April Update

Greetings from Sighisoara! Four months have slipped by since my last newsletter update. I returned to Romania from home assignment just before Christmas. These last few months have been incredibly busy. Here is a look at a few of the ministry highlights:

Transitioning Roles

For quite some time now, I’ve been trying to juggle too many responsibilities. This became especially clear in recent months, so since returning from home assignment, my priority has been handing over the responsibilities for discipleship ministries and child sponsorship to others. That will allow me to focus on literature development, theological education, and finances.

In January, my priority was to finish organizing materials for the 4-year cycle of children's Sunday school lessons. Since 2014, I have been providing children's workers in our churches with integrated lessons, coloring pages, and other activities to cover the major Bible stories from the Old and New Testaments. It’s basically a way to organize the materials we already have in a way that is more user-friendly for Romanian children’s workers, while ensuring that the whole Bible is taught rather than simply repeating "favorite" Bible stories. I wasn't able to finish in January as I had hoped, but I am getting closer to finishing this project. 

4 years of Bible lessons for children

Each year is divided into 12 units

Children from the Tigmandru church are now available
for sponsorship cs.ncm.org

Much of February was spent wrapping up my responsibilities with Nazarene Child Sponsorship. This included finishing the setup of the Tigmandru church's Child Development Center and training those who will be carrying out the administrative functions at both local and district levels. At the time I'm writing this, there are still over 30 new children available for sponsorship. CLICK HERE to learn how to sponsor a child through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries. (To sponsor a child from Romania, choose "Romania" from the location list.) [April 18 Update: Click here to learn more about the Tigmandru Children's Program.]

At the beginning of March, when feeling overwhelmed with all I had to do, I decided that I needed to get away for a few days. My first night away, I slept terribly wrong, and ended up with back and neck pain causing frequent migraine headaches over the following 2 weeks. I'm now feeling better physically (though not quite 100% yet).

Participants in the theology conference held in Hungary

At the end of March, I was able to participate in meetings regarding theological education in the Central Europe Field of the Church of the Nazarene. We enjoyed teaching sessions led by Stéphane Tibi, the Eurasia Region's new coordinator for education, and his wife, Sandra. We also discussed the challenges we face in preparing ministers for ordination in our varying contexts and shared solutions we've discovered along the way. Also while there, I heard encouraging first-hand stories of how Nazarenes are continuing to minister to refugees in several Central European countries.

In April, I hope to finalize the transitions outlined above so I can move forward with projects that have been on hold since before home assignment. Unfortunately, I still haven't caught up from being gone those 3 months in the fall, and my "to-do" list seems to be getting longer rather than shorter. In addition to pressing ministry-related responsibilities, there are several practical issues which need to be resolved, like getting my car repaired so I can drive it again, fixing a water leak in my apartment, and purchasing a new mattress so I can sleep better.

Thank you for your prayers.
Jonathan

Below are a couple more recent photos:

Reading from the Romanian translation of the Church of the Nazarene's Manual, Pastor Magda Cini leads the Țigmandru congregation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

While in Budapest, we received copies of "Nazarene Essentials" in Hungarian to take back for the Hungarian speakers in our Transylvanian churches.