COUPLE FIGHT COMMUNISM

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 2

COUPLE FIGHT COMMUNISM

Women must be most concerned about keeping freedom from communism for the sake of their children, Mrs Sabine Wurmbrand, wife of the famous Rumanian pastor, said in Christchurch last evening.

In Communist countries mothers had their children taken from them if they were caught teaching them about Christ The children were put in atheistic boarding schools and their parents were forbidden to see them, Mrs Wurmbrand said.

She is accompanying her husband on a three-week preaching tour of New Zealand. They will also visit Australia and South Africa before they return to their home in California. The Rev. Richard Wurmbrand is an evangelical minister who spent 14 years of imprisonment in his homeland, Rumania. He is one of Rumania’s most widely

known Christian' leaders, authors and educators. “Hard times” for the Wurmbrands began in 1945, when Communists took control of Rumania and attempted to control the churches. For three years, Mr Wurmbrand conducted a vigorous -“underground” ministry, until he and his wife were arrested in 1948. LABOUR CAMP Mr Wurmbrand began his long period of imprisonment, while his wife was in a labour camp miles away, and their son was “put out on the street.” a friend took him in and cared for him, although she served many years in prison herself for it later,” said Mrs Wurmbrand. “It was a great joy to me when I was released from the camp three years later to find my child still a Christian.”

‘lt was years, however, before she was finally reunited with her husband. Secret police, posing as released fel-low-prisoners, told her of attending the burial of Mr

Wurmbrand in the prison cemetery and the whole country was told he was dead, she said.

After eight years, he was released from prison, but resumed his work with the underground church and was rearrested in 1959 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. GENERAL AMNESTY

He was freed in a general amnesty in 1964. He continued his underground ministry for another year, until Christians in Norway, realising the great danger of a third imprisonment, negotiated with the authorities for his release from Rumania.

The Government had begun “selling” political prisoners and her husband was ’’bought” for $lO,OOO, said Mrs Wurmbrand.

The couple now live in California, but travel widely. “We are working to bring

the Gospel to those who are under Communist rule, and even to the Communists themselves. We are trying to bring help to the Christians who are being persecuted by the Communists,” said Mrs Wurmbrand.

There were 15 underground missions in different countries, and members worked to smuggle the Bible and other Christian books into Communist countries. Help was also given to families of those in prison, she said. The Wurmbrands will leave Christchurch on Monday.