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‘There Is MORE’: Eurasia Nazarenes Gather in Albania for Regional Conference

by Kristin Burchfiel, Eurasia Communications
Originally published at www.eurasiaregion.org/erc2025

Nearly 800 Nazarenes from across the Eurasia Region gathered in Tirana, Albania, November 4–8, for the first Eurasia Regional Conference since 2019. Under the theme ‘There Is MORE,’ pastors, leaders, missionaries, church members and their families came together for a time of inspirational worship, preaching, teaching, interactive fellowship, collaborative learning, and multicultural celebration of what God is doing across the region.

Participants represented a wide range of contexts, languages, and cultures, reflecting the diversity of the Church of the Nazarene throughout Eurasia.

The conference focused on six key Gaps, areas in which the Church seeks to grow in faithfulness and ministry effectiveness. These included: Engaging the Next Generation, Developing Leaders of Christian Character: Integrity and Anti-Corruption, Doing Church and Discipleship in a Digital Age, People on the Move: Caring for Immigrants and Refugees, Caring for Creation and the Vulnerable, and Responding to Secularism.

Plenary session speakers addressing these Gap topics included General Superintendents Filimão Chambo and Carla Sunberg; Global Missions Director Jim Ritchie; Eurasia Regional Director Mark Louw; Principal of Nazarene Theological College Deirdre Brower; Central Europe Field Strategy Coordinator Cezi Glendenning, and Eurasia Regional Discipleship Coordinator Chad Gibbons. Insights from several of these sessions are available now on the Everyday Eurasia Podcast.

Attendees also participated in collaborative breakout sessions designed to foster open discussion, cross-cultural collaboration, and the development of practical strategies for ministry in their local contexts.

A special Theology Day event on November 4 served as a stepping stone into the Gap discussions. Papers on each topic were presented, followed by panel conversations encouraging thoughtful engagement with the issues facing the church today.

Other highlights of the week include the ordination of one elder, prayers for those on the region unable to attend, the sharing of the Lord’s Supper, and celebrating the creativity, cultures, and community on the region through events hosted by Nazarene Youth International. These included Albania Night, the Eurasia World Market, a quiz night, and a talent show, all emphasizing the creativity, culture, and community of the Eurasia Region.

Following the conference, some participants remained in Tirana for Mission Experience Albania, a hands-on opportunity to serve alongside local pastors and church members through acts of service, compassion, and love in the community.

For many, the conference was a deeply spiritual time of renewal, reflection, and connection. The transforming work of the Holy Spirit was not only preached, but experienced. “It was a time of renewal and confirmation of the call of God, and to see old friends,” said Jennifer Lima, a participant from Portugal.

Regional Director, Dr. Mark Louw reflected, “It has surpassed our wildest expectations and our desire to experience the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit was realized. It was awesome worship, awesome fellowship, and awesome fun!”

He also concluded the conference by challenging participants to carry the momentum, learning, and inspiration from the gathering back to their local churches and ministries across the region.

Ordinations in Romania

From Eurasia Region Snapshots, November 4:

 

We celebrate with our brothers and sisters who were ordained in Romania on Saturday 29th October.

The District Assembly took place in Brasov and saw 3 men and 2 women be ordained -- of which 3 were members of the same family!

We praise God for his faithfulness and pray for our newly ordained elders, their lives, families and ministries.

-- photo shared by Dr. Busic, General Superintendent

Find us on Facebook

You may already know that the right sidebar on this website includes links to several ministries connected with the Church of the Nazarene in Romania.

What you might not know is that several of these ministries also have pages on Facebook that you can like. Check them out below:

Biserica Nazarineanului Binecuvantarea - Bucuresti
The Blessing Church of the Nazarene in Bucharest

Biserica Nazarineanului Sighisoara
The Church of the Nazarene in Sighișoara

Biserica Nazarineanului din Tigmandru, Romania
The Church of the Nazarene in Țigmandru

Tâmplăria Țigmandru
The carpentry shop in Țigmandru

Central Europe Field
The Central Europe Field of the Church of the Nazarene, which includes Romania

Eurasia Region
The Eurasia Region of the Church of the Nazarene, which includes the Central Europe Field

Veritas Sighisoara
NCM Partner organization in Sighișoara

Open Door (also in Romanian as Ușa Deschisă)
Shelter for Human Trafficking Survivors in Bucharest

Manual Translation Summit

By Gina Grate Pottenger Eurasia Region Communications

Where Worlds Meet, Year 12, Issue 4: April 2015
Republished in NCN News

The Eurasia Region held its first Manual Translation Summit in early February in Budapest, Hungary, a regional effort to train teams involved with translating the Church of the Nazarene denomination’s guiding document, the Manual.

