About Ilie Coroama
Ilie Coroama
Ilie Coroama, born in Romania, is the founder of Walk in the Light Ministries. As a child he ran through the forest with his mother in front of the invading armies of World War II. He can still remember the terror and hear the bullets whistling past his ears.
As a young man Ilie was involved with the Romanian underground church and was a key regional leader in an organized Bible smuggling operation involving 30 operatives. Taking Bibles and other materials into Russia earned him the title ‘spy’ by the Communist Romanian government.
Ilie was trained to hide and transport Christian materials across the border. As a leader in the underground movement, he had been trained by operatives from the West and knew what to say if captured. Many times he would be stopped on the street and God would give him just the right words to say so that the police would let him go.
On other occasions he was arrested and imprisoned for days and weeks at a time, beaten and interrogated. Each time he was set free but in 1974 word came that he was about to be arrested again and charged with espionage. This time someone in the underground network had talked and Ilie knew that if captured he would be executed.
God provided for his miraculous escape, though he had to leave his wife and children behind. Later, God would be faithful to reunite the family at a refugee camp in Austria. After arriving in California, Bro. Coroama began to minister to Romanian communities in California and across the nation. God expanded his ministry to an international level as he began to take spiritual and material aid to refugee camps around the world.
Even after becoming a U.S. Citizen, the Romanian secret police followed him in an attempt to capture him for return to Romania to be executed as a spy, and while on a speaking trip in Europe in early 1980’s he was drugged and kidnapped. Once again, God was faithful to provide for his escape; he was discovered by a busload of tourists and rescued by the Austrian police as a car carrying diplomatic communist officials arrived to transport him across the Czech border.
Shortly after the communist government in Romania fell in Dec. of 1989, Bro. Ilie returned to his hometown of Dornesti, located on the eastern side of the Carpathian Mountain range. He brought support and Bibles to those in his former community. The needs were everywhere, especially in the area of childcare. God opened Bro. Ilie’s eyes and heart through a young boy named Cristi, who became the first of many children who would be cared for by this organization.
Today, Ilie and Aurica Coroama continue to minister to the children of Romania, living at the Children’s Village at Livezile, caring for them and showing them first hand the love and faithfulness of Christ.