The Best Years

Roberta Bustin completes decade as a volunteer in Romania.
By Dorothy Tarrant

Despite 30 years working as a college chemistry teacher and 16 summers as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) researcher in the United States, Dr. Roberta Bustin still calls her decade as a volunteer in Romania the most enjoyable and fulfilling years of her life.

On 25 May, friends and church members at the Sighisoara, Romania, Church of the Nazarene surprised Bustin with a party to commemorate her 10th year as a volunteer in Romania. Friends shared how they had been impacted Bustin’s expressions of care for them, being with them in times of crisis and suffering, driving them to the hospital, praying with them, joining in family celebrations.

“[She’s] a person who combines strong principles and convictions with a warm and caring heart for all kinds of people,” said Ben Mehedin, a devout Orthodox Christian who worked with Roberta in the early days of her Romanian ministry. “She’s the person who for me who most exemplified the servant nature of Jesus.” This sentiment was echoed in the spontaneous words of many who were present.

Bustin first came to Sighisoara at the invitation of missionaries Jon and Margaret Scott, who pioneered the work of the Church of the Nazarene in Romania. After teaching chemistry for 30 years at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas, where she was a life-long member of the Church of the Nazarene, and working for 16 summers doing research for NASA, Bustin had a strong conviction that God was calling her to leave the world of science and academia to become a volunteer missionary. Her desire was to serve in evangelism and church planting. Her original job description was “to teach, preach, and do a boatload of other things.”

During her first year in Sighisoara, Bustin concentrated on studying Romanian and the “Ecology Club,” an activity which taught local youth the importance of caring for the world that God has created, while building relationships through activities like river clean-ups and monitoring the quality of the town’s drinking water. Several young people who first got to know Roberta through ecology club started coming to church activities and eventually committed their lives to the Lord.

In 1998, Bustin was asked to pastor the Sighisoara Church of the Nazarene, a new congregation that had developed out of the friendships between American students spending a semester in Sighisoara with the Romanian Studies Program and local Romanian young people. Under Bustin’s leadership the church grew and became a bilingual congregation that was reaching new families and isolated elderly people in addition to a vibrant group of high school students. Roberta devoted time to discipling these young people, many of whom are now serving the Lord in other places both in Romania and in other countries.

Five years ago, Bustin began a ministry in Tigmandru, a poor village 15 miles from Sighisoara. Most people have no regular jobs and little formal education, yet many have responded with eagerness to the gospel. Bustin has supervised construction of a large multipurpose building with a sanctuary, clinic, sewing workshop, preschool program, plus social and educational activities for youth.

For the past five years, Bustin has pastored two very different congregations. She also works steadily on ordination requirements, enjoying the challenge of classes in theology, Biblical studies and practical church leadership. She regularly teaches environmental science in the Romanian Studies Program and at European Nazarene College. Hundreds of visitors to Sighisoara have enjoyed her southern breakfasts, complete with biscuits and gravy, while her pie-crusts, chicken salad and “Roberta cake” are mainstays at the International Café. On the rare occasions that she takes time off, Bustin most enjoys exploring the Romanian countryside, especially the mountains.

Source: SEE Sketches, Vol. 4, Issue 3, June. 2007; reprinted in Where Worlds Meet, Year 4, Issue 6, July 2007