Nelutu “John” Iubas made it clear that hope is alive in the midst of war in Ukraine, which will mark two years in February since Russia invaded the country.
“We have to understand that nothing that happens in our world is out of [God’s] control,” said Iubas, who is president of Romanian-American Mission (RAM) in Romania. He also serves as senior pastor of Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Bucharest. “We have a God who’s above everything, so He has a greater plan and He knows everything.”
RELATED: Check out the Special Report video here.
Iubas and his wife, Maria, joined Jennifer Davis Rash, president and editor-in-chief of TAB Media Group, on Jan. 24 to discuss ministry efforts in Eastern Europe. He and Maria have three young children and are visiting the U.S. as part of his role with RAM.
He encourages believers everywhere to lift the people of Ukraine, and throughout Europe, in prayer daily.
Going all in
Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Bucharest, Iubas noted, has a strong history of planting churches throughout the region. Just prior to the escalation of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2022, he had been serving in ministry while also running his own auto business for 15 years. He said he realized he had “to finish this segment of my life,” meaning giving up the car business. As both pastor and businessman, he explained, “I couldn’t do both. It was really hard and actually I was sacrificing my family. That was not right.”
In 2022 just as the Ukraine conflict was escalating with the Russians, on the day he was delivering his last car, he received a call from someone in his church. That person had been in contact with people in Moldova who were looking for places to send Ukrainian refugees. Iubas said, “He told them our church would be open” to taking them in.
Iubas called Maria and said, “Ukrainians are coming!”
Caring for refugees
At that time, Iubas noted, “we had just two sofas at church.” But after a series of phone calls, people from the church brought mattresses and gathered bedding and everything that was needed to welcome the refugees.
Ladies from the church, young and old, showed up to prepare meals, and 22 churches are now part of the UBC (Ukrainian Bucharest Churches) caring for refugees.
Eventually, the Holy Trinity Baptist Church spread beyond the church to include additional buildings and sites, including a campground with 105 beds. They have as many as 300 volunteers — Romanian, Ukrainian and American — helping to care for refugees.
Planting churches in a war zone
Iubas also serves with M4 Europe (m4europe.org) that focuses on planting churches across Europe.
When asked how church planting was going, he noted, “we’ve stopped a bit for the moment” because of the warfare in the region and the need to help refugees. However, in the prior two years, 34 new church plants had been started in Ukraine. Iubas said, “I had an opportunity to visit 10 of them last December.”
Several of these emerging churches are 10–30 kilometers from the front lines. “You can feel the ground tremble” from the bombing, he explained. But in these churches that may have only 10–15 members, they “are sharing the gospel in their communities.”
Iubas said his group brings in food, water, generators and other supplies to help the churches. In spite of the hardship of the war, he explained, “these disciples of Jesus actually got stronger” in their faith.
Assisting, praying for military leaders
Iubas shared more about how lives are changing — including a high-ranking general in the Ukrainian army. “He had developed a good relationship with one of the Baptist churches,” Iubas noted, because two of his soldiers were members there.
At one point, they had a chance to pray for the general. In a public space “12 or 13 people” came around the general, Iubas explained, “put our hands on him and we started to pray — and he started to cry.”
The general explained his emotional response saying, “In these hard times you, the church, are our partner because you know how to take care of us. Not just giving us food and water, you are actually praying for us, you are actually taking care of our souls.”
Listen to the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBwjb77pO2E.
