Rock of Ages is a prison outreach ministry in Romania led by Mircea and Ronela Cristian who have been working in the prisons since 1991 when they initially worked as translators for American missionaries who visited Romania after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Since those early times the ministry has evolved and Mircea and Ronela now lead a ministry that stretches across Romania working and training volunteers from local churches who are involved in over 30 different prisons and a further handful in Moldova. The volunteers run life skills courses for the prisoners and are freely able to share the Gospel. The ministry is also involved in providing basic provisions for the prisoners that are not supported by their families (such as warm clothing and shoes) as well as supporting some of the families that have extreme difficulties while their family members are in prison.
Ronela has been able to work in imaginative ways in the women’s prison, including doing arts and crafts together and again there have been lots of opportunities to share the Gospel.
Over the years Rock of Ages has also established a Bible Correspondence course which many Prisoners enrol on and study the Bible, often leading to powerful testimonies as they encounter God for themselves. Volunteers are involved in marking course papers and sending out all the various study materials for the prisoners.
With the pandemic, the work of Rock of Ages has moved online and the volunteers have had to adapt to doing courses via Zoom – but this has also enabled involvement with some new prisons that they were not working in before. Meanwhile the correspondence courses continue as before.
Mircea and Ronela visited TBC back in 2016, and TBC now provides monthly support to Rock of Ages via the local charity Transform Europe Network (TEN). Also, Rock of Ages were one of the recipients of the Harvest for the Hungry appeal that members of TBC contributed to in 2020.
If you are interested in any further details on this ministry please contact Terry Wood who volunteers at TEN and who has visited this ministry in Romania.
