Beni's Story

This is the story of a boy who attends Kids' Club at Veritas, the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries partner organization in Sighisoara.



For more information about how to sponsor a child through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries , please visit www.ncm.org/cs. To sponsor a child in Romania, type "Romania" as the location. If no children are available at the time of your search, we apologize. We will be adding to this list periodically, as additional children are enrolled in Nazarene Child Sponsorship.

The following video, also filmed in Sighisoara, promotes Nazarene Child Sponsorship:



You can view Beni's story dubbed in Romanian below:

European Nazarene College is “Coming Home”

European Nazarene College (EuNC) announced in its December 2010 newsletter plans to discontinue residential programs at its main campus in Büsingen, Switzerland. The change will allow the college to strengthen and grow educational programming at its various learning centers, including the one in Romania.

From a school for many nations, it will become a school in many nations, said Rector Klaus Arnold and Academic Dean Antonie Holleman, the leadership team at EuNC.

European Nazarene College was founded in 1965 to be a school for many countries – helping the Church of the Nazarene on the European continent prepare ministers for service. Students were called to leave their churches and homes and move to the little German exclave in Switzerland: Büsingen. Now, after forty-five years, EuNC will only be providing ministerial education in the home context of the students. This means that EuNC will discontinue its residential programs at the campus in Büsingen and fully concentrate its energy and resources on education in the learning centers in the various European countries. From a school for many nations, it will become a school in many nations. European Nazarene College – in the truest sense – is coming home.

The decision was precipitated by rapid growth in the 15 learning centers in 17 countries while enrollment on campus steadily declined. This semester about 300 students are enrolled in learning centers like the one in Romania.

What does this mean for the Romania learning center? During the past five years, EuNC has been developing an integrated educational model for use in the learning centers. EuNC is becoming a decentralized school with one curriculum, one faculty, and one student body. In short, the quality and consistency of education students in the learning centers receive today is higher than it has ever been since the inception of EuNC’s learning by extension program in the 1990s.

This success demands more investment from EuNC in its decentralized education, making the college more effective in fulfilling its mission of “enabling disciples of Christ to participate in the mission of God and serve local communities of faith.”

Read more in NCN News:
European Nazarene College plans to discontinue residential programs at its Switzerland campus
Friday, December 3, 2010

Trustees approve EuNC plan
February 11, 2011

EuNC to close campus
Wednesday, April 6, 2011

EuNC has final commencement ceremony on Büsingen campus
Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Southeastern Europe Field Expands to become new Central Europe Field

During annual meetings in Northern Ireland in April, leaders in the Eurasia Region proposed the realignment of several fields as a response to increasingly demanding staff workloads, leadership changes, and missiological developments.

The changes also are a response to a significant drop in the Eurasia Region's budget over the past four years, as a result of the incremental reductions in the World Evangelism Fund, and because of the drop in purchase power of the U.S. dollar against the European Euro and the Swiss Franc.

The director of Global Mission, as well as the jurisdictional general superintendent, approved the new plan.

The plan includes creating a new field that consolidates pioneer and developing districts of Northern Europe with the pioneer works of the Southeast Europe Field.

This new field, named Central Europe Field, will include Hungary, Poland, and Scandinavia, along with the current districts in Southeastern Europe.

The rationale for this decision is that Hungary and Poland have a different history of Nazarene church development than the other districts in Northern Europe. In addition, Scandinavia has now expanded to be part of a broader pioneer "Baltic Connection" and it will require a similar missionary strategy of pioneer and developing works in the region.

The countries in the Southeast Europe Field include many other relatively new works, such as Albania, Kosovo, Croatia, and Romania.

Jay Sunberg, the current field strategy coordinator for the Southeastern Europe field, will be the field strategy coordinator for the newly consolidated field; he and his family will move from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Budapest, Hungary.

--Eurasia Regional Office

Read the complete article on NCN News

Child Development Conference

The last week of March, the Sighișoara Church of the Nazarene hosted a conference sponsored by Eurasia Nazarene Compassionate Ministries for children’s ministry workers. In total, there were 47 participants, including 8 Bulgarians, 2 Albanians, 23 Romanians. Trino Jara, coordinator for Eurasia Region child development, led most of the seminars, with one led by Zhana Georgieva from Bulgaria, one by Jay Sunberg (field strategy coordinator), and one by Larry Bollinger (NCM director), each emphasizing child development from a Christian holistic point of view. Participants came away with a new ideas for children's ministry. They also came to recognize that there are dozens of others in Southeastern Europe who have similar ministries and can support them in prayer.Photo: Conference Participants, courtesy of Trino Jara

A Big Disappointment

More than 2 years ago, the Veritas staff began working on a massive grant proposal, which would use European Union funds to significantly renovate and expand one of the Veritas buildings. The Family Center, what we call the building which houses the Veritas social ministries for families, is a former fur coat factory which was purchased in 1998 by Veritas and transformed into a social service center. In the past 13 years, Veritas activities have outgrown the space. Additionally, the poorly-constructed building, which served our needs at the beginning, is becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

One year ago, the grant-writing was finished and we began to wait. If rewarded to us, the grant would provide the equivalent of almost 1 million US dollars to transform the 1½ story Family Center building into a fully-renovated 3-story building, complete with furnishings.

