Broken Vessels in Romania

Dannah Gresh: Asheritah Ciuciu says God can use anyone as a vessel for the gospel, no matter how broken they may be. 

Asheritah Ciuciu: So my prayer is, “Lord, take my life. Let it be consecrated to You. Do whatever You want with me.”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Brokenness: The Heart God Revives for April 4, 2025. I'm Dannah Gresh.

Sometimes we look at the lives of missionaries through rose-colored glasses, don't we? We think how incredible it would be to watch people hear about Jesus for the first time and fall to their knees and surrender!

As a missionary kid in Romania, Asheritah Ciuciu saw just that, but this is only part of her family’s story. A few years back, Nancy and I sat down with Asheritah to hear the whole story. She's a wife and a mom now, as well as an author. 

She's been a guest on Revive Our Hearts before to talk about food fixation and becoming satisfied in Jesus. We'll link those conversations in the transcript of this episode. As you'll hear today, Asheritah is honest about the joys and sorrows of life on the mission field. She reminds us that God does beautiful work with broken people who surrender their lives to Him! Here's that conversation now.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Asheritah, I was really interested to learn that you were of Romanian descent, married to a Romanian, and your parents were missionaries in Romania for a number of years. So you spent a lot of years there. 

During some of those years, I had the opportunity to minister in Romania both before and after the revolution in the late ’80s. I know that during that time you saw God work in some amazing ways!

Asheritah: We went back to Romania as missionaries in 1995. I mean, it's a long story, but while I was there we had the opportunity to minister to Gypsies. They're a specific ethnic group. They're considered the lowest strata of society, marginalized by all the Romanians—even by the 95 percent Christian Orthodox Romanians. Gypsies are not allowed to step into their churches. Even in the Baptist churches that we were a part of, there was one bench in the back where they could sit. 

Nancy: It's like a caste system. 

Dannah: Wow!

Asheritah: Absolutely, that's exactly what it's like. We would go into their little villages on the outskirts of Romanian villages, and by virtue of being white among a Gypsy group, we would stand out. 

My dad would start to preach the gospel and say that, “Jesus came to die for you too. And, God loved you so much He had you in mind.” Right there in the dusty streets, they would fall on their knees and surrender their lives to Jesus and say, “This is the best news we have ever received!”

Nancy: Wow! Is it something they had never heard before? 

Asheritah: I believe so. I mean, where would they hear it?

Nancy: This was “new” news to them.

Dannah:Wow, this gives a whole new meaning to the term “good news!”

Asheritah: Right! 

Dannah: Good news. What good news!

Asheritah: It was amazing to see lives and whole communities transformed by the power of the gospel. Men right there would take their cigarette packets out of their pocket and crumple them up and stomp on them and say, “From this day forward, I won't be mastered by the cigarette. I will be mastered by God!”

Nancy: Wow!

Asheritah: They were giving up gambling and alcohol and going out and working so that they could support their families. Women were being faithful to their husbands, staying in the home instead of going on the streets to gossip with their neighbors, and getting their kids around the table and saying, “Let’s pray!”

Dannah: Revival. You witnessed revival!

Asheritah: It was amazing. It was like seeing the book of Acts come to life! 

Nancy: Yeah!

Dannah: It sounds a little idyllic, perfect, without problems. So was it easy to live in Romania and minister to Gypsies? Is that the whole story? 

Asheritah: I'm glad you said that, because it wasn't. I think God uses imperfect people to point to His perfect love. I love my parents and my family, but behind the scenes, we were struggling. My parents' marriage was struggling. 

As a missionary kid, as a pastor's kid, there's kind of this pedestal that you're put on. You have to look a certain way and act a certain way. So on the outside it looked like we had it all together and everything was great. Behind our home walls there was a lot of chaos, a lot of anger, a lot of betrayal and lies.

