I Ended Up In A Prison Cell with Ben Sterciuc

After attempting to escape communist Romania, Ben Sterciuc found himself in a prison cell. The course of his life changed forever when he made one simple decision.

Transcription

My name is Ben Sterciuc. I’ve lived in this area for about 33 years in this beautiful city and all around in different suburbs of Seattle. And even as I pray for the city, it makes me think of my own personal journey of fate, makes me think of how I actually became a believer, how I came to the Lord, and then what my life is about. If I were to write a mission statement for myself personally, I would say, very succinct, that I exist to elevate Jesus through my life, through my words, through my deeds, through my actions, through my family, through my children and grandchildren, and hopefully for generations to come. To elevate Jesus, so that as we elevate Jesus, as we lift up Jesus, as the Gospel of John says, we would give people the opportunity to see him, to know him, to believe in him, and to be saved. And really that’s the goal of my life. That through who I am, through what I do, and through what I’m called to be and to do, to point people to Jesus.

I was born and raised in Romania and I was raised in a Christian family, but my journey took some detours in my teen years as an angry teenager who lost a father and had a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. Through a series of events I ended up in prison after I attempted to escape communist Romania. And for some friends that heard my story know that that was the worst thing that happened to me. And yet it was the best thing that happened to me because that’s when and where I encountered Christ. In a prison cell I surrendered my life to Christ, the lowest point of my life, hitting rock bottom as the Americans say, and only to discover that Christ was there to catch me, to find me, to get me, and for me to end up being on the rock of my salvation that is Christ.

And so I attempted many different things in my young life, but I ended up saying in a prayer in the middle of the night, “Lord, I surrender my life to you. I don’t understand everything, or anything really, but I surrender my life to you. Would you rescue me?” And I wasn’t really asking the Lord to rescue me from the prison cell, but I was asking him to rescue me from my own path, from my own distraction and way. And I do remember that distinct moment, and I love to remember it because it was really the pivotal point of my life just experiencing that powerful, bright presence of Christ’s light entering a prison cell with 40 inmates that were asleep in the middle of the night. And yet here I was on a bunk bed on my knees crying and praying and experiencing an encounter with Christ in the darkest place and the most freedom deprived place, I’ve experienced the best light, the light of Christ, and the best freedom that anyone can have, freedom in Christ.

And so my life changed dramatically since then. But I do remember one of the things that I said in prayer in that moment. I asked the Lord, rather I guess in a statement, I said to the Lord, “Lord, I want to be who you want me to be because I tried my way and it didn’t really work out. I want to do what you want me to do, and I want to go where you want me to go.”

That prayer actually turned out that it defined my life journey, my faith journey, because I discovered in life that it’s all about identity, calling, and the journey of faith. So it comes down to who you are. And in fact, if we look around even today in 2023, we have an identity crisis in America. People are looking at different ways to find their identity. And for me as a young man, finding my identity in Christ, to be what Christ wants me to be, and then to respond to the calling of God in my life, that is to do what he wants me to do and in more specific ways to go where he’s sending me. And so that really set a pathway, a system, and a way for me to move in life forward in my faith, in my family, in all areas of my life. And it’s a bit ironic that my life from that moment, from a prison cell changed so dramatically.

Not right away, I was still in prison, but I was free. I was still in prison, but I felt I was saved and I felt the most joyful and joyous ever in my life. And when I was finally released, I actually went home to my wife and told her that I met Christ in prison and she could see a dramatic change, full transformation in me and my life and my thinking and my believing and my behaving in all areas. A year later, I was able to escape communist Romania through a series of complicated events that required God’s supernatural intervention and eventually made my way to the US with my wife and son. So that’s like two years in a sentence of a journey. But all along I could see, probably more so in retrospect, I could see that God had predetermined the steps. And I love how the Bible tells us that in our prayer we ought to say, “Order my steps.”

We don’t think, we just look at the destination, but if we would think through each step as ordered by God, we would trust them more implicitly. And that’s what we witnessed in our own life as Christ brought us to the states and to the ministry, to the work that we’ve been doing in this area for the past 33 years. And so from a prison cell to a refugee camp in Austria, passing through Hungary and eventually here in Seattle. And so it’s been an amazing journey so far, but our life here in Seattle has… In a way has established as my wife and I and our family focused on learning the language, learning the culture, adapting, going to school, establishing, getting degrees, establishing businesses, ministry and so forth.

And so for a long time we just kind of figured like, “Well, this is the destination. This is what our life’s going to be, and as long as we serve in church, we’ll volunteer here and there and we’ll focus on our family, focus on the business, and pursuing personal goals. We are grateful to be here, very grateful to live in America when millions of people around the world would only dream to be able to do that.”