Manual Translation Summit participants from Albania, 
Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Russia, and Ukraine

There were 10 language groups represented. Some of these groups have already begun updating their translations of the Manual to the current version (2013-2017). Others have an older version – 2005-2009 or even 1997- 2001. Other language groups don’t yet have a Manual, so their first priority is translating the Articles of Faith section.

However, before any section of the Manual is translated, each language’s translation team needs to establish an agreed-upon lexicon of how terms will be consistently translated – not only throughout the Manual, but also in other Nazarene publications. These include both theological terms like “entire sanctification” and organizational terms like “District Advisory Board.” 

Creating a “Nazarene lexicon” proves to be a complex task, as there are numerous technical and theological terms in the original English version which have no exact counterpart in some other languages. This means that translators need to find creative ways to retain the meaning of these English words when explaining them or replacing them with similar words in their own languages.

“’Superintendent’ is a strange word,” said Jonathan Phillips, the literature coordinator for Romania, who organized the summit, modeled after a similar summit held in South Carolina, U.S., in early 2014. “How do you translate ‘superintendent’ into Bulgarian or Croatian when they don’t have a word that quite says that with the same connotations that the English word has?”

Event coordinators & hosts,
representing German,
Hungarian & Romanian
languages

Finding an accurate translation of the Manual is critical to the unity and development of the church in every language group where the church has a presence.

“It’s important that the essentials of the Church of the Nazarene remain the same throughout the denomination,” Phillips said. The translation of the Manual makes it possible for “a single denominational identity – who we are, what we believe, and how we function – to be accessible to church leaders in their native languages.”

Translators also need to be careful to use theological terminology in their own language that shares the meanings of the Wesleyan-Arminian-rooted theological terms used in English in the Church of the Nazarene, which was founded in the United States before expanding to 159 world areas.

“There are other theological traditions in the country (of Hungary), and it’s so easy to automatically use terminology that the Calvinists or Catholics might use, because it’s in the culture, but then it has a different connotation,” said Imre Gusztin, the literature coordinator for Hungary.

Getting together and discussing these different obstacles and challenges was helpful to the different language group representatives.

“We shared examples from the Hungarian translation process that we thought were unique problems and others said, ‘Oh, we are struggling with the same thing. How did you solve it?’ It gives you ideas and opens up a new way of thinking about how to respond to it,” Imre said.

Scott Stargel, head of Global Nazarene Publications, led the summit. Since many of the participants are also involved with literature translation projects beyond the Manual, he provided training on the Nazarene literature translation process. He also introduced the group to the Wesleyan-Holiness Digital Library, a free, multilingual website that shares works related to Wesleyan-Holiness literature and scholarly research.

Finally, Stargel provided training for an open source software program used by professional translators called OmegaT. It learns terms and expressions from the translator, and remembers them when the translator encounters them again later in the translation process. It also has a spell check for most languages.

“We wish we had this years ago. I think this new software will ease the work,” Maria Gusztin said.

‘Called and Capable’ Women Gather in Romania

More than 80 women leaders from over a dozen nations
gathered in Romania to learn, debate and encourage
one another in ministry

By Gina Grate Pottenger
Eurasia Region Communications
Reprinted from Where Worlds Meet, December 2014

Eighty-two women from more than 15 different countries formed a large circle at the perimeter of the room on the final night of the Called and Capable Conference in Sighisoara, Romania, and passed broken bread and a glass of juice from one pair of hands to another.

The women took turns serving communion to one another, an act of solidarity with women leaders in many parts of the Eurasia Region who are not allowed to serve communion because they are women.