This month (Feb 2011), we received word that Veritas did not receive the grant. We were all, understandably, quite disappointed when we heard the news. There is still a chance that the decision can be contested, meaning we would need to make several major changes in the grant proposal to meet their approval.

If we don’t receive the grant, we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with the existing building. It is in need of repair and expansion, but we cannot afford the complete renovations which the grant would have provided. We must also consider the option of moving the Veritas programs into a different building.

Please be in prayer for the Veritas leadership team as they wrestle with these questions and seek God’s leading in the coming months.



The Veritas Family Center (pictured above) houses weekday ministries, including a kindergarten and afterschool activities for children and teenagers and clubs for people with disabilities. Hot lunches are provided here for children, teens, and the elderly. Material aid distribution and programs for the elderly are also coordinated from here as well.

Below: the Veritas staff prepares the grant proposal for submission in Feb. 2010.

Miracle Baby

Bucharest, Romania -- When Irina Albei, of Bucharest Blessings Church of the Nazarene, prayed late last year for God to increase her faith, she had no idea this prayer would send her on a long, frightening and dangerous journey punctuated by miracle after miracle.

“At the beginning of the year I said, ‘God never shows me anything miraculous. Why doesn’t he bring a miracle into my life?’”

For Irina, trusting God was a relatively new thing. Although she was raised in a Christian family, the loss of her grandmother when Irina was 15 was too much for her faith. By the time she married and had her first child, Irina was virtually an atheist.

Although she had a loving husband, Victor, their family was financially secure, and she had everything else she wanted in life, Irina had no peace. A close Christian friend’s persistent prayers and loving witness, along with a year of intense research on the life of Jesus Christ and the veracity of the Bible, brought Irina into a personal relationship with Jesus about five years ago. Since then, God has rewarded her by bringing almost her entire extended family into the faith, as well.

Yet, early this year she wanted to grow her faith in God. Little did she know what she was praying for.

Medical emergency
The journey began this May, 13 weeks after she became pregnant. She was in an English class at church when, suddenly and inexplicably, the membranes of the amniotic sac broke, releasing much of the amniotic fluid that nurtures and protects babies in the womb until they are born. Without this fluid, fetuses cannot survive. With too little amniotic fluid, the developing baby faces a host of probable disabilities and deformities, and may still not survive.

After rushing to the hospital, a team of the best doctors there told her there was no hope for her child. No baby had ever survived with such little amniotic liquid at such an early point in the pregnancy, they told her.

They insisted that she abort.

“I asked, ‘Is the child alive?’ They said, “Yes, he’s still alive, but not for long.’ I said, ‘Look … I don’t agree with the abortion.’”

The doctors recognized that they could not talk Irina into the abortion, so they gave her papers to sign in which she agreed to legally accept the risks for her child. Then a doctor handed her a pill, which he said would help her to relax.

Monica Boseff, who leads the Blessings church with her husband, Pastor Cristi Boseff, was visiting Irina at the time. When Monica, who has training as a nurse, learned the pill was called Cytotec, she said, “Do not take this pill because it’s going to induce the labor and provoke uterine rupture and severe hemorrhage.”

"I have a mission"
Realizing that the hospital doctors were not going to help her carry the child to term, Irina went with Boseff to a different hospital where a young doctor – only 33 years old – agreed to take her case.

Irina spent the next five months in the hospital, ministered to by members of her church.

“It was a very difficult time during this period in hospital, but I experienced a very beautiful thing, which is the unity of the church,” she said. “I had read a lot about the unity of church in theology … but for the first time in my life I really felt the support of them. I discovered the church in Bulgaria, Albania, Canada and the U.S.– hundreds of people were praying for me and my son….Most of them I never met, and probably I will never meet them. I really felt the power of prayer.”

While Irina stayed in a hospital room with several other women, she began talking to them about the strength she receives from her relationship with Jesus Christ. The women were so attentive that several hours passed, and the interruption of lunch surprised them. They asked her to talk with them again about God.

One of the women, who was being treated for cancer, asked Irina if she could attend church with her after Irina was discharged. Irina urged her not to wait that long.

That Saturday the woman called Monica to ask if she could visit the church the next day. She began attending regularly, and in October she joined six other people at the altar to give her life to Christ.

“[Irina] called me and said, ‘Now I know why I am in the hospital and it’s not for the baby. It’s because I have a mission,” Monica said.

Delivery
On August 10, at only 26 weeks and 4 days, Irina went into labor. Her doctor had arranged for her to deliver at a hospital known for its advanced technology and highly trained medical staff. The hospital had prepared carefully for her special case.

The labor was moving so swiftly that her doctor didn’t have time to send her in an ambulance, so he put her in his own car. On the way, he called the hospital to let them know Irina was coming to give birth. He was shocked when they told him not to bring her, since the premature babies ward was still under repairs and renovation.

Frantically the doctor changed routes to a different hospital, where she safely gave birth to a boy.

