Baptistic Theologies, 2009

or the Lord. The buying and transformation of the church’s building shows their example of sacrifice. The price of 60,000 lei that they needed to buy the land was an enormous sum for that time. How did they pay for the building? The first entry in the register reveals an interesting fact. They classified the families into three categories according to their financial possibilities. The first eight families, being in the first category, donated 50 Interview oflonut Handaric. 51 Memoriu 6 Ianuarie 1931 in Biserica Crestina Baptista Bicazu Ardelean, Registrul cu spesele. 52 Dunca, Amintiri din viatci mea, p. 122. The Beginnings and Growth of Baptist Witness in Bicazu Ardelean 53 3000 lei, the next nine families donated 2000 lei and the last five families donated 1000 lei, a total of 47,000 lei.^ 4 The rest of the money was collected from other donations. Considering the fact that the period between 1929 and 1933 is known as one of ‘economic crisis’, 55 their sacrifice is more remarkable. This analysis of the behavioural traits of the first Baptists from Bicazu Ardelean reveals a specific type of people in the area which contributed to the awakening which took place and to the growth of Baptist life. The traits are the following: a searching spirit, a decision to literally obey the Bible, initiative, and sacrifice. When these traits became the marks of a sufficient number of people then major change took place. Conclusion Analysing the factors which contributed to the impact the Baptist movement had in Bicaz at the beginning of the twentieth century, this paper has revealed that the spiritual awakening in the area was like a river. The cultural and territorial context of the village was the channel, the environment that was needed for the river to flow. Thus the administration of the village was open to specific influences, the activity of the British and Foreign Bible Society furnished the impulse for the people to study the Bible, and the evangelical movements from Romania offered options for the people to choose a specific message. The context was like the channel of a river but any river has a source. The source for this awakening was the activity of the Baptist missionary Gavril Dunca. His influence was due to the authenticity of his conversion, his missionary strategy, his organisational and innovative spirit and his example of endurance in the face of persecution. Gavril Dunca opened the source for the channel of the river to be filled with water. But the waters were the people who proved to have specific behavioural characteristics: a searching spirit, the decision to literally obey the Bible, initiative and sacrifice. As the people involved saw it, the influence of the Holy Spirit was at work in making them search the Bible, leading the way of the first missionary and helping people in their decisions. The Holy Spirit, from this perspective, was the real source of the river, but the