The significance of the moment was not lost on Olga Druzhinina, who is a pastor in Volgograd, Russia. “It seems like we’re all united in Christ; whether we’re women or men we’re all allowed to share our gifts in Christ. Unity was the main feeling. We were united in one Spirit and I was able to feel the Spirit there.”

The Called and Capable Conference was envisioned as a time to gather women in ministry from across the Eurasia Region for training, debate, encouragement and relationship-building. Lay leaders and ordained women were present. It was not limited to Nazarenes, as women were also invited from Free Methodist and Wesleyan Holiness churches and the Salvation Army.

“It was more than a women’s retreat; it was meant to be very much addressing the issues that we work with in our ministries as well as just the issues that directly affect women or people who are working with women,” said Louise Kenyon, a lecturer at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester, UK, who helped to plan the event.

There were eight workshops which ranged in topic from human trafficking to church planting, from spiritual pathways to ethical finance. Each day also included morning devotions and prayers, evening worship services, trips to visit local ministry projects, and small group outings. Dr. Paul Tarrant, of Glasgow, Scotland, was present as a medical consultant to conduct health checks for any women who requested them.

For Rev. Dheerender Bhola, pastor of the Dua ka Ghar Church of the Nazarene in Delhi, India, it was her first time to travel outside India, but the conference was a worthwhile reason.

“The conference meant a great deal to me,” she wrote. “I have learned so many things to improve my ministry through these workshops. I had the amazing privilege to hear so many testimonies and great works of various ministries. I could see the bold and transformative leadership there. It is an unforgettable experience.”

Being together, coming from different nations and cultures, allowed for the women to learn from one another and in turn find encouragement in their own ministries. Druzhinina attended the church planting workshop, led by Annemarie Snijders and Zhana Georgiva, both church planters in the Netherlands and Bulgaria, respectively. Druzhinina said the women presented honestly the challenges and struggles they’ve encountered in planting and leading churches. She realized that challenges she has experienced or observed in Russia are not unique to her culture or even to her own ministry, but are common experiences for any church planting effort, and may be faced by other women in ministry as well.

Kenyon said that listening to the stories of specific ministry challenges in other cultures on the Eurasia Region, she realized that those challenges have parallels in other cultures, even if they are expressed in different ways.

Annemarie Snijders enjoyed being surrounded by other women leaders on the ministry journey with her. “For years I’ve been the only [ordained woman] in the Netherlands District. So it’s very encouraging to meet other people who are ordained and who struggle with some of the same issues,” Snijders said.

Please pray for the women leaders--laity and ordained--across the Eurasia Region, that they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit and find unwavering support for their ministry.

Called & Capable Women’s Conference

They came to Sighisoara, Romania, by car, by bus, by train, by plane – 81 women from 19 countries in Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and as far as America, Scotland and India. They came for a conference organized by the Eurasia Region of the Church of the Nazarene for women in leadership: pastors, professors, and directors of NGOs. While the majority of participants were Nazarene, there were also Methodist, Wesleyan, and Salvation Army participants. It was the first conference of its kind – a time of encouragement and inspiration through times of worship and teaching, fellowship and prayer. Many of these women live and work in countries where it is not easy to be a woman and a leader in the church.

Singing was in many languages and translation equipment allowed for simultaneous translation of the worship services. Stories were shared, there were many opportunities to pray for one another in small and large group settings and workshops focused on topics of Biblical Principles of Ministry, Theological Reflection, Ethical Finance, Networking to Fight Human Trafficking, and Living with Balance and Harmony.

Free-time activities included a concert, hikes, and van excursions to neighboring towns of Viscri and Tigmandru where the Nazarenes have developed ministries with the primarily gypsy populations in these villages. The Nazarene Center in Tigmandru is helping the community through greenhouses, a sewing workshop, parenting classes for teenage mothers, and weekly programs for children and adolescents that involve Bible teaching, music education, recreation, and hot soup.

“Called and Capable” was the title of the conference. May all women of faith know that they are indeed called by God and capable of bringing the Good News to all they encounter, wherever they are called to serve.

Click here to read an article from the "Where Worlds Meet" Newsletter about the Women in Ministry Conference.

Adapted from Sheri Hartzler's blog.

