John & Anna Veres

John and Anna are ministering to Romanian-Americans in Cleveland, Ohio. John is one of the pastors at Cleveland Romanian Baptist Church.

John was born into a Christian family. His early childhood was marked by financial difficulties due to the fall of Communism and the economic depression that resulted from it. Furthermore, his parents got divorced in 1999, and John and his sister were raised by only their mother. The Lord worked in John's life and graciously opened the possibility for him to attend a local Baptist church. Growing up among Christian children helped John shape a different worldview than he previously held. The turning point in his life was during his studies in a Christian high school, when he was saved. Since then, he has focused on serving the Lord and ministering to the church.

Anna grew up in a Russian-Moldavian Baptist family. Her father was a deacon for more than 25 years. Her childhood was characterized by profound poverty. There were 5 children in the family. Her father is a man of principle, and he didn’t compromise his Christian faith. The Communist party offered Anna’s father some job opportunities with a better income; however, he refused them because they would have involved a commitment to the Communist Party in Moldova, which was intrinsically in antithesis to the Christian faith. He chose to stay faithful to the Lord, even though he had to pay a high price. Anna's childhood years were also characterized by social exclusion from her neighborhood friends and classmates. Her family tried to live the Christian life according to the Bible, and that put them at odds with people in their community. They didn’t do what other people would consider normal, and thus, they were blamed for being part of a Christian heretical denomination. Being considered part of a “sect” as Baptists, Anna's family was accused of betraying their family roots, the national church (the Russian Orthodox Church), and the nation in general.

John and Anna met at “Emanuel” University in Oradea, Romania, where they obtained undergraduate degrees in Pastoral Theology and Social Work. John saw Anna for first time at the seminary’s library. Later, he found out that she came from Moldova and that she needed some help concerning the Romanian language. Anna’s native tongue is Russian. He offered to teach her Romanian and to assist in writing her papers. Thus, they got to know each other. They decided to get married in 2015.

John was also accepted as a master’s student in Theology at Aarhus University in Denmark, where he studied the religious roots of Europe via Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. During their stay in Denmark, John and Anna realized that the Lord was calling them to minister to the Romanian community in the Aarhus metropolitan area, where there was no conservative evangelical church. In this sense, they started praying about planting a church in that part of the world. The Lord answered John's and Anna’s prayers, and a group of Romanians began gathering together. John and Anna ministered to the Romanians in Denmark for about two years.

Then, they decided to come to the United States for John’s Ph.D. work. When they left Denmark, about 20 Romanians were serving the Lord as a church under the leadership of a new pastor. They arrived in Kansas City with John as a doctoral student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2017. While in Kansas City, they ministered in the local church by teaching and preaching whenever was needed. In April of 2022, the Vereses moved to Cleveland, Ohio where John joined the pastoral staff at Cleveland Romanian Baptist Church. John’s passion is to pastor and to train the next generations of pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. He is the author of five books in both Romanian and English and covering a wide area of subjects, from historical and systematic theology to current ethical dilemmas, including biotechnology. John and Anna have been blessed with three children, Nathanael, Miriam, and Lydia.