is determined to be the ministry
of choice for people of integrity who desire to provide the youth of Romania
with the grace of the Gospel and hope for a better tomorrow.
The education
of the Romanian youth is our focus. We impart hope
for
this life and that to come
The urgency of our work is
clear. We are primarily concerned with the
present for these children are in risk of losing
their future.
If we cannot do what we do
through relationships
and with integrity,
we will not do it.
Our stance is clear and
unmistakable.
The reason for our work is the
Glory of God.
Touching all of Southern
Romania from centers in Timisoara and Curtea
de Arges
The Year of
Our Lord 2001
Fiscal Year Ending
September 30, 2001
Integrity InterNetwork prospers.
Articles are published.
Romania's largest Christian eAddress book grows.
Casa Biblica and iBiblioteca become the industry leaders
There is a great battle waging in the midst of Protestant circles as many
return to biblical Christianity. The battle is between knowledge-focused
and love-focused Christianity.
On one side, you have those who believe that what is most important
is what you know. If you know that Jesus is the way, the truth and
the life, then you will get to Heaven. It doesn't matter if that
is the Way you follow as long as you mentally assend to the idea.
You will here these people say, "The Orthodox and Catholics are not with
us because they think they can talk to Mary and the dead."
On the other side are the love-focused. They believe that all
who love the Lord above all else are saved. You are in the family
of God based on whom you are following. They accept believers of
all denominations. They love their knowledge-focused brothers but
don't accept their knowledge. This makes the love non-reciprocal.
I will take a stab at apologetics and hope to explain why the
knowledge-focused
theology is unscriptural, harmful, and repeatedly a failure in society
after society.
Why is there a need for this discussion? From the seat of a
middle-to-upper
class American white female, you probably wouldn't even have considered
the question relevant until September 11, 2001. The churches in the
USA has basically rediscovered its biblical roots with some notable
exceptions--pockets
of legalistic prejudism. The time of change coincided with the civil
rights movements of the 60's and the love generation of the 70's.
Christians born in that era grew in very different from their parents in
the World War years. The racist, sexist, religious churches died
off and have been slowly replaced by ecumenical grace-loving groups.
Groups of which I was a member included the Navigators, InterVarsity, Officer's
Christian Fellowship, and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. For
them, a person's thoughts (and hence denominiational preference) were much
less significant in their salvation than a decision "for Christ", "to follow
the way," "to be born again," or any other phrase indenominational time
and place.
America is a mission sending country and that makes all the
difference
in the religious climate. The missionaries that are sent from any
country more religious than their home country as a whole. Sociological
studies give us the etiology of this phenomenon: the more religious
and legalistic a group is, the more money and resources go to mission
works--the
Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Brethren. Their
beliefs may be vastly different as these three will argue they are, but
their degree of religious fervor for those beliefs is similar. Fervent
extremists impact the world much more than the moderates, as Moslems are
quick to point out after the September actions of Osama bin Laden.
The battle of interest is pertinent in the countries where these religious
zealots are now being presented with the Gospel of God's grace. People
are leaving the knowledge-focused legalistic groups en masse, and this
has drawn the retribution of those faithful to their cause. We will
see why soon.
God prefers a
love-focus
Skip to Society prefers love to knowledge
The first commandment of our Savior, Jesus Christ, is to "love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second is to
"love your neighbor as yourself."(v. 31) We see in this passage
a scribe who affirms the truth of Jesus's words. A
knowledge-focused
person would consider him saved, but does Jesus? No.
He says, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
Deciding to actually follow Jesus in these commandments is he would
have entered the Kingdom, the blood of Jesus covering the times
he strayed,(I John 1:7) which we all do.(Romans 3:23) No works could
ever achieve this.(Ephesians 2:8-9) Other Scripture confirms that
salvation comes by a change of "heart", the Greek symbol for "will".(I
John 1:6; 2:3; 3:24; 5:1-5, 11-12, 18; Luke 9:23-24; Matthew 7:21-23
19:16-26;
Mark 8:34-35; II Timothy 2:11-12) There is no place in the Holy
Scriptures
stating that you are saved by correct thinking, in fact we saw that
Jesus refutes this.
The knowledge one needs is that you come to saving faith by loving the
Lord above all else and accepting His blood sacrifice for your sins.
The results of this step of faith are knowledge and works as love motivates
you to read His Word and obey. If not, your faith is dead.(James
2)
Because knowledge focused theology is not supported in Scripture, it is
harmful to many. First, the more man becomes religious, the harder
it is to humbly admit his error and turn back. Someone who thinks
he is saved does not want to listen to the Gospel. It is much easier
to bring an agnostic to Christ than a Muslim, Mormon, or unsaved
legalist.
Misleading them with knowledge-focused doctrine hardens the heart.
