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.

Helping Survivors of Human Trafficking

By Gina Grate Pottenger
Republished from Where Worlds Meet Year 12, Issue 3, March 2015
Also published in NCN News

Bucharest, Romania – “Betty” Chirila says that when she was growing up with an alcoholic and abusive father, she didn’t feel secure; she didn’t feel love. Fortunately, when she was 18, a young man she knew invited her to church. What if a different guy had invited her somewhere else? To his house, maybe? To meet a “friend”?

What if that guy sniffed out vulnerability and took advantage? And then he sold her to a pimp, tricking her into human trafficking, a trap from which she could not escape?

That didn’t happen.

Instead, although she identified herself as an atheist, she accepted the invitation to visit the Church of the Nazarene where everyone was cheerful and the youth group welcomed her with open arms. After attending regularly for a while, she accepted Christ in a youth camp and began singing in the church’s worship team. She went on to college, earned a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree in psychology.

Now, as a psychologist at the Open Door, an emergency shelter for human trafficking survivors in Bucharest, Betty can empathize with the girls who come there to escape the hopeless black hole of sexual slavery. Like them, she remembers a childhood without the nurturing, safe feelings of being loved by one’s family. Although her life took a different course, the women and girls can sense her compassion informed by experience.

She was invited to join the staff by Monica, the Nazarene who founded the nonprofit shelter. The young man, Simi, who initially invited her to church, is an administrator at the shelter.

It’s the most fulfilling work Betty could have imagined. “[The women are] not confident in themselves and that’s one of the things that made them vulnerable for trafficking,” she says. “When they start to feel that they’re loved and when you start to give them attention, they are starting to open themselves like a flower, like a tulip.”

Betty has worked with about 30 survivors over the course of her time at Open Door. Normally there is only space for a handful to live at the shelter at any one time. The government brings the rescued survivors to the shelter, where Monica’s team takes over in caring for them and providing rehabilitative activities, such as teaching them to cook, manage money, shop and clean house.

She also helps them work out a plan to finish high school if they didn’t graduate, as well as to find companies who will interview and potentially hire them for jobs. The intent is to shape in the women a new healthy self-awareness and teach them to interact in healthy ways with others, as they become independent and re-enter society.

“They have no idea how to live, how to cook or clean or how to wash their clothes,” she says. “They depend on people. We’re trying to teach them how to live by themselves. It’s pretty difficult because many of them got used to a negative lifestyle; it’s pretty hard for them to adjust to a positive lifestyle.”

The shelter houses each woman for about 18 months, but cases are assessed individually, and women can stay longer if the staff evaluates that they need more time. The shelter also offers nonresidential assistance to minors, currently working with 16 children.

After having been involved so closely with redemptive work among trafficking survivors, Betty is frustrated that she perceives many Christians are still blind to the staggering reach of human trafficking.

Teanna Sunberg, missionary in Hungary, reported in an Engage magazine article:

According to the International Labour Organization’s June 2012 Press Release, Central Europe and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) Fields have the highest number of trafficking victims per thousand inhabitants globally. These two parts of Europe account for 7 percent of the global trafficking market. In other words, 1.6 million people from Romania and the Eastern European neighborhood are trapped in forced labour situations today, according to an article (http://goo.gl/b81rwp)

“If we would have God’s eyes, we will see things the way God sees them,” Betty says. “You can close your eyes in front of reality. That doesn’t make the problem disappear. That makes you ignorant. Right now I don’t want to do anything else. If you can change a life, then you can say you accomplished the mission of the Lord. They need me. I hope one day we will get more people involved.”


Ask God to bless Betty and her ministry among women and children who have been enslaved and are now free; pray that the survivors would find complete healing and rest in Jesus’ arms, and for Betty to have strength for the work.

Nazarene Seal & Logo in Romanian

The seal of the Church of the Nazarene:

The logo of the Church of the Nazarene:

These files are also accessible at whdl.org.

EuNC: One School, Many Nations

Since the school opened in 1965, European Nazarene College has been preparing and educating leaders in the Church of the Nazarene. For many years, students came to the campus from all over Europe to take classes in English. In recent years, however, the model has been changed; students now remain in their home countries where they can take classes in their native languages while remaining involved in work and ministry.

There are over a dozen Romanian students currently taking classes through EuNC's Romania Learning Center.

The following video was recently produced by EuNC to illustrate how it is one school in many nations.

Christmas parcels a token of love in Sighişoara

Republished from the Eurasia Region's "Snapshots"

"Thank you so much for this Christmas parcel – but thank you even more for you!" Juliana, sitting on the edge of her bed in her one-room apartment, smiles at us. "I will pray for you – you are more precious than this present!" She indicates the brown package balanced on top of a drawer which she knows contains a number of good things: coffee, chocolate, hand lotion and a variety of other food and hygiene items that she would never be able to afford with her meager pension. Then she points at the Helping Hands employees that visited her two years ago. "I remember you, and I've been praying for you ever since you came! This package you bring, it's from Jesus Christ. May God bless you!"

