Ruben

After I was saved, I continued to be a helper in the children’s ministries at our church and when I turned 18, I started teaching my own Sunday School class. I was 22 when I began leading in the church’s youth group.

After high school, I began attending Apollo, a Bible College chaptered through my home church. It was the same year that I started my law degree at the nearby university. It wasn’t long before my course load became so heavy that I decided to quit Bible College, in hopes of starting it up again the following semester. I knew God wanted me to finish Bible College, but I chose to finish Law first. Once I obtained my law degree, I was quickly given a job position at a factory. In Romania, most businesses hire a lawyer to notarize and to compile all their documents. I started classes at Apollo again and I was doing very well at work. I was making good money and I really enjoyed going to work in a suit and tie everyday. In order to be hired as a lawyer in a law firm, I needed at least 4 to 5 years of working experience as a lawyer at the factory. Three years later, the factory closed down without warning and I was suddenly without a job and I did not have the adequate years of experience to be hired in a law firm.

My father also worked with me at the factory. With both of our incomes gone, our family had never faced a trial so hard. I exhausted ways to find a job in Romania. My father and I had to do a lot of odd jobs just to make ends meet. There were several times when we were left with only enough money to put gas in the car so we could at least drive to church. Every time this happened, I saw over and over again how God provided for us. Sometimes, money just showed up at our door step and other times me or my Dad would receive a call of another odd job that would give us exactly what we needed.

This went on for about a year until my Uncle in Spain found a job for me as an electrician. I gladly moved to Spain to work and sent money to help my family in Romania until my father found a steady job at home. Once I was comfortable with my new life in Spain, I thought that I would never leave. In just three short years, I had learned the language and spoke like a native, I was living on my own, I had a good job, and I was even able to help my family finically when needed. Yet, I still had not finished my Bible degree at Apollo and I was getting more and more messages from the teens in Romania asking me to come back as their youth leader. God used this to make me think more and more about home. I felt Him calling me back to Romania. In faith, I quit my job in Spain and moved back home with my parents in Romania. Back to being jobless and uncertain of the future, but I knew it was what God wanted me to do. I finally finished my Bible degree at Apollo and God even gave me a seasonal job in Germany. This job allowed me to work three months out of the year in Germany and be home in Romania for the rest of the year volunteering in the church as the youth leader.