12 Days Away

I just returned after spending 12 days away from my home in Sighișoara. First, I spent the weekend of January 16-18 in Bucharest. On Sunday, I preached at the Blessing Church of the Nazarene in Bucharest. Then on Monday, January 18, I flew to Switzerland, to spend a week at European Nazarene College for the annual Leadership Conference and all-faculty meeting.

The first part of the week I spent at European Nazarene College was filled by the annual Leadership Conference. Nazarene pastors, missionaries, and other leaders from across Europe gathered for the conference with the theme “Being Transformed Transformers.” The emphasis was on discipleship and spiritual formation. Since this is the area I will be working in, I wanted to attend. The sessions of the leadership conference are available to download and listen to at the EuNC website.

The second half of the week was the EuNC all-faculty meeting. EuNC has the main campus in Büsingen, Germany, but has several learning centres throughout Europe, which allows students to prepare for Christian ministry in their home country and in their own languages. We have a learning centre in Romania, which is led by missionaries Michael & Tamara Hudson. In fact, they are starting an “Introduction to the Old Testament course” this weekend. I will likely be assisting in the Romania learning centre at some point in the future, so even though I’m not yet part of the faculty, I had the opportunity to participate as a guest. It was nice to see how EuNC is making it a point to serve students in many different contexts.

I stayed on campus with my friends Jason, Regan, and Carter Veach. Jason was the associate pastor at Overland Park Church of the Nazarene, where I attended in Kansas; they are now serving as faculty at EuNC. It was great to spend time with them and to see how much Carter has grown!

After the busyness of the conference and meetings came the rewarding part. On my last day before flying back to Bucharest, I got to participate in EuNC’s annual “snow day,” when students and faculty go sledding in the Swiss Alps. Each trip began with a 5-minute cable car ride up to the first stop (there are higher stops where skiers can go), followed by a 15-minute sled ride down the hill. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. You can click here to view the few pictures I took during my time away.

I had a good time away, but once I returned home to Sighișoara, I was quite exhausted, caught a cold, and had a lot of catch-up work to do...which is why I’m just posting this now, over a week since I’ve returned.