That resulted in my parents getting divorced a few years ago. It has been hard. It has been hard to reconcile: how can God use a broken family like us? It doesn’t invalidate the work that happened in Romania because now there's brokenness in this family unit. But it's incredible because the Lord has been so gracious to show me that He’s not finished with us yet. The pen is in His hand. He is writing our story. We've not yet reached the end. I have great hope that the Lord will bring healing.

Nancy: And in the process, even now when you can't see what the end of that story all looks like, as you shared this with Dannah and me last night, it was obvious that God has done a work in your heart of dealing with anger and bitterness and forgiveness. Tell us a little bit about that journey. 

Asheritah: I'd grown up learning to love the Lord because I watched my parents love Him and feast on His Word. My hunger for God is because I saw my parents do that.

Nancy: Can you still thank the Lord and honor your parents for that?

Asheritah: Absolutely! I don't believe I would be in the place that I am right now if it weren't for my parents sowing that seed in me as a young child. I think because I admired my parents so much, and because they were spiritual giants in my eyes, it was all the more devastating to see that they are human too, that there is sin in all of us. 

So there was that anger and bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness and a need for justice. The Lord worked on my heart to show me my need for Him. The Lord came to seek and save the lost, and that sheep that strays from the flock is precious to Him as well. 

The Lord has placed in my heart a yearning and a longing to pray for my dad, to pray that he would come again to know the love and forgiveness of our heavenly Father. 

Nancy: As you look back, was there any particular point or season where the Lord turned your heart to forgiveness?

Asheritah: Yes, I remember reading about the Pharisee that went up to the temple to pray and say, “I thank You God that I am not like that tax collector,” and in the back was a tax collector beating his chest and saying, “Woe, woe is me, for I am a sinner!” In that moment, the Lord helped me realize that I was a Pharisee, saying, “Thank you that I'm not like my dad!”

Nancy: “. . . that low-down sinner over there.”

Asheritah: Yeah. I didn't do the things he did, because I was seeing his sin as greater than my own. The Lord used the Scripture to show to me, “No, we're all in need of a Savior!” That was actually the precursor for the food fixation and freedom journey that the Lord led me on—to realize that my own addiction was strong in my life, but Jesus is stronger!

Dannah: There's a question you asked a few moments ago that I want to go back to, because I believe there's probably a mom or a grandma listening who's in family ministry but has a prodigal, or a pastor's wife whose husband is struggling with pornography, or a family who was in ministry their whole lives and now their their lives are broken by divorce.

Does the brokenness invalidate the work God did through your family with those Gypsies in Romania? 

Asheritah: I had to really wrestle with that. But if God can use a donkey, God can use any of us, and ultimately . . .

Dannah: Which donkey are you talking about?

Asheritah: In the Old Testament? 

Dannah: Because I think the Lord must have really had a moment with you to use a donkey. So tell me the Old Testament . . .

Asheritah: Yes, Balaam is sent out to curse the Israelites, and he does it. He goes out against his better judgment and against the warnings of the Lord. But in this pass, the donkey stops, and Balaam is beating his donkey to move forward. Suddenly he sees an angel in front of them. The angel tells him, “If you would have passed through here, I would have killed you!” But the donkey talks. 

Nancy: The donkey tells him to stop, right? 

Asheritah: Yes, and it's because the donkey stopped that God saved Balaam’s life, spared his life. The Israelites were not cursed. Every time Balaam went out to curse them, he blessed them instead. I just think of that because . . .

Nancy: It's an unlikely way for God to do His work.

Asheritah: Right! God can use any of us. And really, are any of us perfect enough to be used by God? 

Dannah: I mean, look at the people God has recorded their lives in Scripture: Peter denying Christ in His hour of greatest need; David, an adulterer, a murderer. God uses broken people.

Nancy: Should any of us feel that we are worthy or qualified to be used by God? I can't tell you, Dannah and Asheritah, how many times in the quietness of my own heart I think, If people really knew me, if they knew what I wrestle with, if they knew the things I struggle with, if they knew the rogue thoughts and emotions that sometimes overtake me, if they knew the private, secret . . . And it's not like the big sins that you would say, “Oh, that disqualifies you from ministry!” But I think if people knew my heart, would they let me have anything to say? Would they listen to anything I say? 

