Langs
About the Langs
Our names are George and Emanuela Lang. George was born and raised in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Ema was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. We met and married in Bucharest – where George was establishing a Child Life Program in a children’s hospital – in 1995. We then moved back to Pittsburgh, living there and attending Grace Church of the South Hills (now named Journey Church) in Bridgeville, until our family of six moved to the city of Iasi (Yosh, rhymes with “Josh”), Romania, in June 2004 to serve as missionaries.
Iasi is a city of approximately 308,000 people located on the border of the country of Moldova. At one time, it was the capital of the Moldova region, before Romania was united in the late 19th century. It is home to Romania’s largest Orthodox cathedral and to its second largest university with 75,000 students. Iasi is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of Moldova and Bucovina. It is considered by many to be the country’s cultural capital.
Neither Ema nor George had ever spent time in this area before our fist visit as a family in the summer of 2001. Even for Ema, it is a strange place, with a different way of life and mind-set than in either Bucharest or America. It was not easy to adapt to the way things are here, including medical care. Since living in Iasi, we have had two more children, both born in a local hospital. The conditions are certainly not what we experienced with the previous children.
We homeschool our six children: Andreea, Zachary, Juliana, Gabriela, Victoria, and Samuel. All eight of us are pretty fluent in both Romanian and English.
Our Mission
Through personal relationships, to make disciples of Jesus Christ who seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness above all things and live a holy, uncompromising life pleasing to Him.
The People We Serve
As a family, we have discipling relationships with a number of Romanian families and individuals in the city of Iasi and beyond, encouraging their growth in their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
Since the very first weeks after moving to Romania, the Lord has brought individuals and families into our lives for this very purpose. We have relationships with people we have met both in the city of Iasi as well as with some of the Bible school students and their families in other villages. Most of them are new believers when we first meet them. Almost all of them are Roma (Gypsies*) from economically and/or socially meager (impoverished) circumstances. In a sense, we are helping newborn babies develop in a spiritually healthy way despite the circumstances into which they were born.
Our entire family is involved directly and indirectly in this process. Through the relationships developed between our children and children of those we work with or the people themselves, barriers break down and trust grows. As our friends can observe the interactions of a healthy Christian husband and wife, or parents and children, change occurs. More importantly, as they see us feeding ourselves on the Word of God and trusting in Him to provide as we seek His righteousness and His kingdom, and as we encourage them and show them how to do the same, transforming growth takes place. We also regularly assist a few of these families financially and materially as they learn to trust God to meet their needs day to day.
In late 2004, we met a missionary couple in Iasi from Louisa, Kentucky. The couple directs Faith Bible Training Center in the village of Schitu Duca (Skee’ too Doo’ ka) – about 18 miles from downtown Iasi. The center was started with a vision to give potential church leaders a seminary education, eventually being able to offer a master’s degree. However, most of the students who showed up, although being adults, had not completed a grade school education, let alone being ready for college-level courses.
Faith Bible Training Center opened in January 2005 and George was invited to start teaching there in September of that year. The students come from all three of the main evangelical denominations found in Romania: Baptist, Pentecostal and Brethren. They represent many villages as well as the city of Iasi and range in age from 17-years-old to post retirement age. Both men and women are welcome, although very few women have taken up the challenge to learn next to the men. Both Romanian and Roma ethnic groups are represented, with the majority of our students being Roma.
The school provides courses in: Systematic Bible Study and Interpretation; Old and New Testament overviews; Biblical doctrines; Christian life; Preaching; Teaching Methods; Church Ministry and Leadership; Church History; Biblical Counseling; and Missions, Discipleship and Evangelism. The school also hosts several conferences each year for men and/or women. Although the course work helps in preparing students for ministry of some kind, the school acts as a doorway into establishing discipleship relationships that continue outside of the school environment.
George also travels weekly to the gypsy village of Zece Prajini (Zay’ chay Pra zheen’), about 45 miles southwest of Iasi. Several of the Bible school students have come from that village. There, he disciples several new and not-so-new believers. He also frequently teaches at a church there. The church was planted several years before we met them, but they have discovered a need for consistent, sound teaching and example as they struggle to grow in their relationship to God and each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Contact Us
You can email us using the form at the bottom of this page, or you can call us. Our Romanian number is 011-40-332-432-637, but if you’re in Pittsburgh or the U.S., you can call us using our special Pittsburgh-based number at 412-200-5665. Keep in mind that we’re seven hours ahead of Eastern Time.
As faith-based missionaries, most of our financial support comes from individual donors. You can help by sending tax-deductible contributions to:
Romanian Missions
c/o Journey Church • 56 Prestley Road • Bridgeville, PA 15017
*Gypsies are an ethnic group found in many countries of Europe, but most predominantly in Romania. This group is marginalized by the general population, and faces great discrimination. Historically, they have not had access to more than the minimum required amount of education, many dropping out along the way due to lack of encouragement or educational support from teachers. Illiteracy is therefore high among this population. Jobs are routinely “filled” before a Roma applicant is considered. Sometimes they are able to find seasonal manual-labor jobs, or some odd jobs here and there. They are shunned by society, which has a great many fears related to gypsies, and therefore live in their own communities in poverty conditions. All Romanian gypsies know how to speak the Romanian language. Some have lost their common tongue (Romani), but many still know and use it.