his family in Yugoslavia, then they all emigrated to the USA. The vision that this family received while they were in Romania, that they will go to brother John in the same way and will have abundant food while in their own country would be famine, became reality. Indeed there was plenty of food in Yugoslavia. I can not forget that very tasty bread, which you could not get enough of. Myself, I went back again to Romania where the Lord had done other miracles, some of which I wrote in my writing, “The Power of Prayer.”
I wrote these words to strengthen the faith of those who want to see that the Lord did not change, but He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
All my love, Ioan Nita
http://acryinthedesert.blogspot.com/
http://thefertility.blogspot.com/
intherevelation.blogspot.com/
http://toallrunners.blogspot.com/
http://toallrunners.blogspot.com/
The
prison is supposed to be a place of isolation, punishment, reeducation, and
recuperation, for those which through their behavior, became a danger to
society. Sometimes it is good, but sometimes it is bad. Some prisoners improve their
behavior, but others become worse.
In my life I experienced the posture of being a
prisoner in the prisons of the communist system because of being a Christian. I
have seen from inside the prison the impact that this kind of life and treatment
had on people of different age, culture, religion and political orientations.
First, for the teenagers, the prison is a school where
they can accumulate knowledge in things they never minded before. As an
example, a teen of 19 years old came for stealing something from a store and he
was convicted for six months detention. During this time he was dwelling in a
room with other teens that were experienced in stealing and other unlawful
things than he was. In the room, each inmate shared his experiences, adventures,
and skills. The nineteen years old teen was fascinated. The six months were
finished and the teen was free of prison. After eight months, the gate of the prison’s
room was opened again and the same teen appeared, with a two years sentence,
ready to share his own adventures, now professionally done, which fascinated
others newer than him in stealing. He became a client of the prison, having the
chance to learn other new skills and to come back again with more weighty sentences.
For the prisoners, the world is divided
in two sides: insiders and outsiders. A Romanian proverb told by insiders says:
“He, who drinks water from this well, will come again.”
If the teens were supervised outside the prison by
their parents or custodians without being in touch with the insiders, their
education would not be compromised as it was in the case above. The skilled,
old clients of the prisons are always ready to teach others and they feel proud
to do it.
Not
only the education can be compromised, but the physical and psychological
health of the prisoners can be ruined. The medical assistance in prisons, in
many cases, is not the same level as it is outside. Prisoners loose their
teeth, and their digestive systems are damaged. Some prisoners get infected
with HIV because having same sex intercourse without protection, or for using
the same needle for drug injections. The daily stress provoked by the isolation
from their beloveds can make some prisoners mentally disturbed.
If you are forced to live for a long time in the
company of ragging and angry inmates, you are in danger to lose your
psychological healthiness. For example, in a prison cell are six prisoners
convicted for different crimes. Each of them will expose his dissatisfactions, angriness,
talents, skills, and adventures, using the colored language common to insiders
as prison’s slangs and bad words. You are strained to listen to their speeches
even though you don’t like them. You can’t stop them and if you try to, they would
answer: “If you don’t like it inside, go outside!” Some time you must face very long and loud speeches
that go beyond midnight, accompanied
by the tumultuous laughing and applauses of the audience. As for me, this kind
of suffering was the worst of all in prison.
For the prisoners and especially the teenagers, the
danger of being abused is very high, and the homosexuality is very common in
prison. The abused victims don’t have the courage to make any claim to the
prison staff because they fear the reprisals of the “strongest” which govern over
the insiders with the “jungle’s law.”
On the other hand, the
families of the prisoners are in danger of being ruined. The spouses have to
wait for their beloveds, sometimes for years. The children being left without
one or both parents are in danger of become themselves the future clients of
the prisons because of the lack of suitable education. Nobody else can replace
the parents in a family. Also, the spouse remaining outside must work harder
for the family’s living.
The prisons are sometime universities of evil. Many
guards don’t have the adequate training and tools to keep the control of the things that
happen inside. So the strongest ones can maintain an atmosphere of terror and
oppression over the weak ones.
For some people
the prison can be a place of refuge from other worse things, such as wars. In
the times of war, many saved their lives by robbery or committing other small
crimes and resting in prisons when others died in the battles. For some homeless,
it might be a temporary shelter for the coldness of the winter, or for the lazy,
a place to find food and bed. I remember prison’s clients that were outsiders
in the summer and were insiders in the winter.
The prison might also be a university of good for some.
In prisons, you can find good people. Some of them are intellectuals. To be in
the same cell with them is a good opportunity to become an educated person.
Also the prison can be a place for learning professional skills, to become
graduated, and prepared for the life outside. There are schools in some prisons
and now in the internet era, it is very good occasion to learn.
The prison can be a good place for becoming a
Christian. There are ministers who contact the insiders with the good news of salvation. Many received
the gospel and their lives were changed for good. Working on the mind and on the heart of the prisoners, may be better
than restraining them physically. The Word of God has the power to change
lives by consoling those in troubles by giving them hope, not only for the
actual life, but for the eternal life too.
Many outsiders are too busy to find time for listening to the Gospel, but
for the insiders it is a good opportunity, since their time seems to be
endless.
Some good things can be seen, and some bad things too.
Prison can be a good place for some and a bad place for others. Because no man
is perfect, we have weaknesses that are manipulated by the subjects of
correction and the results can not be as expected. Some people put in prison to
become better, unfortunately come outside worse than before. The laws of our
time are man-made laws. They all are changeable and always is room for
improvement. Only the Law of God is perfect and unchangeable. But it does not contain this kind of
punishment…
Ioan Nita