Juliana is one of a few dozen elderly people that the Sighişoara-based Veritas foundation, which grew out of Nazarene ministry in Romania, ministers to. Some attend "elderly clubs" that meet in different locations across the town several times each week. Others, like Juliana, are too frail to go to club meetings and are regularly visited by Veritas staff who bring them lunch every second day, spend time with them, arrange doctor visits, listen to their stories. It is a simple ministry, but makes an enormous difference for these people who are neglected by society, lonely and in need. Every sign of love and care is accepted with an overwhelming gratitude: like the Christmas parcels, that every member of the elderly clubs and house-bound elderly connected with the Veritas foundation receives: a token of love at Christmas.

For many years now, Helping Hands Germany has been sending Christmas parcels to Eastern Europe. The parcels contain food and hygiene items and are given to people connected with Nazarene ministries in Vidrare, Bulgaria, and surrounding villages, as well as Bucharest and Sighişoara, Ţigmandru, Viscri and Buneşti in Romania. This year, the "Christmas shipment" included 864 Christmas parcels that had been packed by individuals, families and groups all over Germany. Two Helping Hands employees and three volunteers were able to travel to Romania in December to join the distribution.

Many of the recipients in Bulgaria and Romania are elderly people who survive on a very small pension and can often barely afford essential food items or fuel for heating. But there are also many needy families with children who are grateful to receive a parcel with good things to cheer up their Christmas celebration. Some of these live in a Roma community at the outskirts of Sighişoara, where we visit after we have taken leave of the elderly.

When we arrive, we are immediately surrounded by children asking for their picture to be taken, grabbing hands, dancing through the muddy street. A few of them are holding tiles to their ears and talk excitedly – imitation smart phones: poverty is creative. It is almost dark and the abject poverty and poor sanitation in the community is not as visible as during the day. A young couple walks past – the girl, clearly pregnant, looks as if she is about eleven years old.

We knock on doors, evade dogs, hand out parcels and watch worry dissolve into joy as people accept this gift of love at Christmas. It is astonishing to see what happiness can be found in places that, seeing them, make us want to weep. We visit a family who, two years ago, was in despair about a parent's near-fatal injury. Today, only laughing faces meet us in this home, and the little sad-faced girl we remember from before is now a beaming whirlwind of Christmas cheer. As we turn to leave, we can see her taking the parcel into her arms, dancing with it in a circle and laughing happily. It is a simple ministry – just a brown package with food and hygiene articles. But for the people who receive the Christmas parcels, they make an enormous difference: the difference between being forgotten and being loved.

2014 TNU Social Justice Conference Speaker: Monica Boseff

Trevecca Nazarene University held its second annual Mobilizing the Church for Social Justice conference in September. Among its speakers was Monica Boseff, director of the Open Door shelter for survivors of human trafficking, located in Bucharest, Romania.

In the video below, Monica shares the story of Open Door.


2014 TNU Social Justice Conference Speaker: Monica Boseff from Church of the Nazarene on Vimeo.

Netherlands Mission Team Goes to Romania

A mission team from the Netherlands traveled to
Romania to support Nazarene churches there

By Jenny Ward
Eurasia Region Communications 

Reprinted from Where Worlds Meet, December 2014

The Church of the Nazarene in the Netherlands sent a Work & Witness team to Sighişoara, Romania, from 11 to 26 October. This team consisted of 19 people, ranging in age from 30 to 63, from eight different Nazarene churches throughout the Netherlands. Rolf Noordhof, who attends the Church of the Nazarene in Amersfoort, led the trip.

This was Noordhof’s fourth trip to Sighişoara, having led a youth organization to Romania 10 years ago. Upon meeting the Nazarene Church he then returned half a year later and then in 2007 he brought 44 computers to Sighişoara as the church continued to develop.

They traveled to Sighişoara with three main goals in mind. The first was to help rebuild the church so it can serve as a multifunctional location complete with a youth room and large kitchen to prepare meals for the elderly.

“Relu Cristurean, [the pastor of the Sighişoara church,] has big dreams about using the building for outreach so that the church can grow again…they want to renew youth in Sighişoara,” said Noordhof.

In the past the church was filled with over 20 youth members, but in Romania many young students leave to study elsewhere, sometimes even leaving the country. Relu and the pastoral team hope they can restore the building and create a place where the youth in Sighişoara will be able to spend time again.

The second goal was to visit the elderly several times a week. The elderly members of the mission team enjoyed meeting with the elderly of Sighişoara. “To talk, to pray, and to encourage them…that was a splendid time for them,” said Noordhof.

The third goal was to reach out to the children at the Church of the Nazarene in Tigmandru, a nearby village. There were about 30 to 40 children and Noordhof and his team visited them six times during their stay.

“We went for a short Bible story, to sing with them, play a little guitar, I brought my clarinet, and we shared small gifts with them.”

As the team worked together throughout the 15-day trip, they realized they were also forming a strong bond. “Although the team was very different in ages, in skills, everyone found a place and worked very well together,” said Noordhof. “Some team members said they’ve never felt so accepted and like they belonged to a group than this week. Now that’s remarkable.”

Roberta Bustin, a volunteer missionary in Romania, thanked Noordhoff and his team for their visit. They helped the Church of the Nazarene in Sighişoara feel connected to the international church and provided encouragement to the pastoral team as they continue to develop the church building.