That doesn't mean that we tolerate sin, or that we say it's okay, or that we minimize it, but I know that God chooses and uses broken people and things. 

 

Asheritah: I believe He uses the weak so that we would not become dependent on our own strength. Paul says we have this treasure in jars of clay so that we would point that He is the only One who is worthy. 

In Revelation, there's this scene where the angel cries out, “Who is worthy to take the scroll and break its seals, and there was silence.”

Nancy: And no one was found! Yes, silence.

Asheritah: Silence! Who is worthy? 

Dannah: Silence. 

Asheritah: The answer is only One, and that is Jesus! He is worthy, and it is for His glory and His praise and His honor that we surrender ourselves to Him. And like you, Nancy, I feel like an imposter. If people only knew. And so my prayer is, “Lord, take my life, let it be consecrated to You. Do whatever You want with me.”

Dannah: I'm glad that the brokenness of your family does not invalidate the work, because, as I have heard you recount some of it . . . It's one of those stories that you lived it. We generally read about the kinds of miracles you experienced as a child in books, you know, books by Corrie ten Boom and Elisabeth Elliot, where God does these miraculous things! 

So maybe take us on a little bit of that adventure, because Romania wasn't an easy place to minister. Could you openly share the gospel without any risk whatsoever in the entire time that you were there as a family?

Asheritah: Well, this would have been before I was born, in Communist Romania, Christianity was tolerated, but not if it threatened the supremacy of the government. My dad pastored a number of churches underground, which meant they weren't officially registered with the government. 

Because he refused to hand over lists of names of people who were being baptized and who were discipling and smuggling Bibles, he faced increased opposition. He would be called into the police station for questioning day after day after day. My mom, who was early twenties at the time, would be left home with her son, not knowing, “Is my husband going to come back today?” It was not uncommon for pastors to be imprisoned and beaten and persecuted.

Dannah: And they just didn't come back. They just didn't come back to their families.

Asheritah: They just disappeared. 

Dannah: They just disappeared?! 

Asheritah: Yeah.

Dannah: Wow, so high risk stakes for your mom and your dad!

Nancy: I have a friend who was a pastor. You may know him, or know of him, for many years in Romania during the Ceausescu regime. I've heard him tell the story many times of how in those years, the government had so many repressive policies.

The focus of many Christians was on the things that the government is doing that makes our lives difficult. My friend told about how the Christians in those days, I don't know if this is still true in Romania, but in those days, they were called “repenters.” The Christians of various denominations were called repenters. 

Asheritah: Pocăit.

Nancy: What's the Romanian word? 

Asheritah: Pocăit. (sounds like “poke-reetz-ee”)

Nancy: Pokee . . ., okay, I can't say that! (laughter) He shared how a pastor stood before his congregation at one point and said, “It's time for the repenters to repent!” And because the repenter term was a term of derision, they were not respected. 

This was not a thing that you wanted to be called. But he said, “We need to really be repenters!” He called the Christians to some specific acts of repentance that you would think, Well, they're just defending themselves. They're just trying to survive. These are things that are okay. I don't want to name what they are, because the issues aren't what matters so much, but how as the repenters began to repent of their sins, God actually there in the ’80s sent a revival!

Asheritah: There was a huge revival in [name of a city].

Nancy: Right. I’ve been in that city. I've been in churches there in Romania and have seen some of the fruit of that. It's been messy at points, but it was in the wake of that. 

Dannah: Your parents were a part of that?!

Asheritah: Actually, my mom was a teenager when that pastor got up and preached that way. She was part of that revival. She dedicated her life to ministry and to the Lord in that season. A few years later, my dad went to seminary during that time. 

Dannah: How did the government respond to that revival, initially?

Asheritah: It wasn't tolerated. And even in the city where my parents were stationed, even though there were several underground churches, teenagers, the youth, started coming in droves, and this little church plant grew to hundreds of people! 

