By Holly Meriweather

Sara Filimon lives in Brasov near Romania’s beautiful Carpathian Mountains. And since 2021, she has served as a BMA missionary along with her sister Vanessa Martinez, brother-in-law Cristian, and their family. Part of their ministry includes working at a coffee shop, which allows them to build relationships and share their faith. The managers have changed in the three years they have served there, but the coffee shop is where they started their first Bible studies on Wednesday nights.

Now they have established a house church called “Return” based on Zephaniah 1:9, and the Wednesday night studies have become their Sunday services. Although they no longer meet in the coffee shop where it all started, they still work there as baristas and have made many connections with people. Return Church now includes families, singles, and young people. They rotate homes and locations for their Bible studies so everyone can learn to host and serve in some way. Cristian teaches in English but two other leaders teach as well, one in Romanian and one in English.

They are also involved in street evangelism where they set up tables during busy times and ask questions of people passing by. Sometimes people ignore them or are not interested, but often they are curious about who Jesus is. It has brought people to Return church, especially more young people and families with children, which is who they are trying to reach.  

Sara has a burden for the lost in Romania where Orthodox churches have the most attendees, are very traditional, and have remained legalistic. But there is a large generational gap: The older generation are Orthodox Christians and insist on tradition. Sometimes their priests even warn people, “Don’t go to that Baptist church. They are some kind of cult.” 

The younger generation is tired of all the traditions and Orthodox requirements. They are looking for more and searching to find out what Truth really is. Young people don’t want to attend traditional churches, so they often find their own beliefs like reincarnation and other false teachings. Universally, people attend church just to do something that might please God, but explaining that He only wants their faith in Him and a sacrificial heart is a hard concept to grasp. 

Sara is very intentional about starting conversations, building relationships, and discipling others. But in her experience, people are willing to attend Bible studies and learn about who Jesus is but only for a short season. They just can’t make the final step to salvation. For example, Sara has a friend who left Ukraine during the war and began working with Sara in the coffee shop. The two became very close and spent a lot of time together, and her friend had agreed to attend Bible study as well.  

During this time, Sara had always shared the gospel whenever and wherever they were, but during a trip that included her friend’s sister, Sara’s friend suddenly told her firmly, “Please stop it! I don’t want anything to do with that. I don’t believe in God.” So Sara promised to stop bringing it up. But the sister was listening and said she had questions. During the entire journey Sara prayed for the two sisters, neither of whom have yet allowed God to transform their lives.

Sara’s friend has returned to Ukraine, but Sara continues to pray for the sisters and stay in touch with them. Please join us in praying for these sisters, as well as Sara and the Martinez family as they minister to those in need of Christ in Brasov, Romania.