Secondly, making people believe that they can follow any path they want
as long as they know Jesus is the right way makes someone believe and confess
that they are Christian while they indulge in sin. This offends God,
ruins the witness, does no good for the individual, and harms the economy,
society, family, and self. Thus, this belief-system is a stumbling
block that should be corrected from the pulpit.
A person is not generally attracted to others because they
are intelligent. However, one is attracted to people who love
him. Take marriage, for example. Few women marry a man
because he is smart but because he pays attention to her and makes her
feel loved. Men are even less attracted to smart women because of
the male ego. (In fact, statistics show that marriages where the
woman has more education are more likely to end in divorce.) Knowing
this, God commands a wife to love with her works and a man to love his
wife (Ephesians 5:22,25), not to increase in knowledge. That comes
with time and loving care. Let us investigate the workplace now.
Studies show that intelligence is less likely to please a supervisor than
good interpersonal skills. Even success in academia is more dependent
on making your advisers feel important and loved than on how much you
learn.
+ So, you see, in all of the secular world love is much more
attractive than knowing the right thinking. Now, let us turn back to the
spiritual realms. Degreed pastors with poor interpersonal skills
are not as successfull in building a following than are loving yet misled
ones. This largely explains the phenomenal success of the Mormons.
As the Pharisees did not gather the following that Jesus's love
did (which caused jealousy on their part),
as the Reformist drew the faithful away from the Catholic church
by preferring serving the poor over building expensive cathedrals (which
caused the Catholic church to respond jealously with the Inquisition),
as Mormons attract the outcast++
and as the Western church has matured from legalistic assemblies
to loving ones,
so loving groups that reach out and serve will grow while legalistic
groups must resort to threats, terrorism, and giving money donated by
compassionate
foreign churches (note Romania) or die out (note Italy)
What this means to our ministries Some missionaries and missions that are still doing things as they
did in prior generations will oppose us even though they might be from
a church that carries an evangelical or protestant name. They will
resist the return to the Gospel of grace. I have already suffered
slander and lies as the Mafia has tried to strangle the Kingdom growth.
We must not get distracted but stay the course of love and truth.
God's People will grow because they will have God's blessing.
+ For more on this topic, read Emotional Intelligence
by Daniel Goleman
++Though reports are that once you get in, the legalism
hits and it is hard to get back out.
Four of the graduates of the computer course with the guest
of honor. Albertin in the new computer lab.
AIDS
work
One problem we are adressing in Romania is the lack of
education
. Richard Easterlin wrote, "Wider schooling typically precedes
rapid
growth,"+*+
+ * many Repenters have told me that they thought
education
gets in the way of faith. One pastor wrote that the pursuit
of life on other planets was killing people
and wasting money. & I am sure he is unaware of how he benefits
from the scientific advances that NASA and Sputnik yielded.
The work with children who are HIV-positive continued in the Victor
Babes and Louis Turcanu Hospitals. Now, we have dozens of children rotating
through the hospital to receive daily education, counseling, and Bible
education. Often, in addition, we have the opportunity to serve them with
medication, to bathe them, and to hold them accountable for personal hygiene.
Erika Tonko joined our ministry in December and was trained by Claudia
Udrea. Now she is working on her own as Claudia and Tony Udrea moved to
Arges in January to work with Aurelia and me in the TB hospital.
Recognition for our work came when Claudia was on national TVRomania news
on January 18. They offered more coverage, but we turned it down.
TV-Romania
The proposals which I formulated for my former organization, SCOP, finally
bore fruit as the Day Care
was built and started functioning. I have handed over my SCOP involvement
to others and have developed a cooperation with Greater Europe Mission
to supervise Erika so that I can concentrate on Arges.
Mariana's words, "Oana knows how to read!" were beautiful to
hear. Oana is an 9-year old orphan with tan skin and dark hair. Deprived
of love in an orphanage in Bucuresti, she developed behavioral problems
and attention deficiency that used to get her thrown out of all her classes.
Although in second grade, she didn't know her alphabet. (The letter 'p'
was brought to her by Francis Friend of Lehigh U.) Aurelia's work
has started turning her around. Now she attends over half her classes as
she knows that Aurelia won't tutor her if she doesn't. Now, she can read!
The second reason why Mariana's words were beautiful was because last
year, even at 9-years old, Mariana couldn't speak. They told me she needed
an operation. "Dr." Laurent did the job without making an incision--just
some intensive therapy including grasping her jaw and lips to help her
form the sounds. In fact, she speaks so well that when Tony arrived he
couldn't tell that she had had a problem. Mariana had gone home but her
parents, impressed by her progress, found that she didn't receive the
specialized
attention in the public schools that she gets with us. She not only speaks
but is our second best quoter of Bible-verses.