The new doctor realized the baby had been living in the womb with very little amniotic fluid. She suddenly became angry with Irina.

“There is no chance for him to survive even 24 hours,” Irina said the woman told her. “You have to forget about this child.” She ticked off a long list of health problems the child would suffer if Irina allowed the newborn to live. She pointed to the boy’s left leg and said that there were no ligaments from his heel to his knee; he would never be able to bend his leg.

“I said, ‘Don’t you believe in miracles?’ She got crazy when she heard about God. The child survived, and after a month this doctor was forced to admit at the end that our baby was the subject of a series of miracles.”

The Albeis named him David Christian, after Israel’s king, in hope that God will say about their son what He said in Scripture about King David: “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart…” (Acts 13:22)

Defying the odds
The doctor had predicted David would have Down syndrome, and tests initially showed a problem with one of his lungs. Later tests showed he did not have Down syndrome and, although he was in incubation for 5 weeks and unable to breathe on his own, his lungs have been improving.

Then Irina saw David moving his left leg. Thinking she was not seeing properly, she tickled the limb. He jerked it back. Since then, his leg has moved normally, she said.

A few days after Irina delivered her baby, she was shocked to learn the original hospital that rejected her experienced a tragedy: The intensive therapy room for premature babies exploded; 6 out of the 10 babies there died. If she and David had been there, he might have died as well.

“My child was supposed to be there,” she said, her voice expressing disbelief. “So this is another miracle, because God just closed the door there for us.”

In defiance of the doctors’ disbelief, little David continues to grow and become healthier all the time.

“When I talk to people now, I’m not just talking theology from books I read, I’m talking about experience.”

It seems Irina has received her miracle. More than one, actually.

Talk about it

• Have you ever prayed, like Irina, for God to strengthen your faith? If so, how did He answer?
• God often works miracles through doctors and medicine. What are some other ways He chooses to heal?Irina described sensing the love and support of her church family during her crisis, including strangers in other countries. What does this say about the role of the Body of Christ?
• While in the hospital, Irina took the opportunity to share her faith with the women in her room. One of them later accepted Christ.
  

By Gina Grate Pottenger, Eurasia Communications
Published in Where Worlds Meet and Engage Magazine

Four Languages: One Purpose

Romania and Bulgaria churches send first mission team to Moldova

Moldova – Three Nazarene churches in Romania and three in Bulgaria sent out their first international Work & Witness team this August. The team spent 10 days assisting local missionaries Sergei and Irina Talalay in conducting children’s camps in Moldova, a country that the denomination officially entered in 2009.

“A lot of people in Moldova speak Romanian, so it was logical for us to do something,” said Roberta Bustin, a Mission Corps missionary who pastors the Nazarene church in Sighișoara, Romania. “This really was a start for our people, for them to kind of get the feel for what Work & Witness is and be more involved in the whole thing.”

As part of the fledgling work in Moldova, the Talalays felt led to begin ministry to children and to start addiction rehabilitation for adults. The mission team agreed to help them launch these outreaches.

The 20-person team – made up of six Bulgarians, six Romanians, five missionary kids, missionaries in Bulgaria Jay and Teanna Sunberg and Bustin – were tasked with hosting a week-long vacation Bible school. Many of the team’s participants were teenagers, and the team spoke in Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian and English.

Bustin said the mission trip was a success in large part because of how well the Talalays planned and organized the projects before the team arrived. “I think that was a real advantage. We weren’t going in with things we wanted to do; we were doing what they wanted to have done.”

Sergei and Irina had distributed invitations to families in their area, asking parents to call ahead and register their children. Thirty-eight children reserved places. The Romanian-Bulgarian mission team divided the children into groups – two groups spoke Romanian and two groups spoke Russian. They led the children in singing, Bible stories, crafts and games, an English lesson and a meal.

Although the team was only with the children for the week, in that short amount of time they witnessed changes in the children’s behavior. On the first day, some refused to sit still, listen to the lessons or respect one another. By the end of the week, they sat quietly and listened, worked at learning songs and Scripture verses and treated each other more considerately, Bustin said.

The week of activities provided a core group of children for the Talalays to continue working with in a Kids’ Club ministry that began at summer’s end.

“They met all their goals and are running like crazy now in doing follow- up and working the folks they gathered during that time,” said Robert Skinner, missionary advisor to Moldova. “There are concrete results of new people in church and kids coming several times a week to Kids’ Clubs and other ministry ventures.”

The members of the visiting team also benefited from the experience. Some enjoyed giving of themselves to missions after receiving the investments of others for many years, Teanna said.
One woman from Romania said she learned how to improve ministries for children. Upon returning to her church, she made suggestions to the children’s workers about more closely integrating games and crafts with Scriptural lessons and memorization.

“Seeing these three countries working together was quite inspiring,” Bustin said. “Even though we didn’t speak the same languages [and] things were different, seeing how we all worked together … that was quite encouraging to see this inter-district activity.”


By Gina Pottenger, Eurasia Region Communications
Published in Where Worlds Meet, Year 7, Issue 8, November 2010 and NCN News