And that was just not acceptable to the government, because something was threatening their supremacy. 

Nancy: In the end, it took the government under. God overthrew that government. The Christians didn't do it by getting armed or becoming politicians or whatever. The power of Christ in those believers became so great that the government couldn't stand it! It got overthrown instead of the church being trampled, as it had been for so many years. 

Asheritah: But there continued to be intense persecution even during that revival. My uncle was a general in the Romanian army, and he caught wind of a plot to assassinate my dad, basically. A couple years before, one of my father's classmates at seminary had a staged “accident,” but everyone knew that there was a bullet through his head. 

These were dangerous times to oppose the government, to stand in loyal allegiance to Jesus Christ. And because of that intense pressure and persecution, my parents planned for their escape from the country.

Dannah: And there were some real provisions of the Lord, some ways that God showed up to protect them during that time, right? 

Asheritah: Absolutely! My mom was twenty-one and six months pregnant with me when she left. She went to visit an uncle in Israel. The only way she got a visa was because she was leaving behind her husband and two-and-a-half year-old son.

Dannah: So they expected she would come back, right?

Asheritah: Yeah, she was not at a high risk of defecting. She went to Israel and applied for political asylum, and didn't receive it there. So she went to the next country that did, which was Greece. She was holed up in the airport in an office for three days, because if she left that office, there were Romanian policemen strolling the airport looking for defectors. 

Dannah: Wow!

Asheritah: Six months pregnant. I can't imagine this. I mean, my bladder even now . . . She sat on this hard chair just pleading with an airport officer, “I need to stay here for my safety, for my baby's safety, for our future.” It's incredible how the Lord provided!

This one lady was connected with everyone that was necessary to apply for refugee status in Athens, Greece. I was later born in Athens in a care center for pregnant moms. A few months after that, my father took my older brother on his shoulders, he was two-and-a-half years old. I mean, this is frightening to even imagine! My dad smuggled him across the border at night.

There were policemen with these rifles, with dogs. They were ordered to shoot on sight. There were many who died or who were caught and imprisoned while trying to escape. The Lord graciously protected them to cross the border at night, safely, and to Hungary. 

Dannah: Do You believe that the Lord closed the eyes of those men with guns?

Asheritah: With all my heart! Actually, after they were into Hungary, there was this provision that if a Romanian was caught within a certain distance from the border, he could still be returned, even though he was officially on Hungarian soil. 

So after crossing this little river that was the border, there was a contact he was supposed to meet. He got into his car, and it was just about dawn. He was wet from the waist down and had a suitcase with him and a little two-year-old. The car wouldn't start, and then it did, but they got pulled over by a patrolman.

This patrolman looked at the driver, asked for documents, looked in the back window, and saw my dad and brother. The way my dad would recount it, he'd say, “If he would have even said, ‘How are you today?’ I would have been caught!” Because he didn't know any Hungarian. And even seeing him wet from the waist down, he didn't say a single word. He just nodded and gave the paperwork back, and they were off to safety. 

Nancy: Heaven rules, right? 

Asheritah: The Lord is gracious and merciful!

Nancy: Now that escape was just—I want to be clear here—before the revolution.

Asheritah: Yes, that would have been the summer of 1988. 

Nancy: So God was moving, but there was still persecution.

Asheritah: Absolutely!

Nancy: And then a year later, in ’89 is when Ceausescu was overthrown.

Asheritah: Yes, we reunited in Greece, and then from there we came to the Unite States in the summer of 1989.

Nancy: Tell about your parents saying that they would go back to Romania. 

Asheritah: My parents made this kind of flippant promise. Who, in an hour of desperation, doesn't promise God everything, right? I've done that before: “If You will only help me escape, if You will help me do this . . .” 

Every college student has thrown up a prayer, “If You help me pass this exam . . .” right? And my parents said, “Lord, if You help us escape and make it to the United States safely, to offer our children a future of freedom, if Communism ever falls, we'll go back.” But that was a pipe dream. 

