Dedicating A New Church In A New Land -- Romanian Pentecostals Rejoice At Bothell Services

BOTHELL - From out in the parking lot, you could hear the church music - joyful, soaring, rich, but unfamiliar.

Inside the wood-frame building, there were other out-of-the-ordinary signs. The front of the sanctuary featured the figure of a descending dove superimposed on three floor-to-ceiling columns.

And instead of "amens" and "halleluiahs," the sounds of "amin" and "aleluia" punctuated the air.

Finally, on the pulpit were words that seemed at once foreign and recognizable: "Isus Lumina Lumii." "Jesus, the Light of the World."

Was the mind playing tricks?

Not at all. Yesterday was the first Sunday worship service of the First Romanian Pentecostal Church of Bothell in a building near Inglemoor High School.

It is the largest Romanian Pentecostal church in the state and the latest religious root to take permanent hold in the Seattle area.

The area's 1,500 to 2,000 Romanian Pentecostals began arriving in the Seattle area in the late 1980s, fleeing communist persecution in their homeland.

The richness of the Romanian culture and the fervor of the Pentecostal faith came together for four hours yesterday morning and two more hours last night as some 600 worshipers jammed the sanctuary to dedicate their new building. Some came from communities in California, Portland and Vancouver, Wash.

The Rev. Vasile Antemie, pastor of the church, said members raised more than $500,000 for the land and building materials. They built the new church with their own hands. Many gave more than 10 percent of their incomes, he said.

"It's like a miracle. The donations were far beyond our expectations," said Nick Rosioru, a Bellevue real-estate agent who came to the Eastside in 1988 from Romania, with a stop in California.

Antemie said the congregation had been meeting in rented space since the church began with a handful of families in 1987. But that proved awkward, trying to sandwich in time between the host churches' services. They met first at the Neighborhood Church in Bellevue, and more recently at the Bothell Foursquare Church.

Romanian Pentecostal services typically run several hours in the morning and two more hours in the evening as people - in addition to the singing, praying and preaching that take place during the usual American church service - give personal testimony about how God has affected their lives.

Yesterday's service, in Romanian, was filled with praise for the new church building, but also admonitions that the congregation's real work of bringing people to Jesus was only beginning.

Antemie said the first Romanian families settled in the Seattle area with the help of American church sponsors. Now friends and relatives are joining families already here, with sponsorship coming from members of the First Romanian Pentecostal Church.

Antemie said the church presently has 240 adult members, and another 200 children in the congregation. Another 100 individuals are attending the church but have not yet joined.

In all, there are about 5,000 Romanians in the state, though not all are Pentecostal, said Antemie. Many arrived as refugees fleeing persecution under the regime of the late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who, with his wife, Elena, was executed on Christmas Day 1989 during Romania's anti-Communist revolution.

Ioan Mateut, 39, an electrician now living in Bellevue, said he left Romania because he constantly was running afoul of the Communist Party. He could never get a wage increase because he was a Christian, he said.

Though he recently was laid off from his electrician's job at Todd Shipyards here, he remains happy, especially since he has the freedom to worship.

In fact, in front of the congregation yesterday Mateut apologized for having doubts at first about the group's ability to build a new church. Initially, he thought the existing day-care center on the two acres of land was too small for a church. One night, however, he couldn't sleep. He kneeled down and he said God told him to get with the program, that the church was in his plans.

Paul Tuhlei, 21, a machinist who arrived in Kirkland in 1988, said the church gave the Romanian community, which is scattered from Kent to Everett, something to rally around.

"We really got united," said Tuhlei.

Dr. Florina Polocoser, 32, who with her husband and two children arrived in Bellevue in 1989, echoed Tuhlei's sentiments. "I like America. Everything is different. I like the freedom," said Polocoser.

To measure the faith that can be palpably felt in this new house of worship, consider the case of Antemie, 34, the church's volunteer pastor. A mechanical engineer by training, Antemie said he was laid off last week from his job as a tool-design engineer when the aerospace company he was working for in the Olympia area filed for bankruptcy.

Antemie took it as a sign from God to devote more of his time and energy to the church in Bothell.

"They (his former employer) were shocked that I was the only one happy to be laid off," he said.

Antemie said he will be looking for work as a mechanical engineer when he returns from a missionary trip to Romania.

Rosioru, the church member and real-estate agent, said there were no big donors to finance the church project. "Mainly we are a poor people," he said. But because worship was so difficult in Romania, "That's one of the reasons we are so zealous to have our own church," Rosioru said.

During the service, the women of the congregation wear headcoverings and the men are bareheaded, following the teachings of 1 Corinthians 11:4-5. By tradition, the men and women sit separately on the main floor of the sanctuary.

And during the time of collective prayer, the sanctuary resonates in a great murmur as individuals pray in Romanian, and some in tongues, say church members.

The church meets from 9 a.m. to noon and again from 6 to 8 p.m. Sundays. It's at 8315 N.E. 155th St. The church office can be reached by calling 488-7783.