For six years, Valentin worked and pastored from Italy while his wife, children, and home church remained in Moldova.
“The children grew up and grew up without me,” he says. “And the second thing was the church, and everything I did was done remotely [as the pastor].” He pauses. “It was a very hard time for me.”
Valentin’s situation is a familiar one in Moldova, where many family members face the difficult choice to move abroad for work and send money home to provide for their families. In 2025, these types of payments back home to family members, known as personal remittances, made up 9.4% of Moldova’s GDP—compared to a world average of 0.8% that same year, according to the World Bank.