Dannah: You never would have imagined at that point that Communism would have fallen, right?

Asheritah: No. And just a few short months after they arrived in Chicago in December of 1989, there was that revolution that overthrew Ceausescu and established democracy in Romania. I'll be honest. I mean, this is my parent's story, but it's my family’s story. They weren't ready to go back!

Dannah: Well, let's unpack that, because the story you just told about their deliverance from Romania and from the oppression is a beautiful story. But I bet there was such fear and anxiety. As your dad let go of his pregnant wife to leave, they didn't know, “Will we see each other again?” 

As he crossed with his sweet baby boy across that border, it would have been easier for him to cross alone than with that sweet child. So all that trauma was still very, very fresh when Communism lifted.

Asheritah: Right. And for my mom, especially the way she tells it, she was finally seeing a future for herself and her family. Even the little things that you don't think about: she had a clothes washer. For the first time in her life, she didn't have to wash clothes by hand. 

She had a job at a hospital. We had plenty of food and abundance. I mean, bread and milk were rationed under Communism, and you'd have to stand in long lines for hours and hoped that there would be enough when you got to the counter with your ticket to feed your family that day. 

And so, to go from this land of scarcity and fear and oppression to a land of freedom and abundance, it would have been hard to turn around and go right back. The Lord had to do a work on their hearts for a few years.

Nancy: But they did go back. 

Asheritah: We did!

Nancy: And that takes us to when God gave them the ministry to the Gypsies, where they saw God move in such amazing ways.

Asheritah: I want to share this story because my dad actually went back in, I think in 1991. When they had left, it was as a fugitive. It was secretive. He didn't even really get to say goodbye to his mom. They weren't sure if they would see their family again. 

He went back to see how the country was doing, see his family. He had this little camcorder with him recording. My dad was and is an evangelist at heart. He would go on the street and just pull the car over where he'd see groups of people and tell them about Jesus. 

He has this camcorder out, and he's telling this group of Gypsies on the side of the road the good news of Jesus Christ. And right there, they accept Him as their Lord and Savior. He has this on video. 

There's this older woman with tears streaming down her eyes and saying, “Young man, you have come here and given us the best news, but you will go home. We and our families will die in our sins because nobody cares about us.”

Nancy: Wow!

Asheritah: As he came back to the U.S. in the comfort of our new home, he'd watch that video over and over again. “We will die because nobody cares about us.” That is what brought us back to Romania, specifically to work with the Gypsies in this season. The field was ripe and the harvest was plentiful. It is the Lord's Spirit that was at work to use us, broken as we were as a family, to bring many into the kingdom of God.

Dannah: Wow, what an honest testimony. That was Asheritah Ciuciu telling her family's story. You know, Asheritah was real with us. God did use her family mightily, but there was also brokenness. Asheritah is still actively trusting that God is good, even in the midst of the painful breakup of her family. And you know what? God still used this family. 

They were willing to say, “Yes, Lord," when He asked them to go to Communist Romania with the gospel, and the result was that many lost Gypsies surrendered their lives to Jesus. Maybe you're feeling like you're too broken to be used by God. Maybe your life appears just right on the outside, but you worry that if someone saw your heart, they'd call you unfit for the Lord's work. 

Well, we saw today that God is not limited by our weaknesses. There's nothing He can't do with a surrendered heart. You know, Nancy wrote a book on this very topic. It's called Surrender: The Heart God Controls. It's all about saying, “Yes, Lord!” for a lifetime, no matter what our circumstances may be.

We'd love for you to have this resource on your bookshelf, and so this month, we're making a copy available to you when you donate any amount to support Revive Our Hearts. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com to make a donation, and be sure to request your copy of Nancy's book so we can mail that straight to you. 

We hope you'll read it and become even more excited to say, “Yes, Lord!” just like Asheritah did. Well, on Monday, we're going to continue exploring the topic of surrender with a series based on Nancy's book. Come back and join us! In the meantime, we hope you'll enjoy sweet fellowship with your local church family this weekend, and then be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

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