Caring Institute Honours PF Romania Founder

No one cared when seven-year-old Constantin’s abusive, alcoholic father died, leaving his family penniless.  No one cared when Constantin, as a young adult, tried to commit suicide after becoming disillusioned with the Communist Party of Romania and his role in it.  No one cared when he was thrown in prison on trumped-up charges because he wouldn’t recant his new-found Christianity.  Constantin Asavoaie knows how it feels when no one cares. 

But Constantin has also learned how deeply God cares for him.  And it is that joyful knowledge that motivates him to care for those who are neglected by society—prisoners, street children, the homeless and families of inmates.  “When we have God’s love in our hearts, it is impossible not to care about others,” he explains.

His compassionate concern for others led him to establish Prison Fellowship Romania and six PF Christian shelters for juvenile delinquents, poor mothers and their children, homeless adults, street children and prisoners’ children.

His tireless work has now garnered the attention of The Caring Institute, a nonprofit organisation in the United States that honours and promotes the values of caring, integrity and public service.  The organisation was inspired by Mother Teresa, who once said that “in the developed countries there is a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love,” which is worse than the material poverty of the developing world.  The Caring Institute was founded to recognize people who do care and give back to society in extraordinary ways.  Each year this charitable organisation honours a small group of adults and youths with the “National Caring Award.”  This year Constantin Asavoaie, Executive Director and founder of PF Romania received the Institute’s International Caring Award.

The awards were presented in Washington, DC, on 16 November 2007.  Past winners include Reverend Billy Graham, Maya Angelou, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, and Mother Teresa.  Representatives of the Caring Institute read about Constantin’s story and his work with PF Romania in an article from a PFI newsletter posted on PFI’s website (www.pfi.org) and consequently approached him for this award.  “The glory goes to the Lord,” he says, “I have nothing to give Him but my life.”  In his acceptance speech at the formal awards ceremony, Constantin described PF Romania’s work saying, “We are honoured to invest not dollars, but our hearts in other people.”