"It Felt Like an Electric Current was Flowing through My Body, and Immediately I Knew this Book was Not Like any Other Book"

Esther Hippel : Apr 3, 2014
Operation Mobilization

Broken Man Considered "Beyond Hope" is Transformed After Being "Electrified" by Word the of God

(Moldova)—After four broken marriages, alcoholism, stealing, fighting, prison and attempted suicide, how it is that Viorel Cebotari today runs a vulnerable children's day center for Operation Mobilization (OM) in Caplani, a village in south-eastern Moldova?

The 41-year-old Moldovan is married, has three children and is a hard worker, devoted to God and his community. Meeting him, it is hard to imagine that for many years he was a criminal and alcoholic—a man considered to be beyond hope. But he happily testifies to the miracle God has done in his life.

Growing up during communism, Viorel was taught that God did not exist. His father committed suicide when he was two, and he grew up as an only child. Soon, Viorel was going his own way, ignoring his mother's attempts to set him straight.

As a teenager, Viorel and his friends were the village troublemakers. Drinking, stealing and getting into fights, they were constantly in trouble with the police and frequently in and out of prison.

By age 25, Viorel, sick of his empty life, tried to commit suicide by drinking poison. He was rushed to hospital and survived. Even after this, though, he continued his old ways for several years and never thought about God. That was, until he found himself in prison once more after seriously injuring another man in a bar fight.

To Viorel's surprise, his cellmate asked questions about God and seemed to believe that "somewhere there is a God". But Viorel despised his life—he had been married four times and his wives had left him. He felt lonely, knowing that nobody needed or wanted him.

The idea of God repeatedly returned to Viorel's mind, though, and he made a deal with God: "If you really exist, get me out of this prison and I will serve you!"

After one month, Viorel managed to bribe the authorities to set him free. However, he again returned to his old way of life. Shortly, in his spirit, God reminded him of his promise. Viorel assumed it meant entering a monastery. Since he did not know of any monasteries and was ashamed to ask, he decided to somehow get his hands on a Bible and see what it would tell him to do.

"I had no idea about the Bible at all," he admits today, "and I really thought it would be written in there which monastery I should go to and where to find it."

Transformed by God's Word

Viorel found a Bible and began reading. "I started right at the beginning," he recalls, "the first verse of Genesis: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' (1:1; NIV). It felt like an electric current was flowing through my body, and immediately I knew this Book was not like any other book.

"I had always liked to read," he continues, "and because my mother had been a teacher, we had lots of books at home, but they had all said that there is no God and we had evolved from monkeys. Now this Book said there is a God, and that He had created everything!"

Viorel continued reading and came across the narration of the woman at the well, in the New Testament, whom Jesus tells, "…you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband" (John 4:18; NIV).

I have only had four wives, thought Viorel. Here is someone else like me, and Jesus did not reject her.

He came across the same truth again and again as he read, from the woman caught in adultery to the criminal on the cross next to Jesus. It amazed Viorel that Jesus was willing to receive them.

"I had become used to insults and rejection," he recalls. "Not even my own relatives wanted anything to do with me. By reading the Bible the conviction grew inside me; God loves even me and for the first time in ages I felt hope..."

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