But over the years, we saw how God was once again kind of directing our steps into different directions, to the point where in the past 10 years, our ministry has shifted towards a more international focus. And it’s a bit ironic that what I prayed 30 some years ago, actually in some ways it’s fulfilled now because our ministry has expanded in seven countries in the past few years. So from here, from Kirkland, Washington, we’re serving in seven countries, Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan, Nepal, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine And so the church that we planted here in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle in 2012, through that, we started planting churches in Africa. And we’ve expanded several other countries from beyond that, like I said.

And as of now, I’m humbled and honored at the same time, to report that we’ve been able to plant 35 churches in the past several years. And God’s given us a goal to plant a hundred churches in this decade. We’re at number 35, and by 2030 we are praying and believing that God will help us plant a hundred churches because we believe that through churches we’re able to reach new people and new communities and new countries, and that will enable us to continue on this mission to elevate Jesus to all people.

Speaker 2:

Peace isn’t about the absence of problems, it’s about the presence of Jesus. For more go to the [email protected].

Ben Sterciuc:

So of course there are other areas of ministry that we do. We also do schools and clinics and a lot of humanitarian projects. And it’s been amazing to see how God has taken what I’ve trained in my personal life and professionally and vocationally, and that’s kind of taken a particular shape in the ministry. Specifically what I’m referring to is by profession I’m a registered nurse, I’m a geriatric nurse by profession. And so we’ve been in the elder care business, taking care of the elderly. So in a way as a nurse, we basically take care of the body, of the needs, the physical needs of a human person. At the same time, as a minister of the gospel, as a pastor, I address the spiritual needs of people. And then in my other job as a teacher, as a professor at Northwest University teaching in the nursing department and some theology, we address the concerns of the mind.

So in my personal, vocational, professional, spiritual life, I care for the body, mind, and soul. And now God took that which I practice every day in my life here and converted into the ministry that we do around the world so that when we establish a ministry base somewhere around the world in Kenya or Uganda or in other places, we focus on providing holistic care, if you will, so that through clinics and hospitals, we can take care of the body. Through schools and programs we can take care of the mind, education. And then through church plans, we take care of the spiritual needs, the soul. So body, mind, and soul. So never planned it that way, never had that intention, but God did. God knew every step and every time we trust him for a step, he is shown as the bigger puzzle that we’re part of. And it’s just beautiful to see him and to trust him in that.

And so as we serve around the world, I think it’s also important to say that we continue to care for our own city here. And so locally, sometimes people ask, “Okay, well you do all these things around the world, travel, but is there anything happening in our city?” And I say, “Yes, there’s a lot that is happening in our city here in Seattle and around the greater Seattle area.” And for the past several years, we’ve been doing a prayer initiative called A Hundred Days of Prayer. We gave it a name, Awaken Seattle, because that’s the goal. We pray that just like the Bible says in Ephesians chapter five, verse 14, “Wake up, oh, sleeper, and Christ will shine on you.” I mean, it’s really the idea that we pray for revival, pray that everyone will be awakened in Christ and the presence and the light and the power of Christ will shine in every soul that is awakened.

So we pray for a hundred days every year, and even this year we’re launching another prayer initiative for a hundred days. In fact, we’re just 18 days away from launching that.  So on May 18, we’re launching A Hundred Days of Prayer and wrapping that up a hundred days later on August 26th (**The 2023 event has ended. Coming again in 2024). So how that works, basically our goal for this year is to get a hundred churches and all their members involved in that. And so we’re messaging a lot of pastors and friends and everybody that we can think of through every media possible, including the radio and internet and everything else, saying, “Hey, if you’re in Seattle, if you care about Seattle, if you love our city, would you pray with us for our city?” Then every day of the week is focused on one particular area. For example, on Sundays we pray for repentance. On Monday, we pray for revival and restoration, reconciliation and redemption, and even reconnecting of Christians and churches. And so there’s seven areas of focus, including as the final one, the reign of God over our city.

It’s been amazing to see that even as we minister around the world, our city is not neglected. We pray for our city. We see the move of God. We see church plans taking place in Seattle and around Seattle. We see communities rising up to pray. We see the answered prayers. We hear testimonies of people getting healed, people getting restored. Marriages being restored. Yes, there’s so much on the negative side that’s happening in our city. As a city, we’ve experienced so much damage and distraction and frankly a spiritual darkness that we’ve never had before. But at the same time, we know that God is powerful, that the light conquers darkness, that Christ conquered death. And through him we can see an awakening, we can see a revival in our city, and that’s what we’re praying for.

Even as we take the gospel to the ends of the earth, this is our community, this is our city, and we want to continue to pray for our city. And in this season and this time, we ask people to join us in a hundred days of prayer. So that’s a little bit of my background and the essence of who we are as ministers and as a ministry. And it’s a joy to be able to share that with my wife and my children. In fact, my son works with me at the ministry, and of course now we have grandkids and getting the whole family to carry on the mission that God has given us. So it’s been a joy and we’ll continue to elevate Jesus to all people.

Narrator:

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