"Power of One"

Pictured: Romanian pastors with missionaries who coordinated the translation project

At the Romanian District Assembly, the first of the "Power of One" materials translated into Romanian were distributed to pastors. The Power of One is the name of the Eurasia Region's Missional Church Initiative to involve every church member in the mission of the church "to make Christlike disciples in the nations." These books contain translated resources for discipleship, evangelism, church planting, devotions, compassionate ministry, and missional leadership.

To learn more about the Eurasia Region's Missional Church Initiative, visit www.missionaleurasia.com.

Third DS School held in Jordan

Madaba, Jordan

About 50 people from across the Eurasia Region gathered in Madaba, Jordan, in April for the third District Superintendent Training School.

Objectives included encouraging the district superintendents and providing opportunities for them to learn from other experienced DS. In the past five years, the number of districts led by missionaries has dramatically decreased as indigenous leaders take over.

"So you've got a lot of DSs where the district is new and it's the first time they're being a DS," said Brad Firestone, a missionary who helped to facilitate the event. "There are a lot of people who are new to the job and need to understand how to do it well."

U.S. MidAtlantic DS Ken Mills, U.S. South Carolina DS Eddie Estep, and Netherlands DS Arthur Snijders were the featured presenters, along with Eurasia Regional Director Gustavo Crocker.

The participants divided into smaller groups based on district characteristics, such as whether the district is missionary- or indigenous-led, new or mature. In these smaller groups, participants talked about their particular challenges and steps to grow and mature as a district.

"At the DS School, I learned more about how to form and cast vision for our district," said Tamara Hudson, a missionary and DS for the Romania District. "As we grow and implement healthy structures and systems, we need to be clear about our missional purpose. Forming a missional strategy that will guide our efforts is essential so that we do not lose sight of our purpose of making Christlike disciples in Romania.

"These kind of events give us time to reflect on our ministry and to encourage one another. It was wonderful to be together with other brothers and sisters from across the region who face similar challenges and carry similar responsibilities."

Missionary Nancy Firestone, who helped to facilitate the event, said the participants seemed to learn a lot from one another.

One evening, the group invited the Jordan pastors for a time of special prayer.

"That was really special because many of them don't get a lot of support or see a lot of outsiders on a regular basis," Nancy said. "They really seemed to appreciate the support and prayers."

Reprinted from NCN News

Hudson appointed first female district superintendent in Europe

Tigmandru, Romania - Tamara Hudson became the first female district superintendent in Europe on November 19 when she was appointed superintendent of Romania at the Romania District Assembly in Tigmandru.

Europe is part of the Eurasia Region, which also includes India and a portion of central Asia. There are now three female district superintendents on the region as a whole.

Jay Sunberg, strategy coordinator for the newly consolidated Central Europe Field, officiated at the assembly.

The Central Europe Field includes Hungary, Poland, and Scandinavia, along with the current districts in Southeastern Europe, Albania, Kosovo, Croatia, and Romania.

Sunberg served as Romania D.S. for the past three years.

Prior to this new role, Hudson was offering her experience and gifts to theological education, mentoring the district’s youth council, and assisting with literature development.

She previously co-pastored the Nazarene church in Brampton, Ontario, Canada (2007 - 2009), with her husband, Michael; before that, they served as missionaries in Albania for nine years (1996 - 2005) and Romania for two years (2005 - 2007).They returned to Romania in 2009.

Tamara Hudson was called to preach at age 16. She was ordained on the Canada Central District in 2006 and graduated from Brock University. She and Michael have three children, Julia, Elena, and Emily.

"This year I feel like we need to really focus on the basics of what it means to be a healthy church – our mission is to make Christlike disciples," Hudson told Eurasia Region Communications of her vision for the Romania District. "Our role here in Romania is to tell others about Jesus and to help them grow in their relationship with Him. And so that carries over into everything that we do in our local churches, any of the district things that we do – it’s all with this focus of telling others about the Lord and then helping people to grow as disciples in Him."

Note: The full Eurasia Region Communications interview with Hudson will appear in an upcoming NCN News series focusing on women in leadership.

From NCN News, Thursday, December 15, 2011