In April, six-year-old Rodica could not identify any colors or count
to ten. After only 5 months, thanks to the help of Aurelia Dogar and Tony,
she can now identify 16 colors and count to 50.
Apathy was prevalent among the 80 children at the TB hospital, until
we started rewarding them for achievement each semester. Now, they
literally claw their way over each other to be chosen for tutoring and
cry when they can't get instruction but every 3-4 days. The
change in virtually all the children is remarkable.
The prominent reason is also the most controversial
part of our work--God. He is the one who changes hearts and minds.
Our experience confirms the research that shows "schools with
a distinctive character, including faith-based schools, are more
effective than [others]."* Peter Barnes, an AOG
pastor, reports that dozens of children made commitments to
Christ at the summer camp this year. (See picture below) These
and others who have come to know the Lord are the salt of the hospital.
Claudia and Tony moved down to help us during the period from January
to July. With the school director, we are pioneering new fields of education
in Romania.
We opened a computer lab at the hospital, making computer
education
available to the poorest of southern Romania's poor. The computers
are
being used by students in my classes, by the director drawing up
organizational documents and by doctors to
access journal articles. They have developed better
administration and even started a student newspaper, Le Crayon
. Because of my medical connections by computer and Internet,
I was able to alert doctors to two medications that they use, Rifampin
and Pyrazinamide, which have been noted in America as
causing liver problems. They will slightly modify their treatment techniques
here in a country where hepatitis and overconsumption of alcohol ravish
the liver.
Claudia's work with the nursery school children was of vital importance
to their future lives. A National Institute of Health study has found a
link between "child aggressiveness and day care - The more hours that toddlers
spend in child care, the more likely they are to turn out aggressive,
disobedient
and defiant by the time they are in kindergarten."** In the hospitals
where we work, the children spend not 8 hours but thrice that.
* Glenn CL. "The teachers' muddle." Wilson Quarterly
Autumn 1999, p. 55 and Rand Corporation's "High Schools with Character".
1990
Some of the kids with whom we work. They enjoyed the
camp we held at the Valea Iasului hospital
Community
Education
Our community education includes the following programs:
Evangelistic English lessons
youth investigative Bible study
grade school Bible study
Youth group
In response to our prayers, the evangelistic English lessons have continued
and the weekly group remains the size I prefer for one-on-one work,
four to eight children. There was so much interest in Bible studies
that a second one was started for younger children. These children cannot
get enough of our Bible study but are constantly banging on my door for
more.
These children of Orthodox backgrounds have heard the
Gospel and have had a chance to response. We will begin basic Christian
studies. From here, we pray that, as school begins, word will spread
and this group will grow to 4-8 children as well.
The Sunday evening Bible study of the Wonderful Spirit-Filled Life
by Charles Stanley continues. The host of the house church where
I used to preach has wed his daughter to a Repenter missionary. Soon
afterwards, I received letters from the leader and his new family member.
They explained that if I continued practicing hermeneutics and would not
accept the necessity of a headcovering for women, I could no longer take
communion. It was clear to all that the group got hijacked by the
Scottish Repenter. As Matthew 10:14 advocates, I dusted off my shoes
and took the Gospel to a more receptive crowd.
God's answer to our prayer for a Christian
employee with initiative, sales skills, and technical knowledge
to expand this work and make it self-sustaining has not yet been answered
as we hoped. As we wrote in our annual report last year, a knowledge
of the Gospel, capitalism, and computer are three rarities in Romania.
Graduates, including Valea Iasului
Subject
1999
2000
2001
Typing
3
8
8
Word
0
2
0
Excel
0
0
2
e-mail/Internet
0
0
3
Aurelia
teaches Cristina to read. Some Italian friends inspired to a world
vision.
Liv-n-LetLiv.net is first for "Christian humanitarian in
Romania".
This has enabled people to find out about our work and join in our
Campaign
of Grace.
Over Christmas, I translated files to allow Romanian to join the many
languages that can be used on Linux-based IMP e-mail around the
world.
As far as I know, it is the only on-line e-mail program in Romanian, so
it opens up electronic communication to monolingual Romanians .
Mike Quaranta of Lehigh and I hope it will be available to all Romanians
domestic and in diaspora as we have made it available as such. I have seen
people use it in several Internet cafes.
In May, iBiblioteca.ro climbed to become the top Christian library
in Romania, a position it still holds. It is also the site of choice for
people wanting to know about salvation by grace and it is cited 7th for
those who are looking for a refutation of "salvation by works". My research
article about woman's headcovering is the first one cited also. This is
a very hot topic and divisive among Repenters. Hopefully,
they will catch the Gospel presentation and come to know the Lord.
Our Integrity
InterNetwork is #1 for ethical Romanian missionaries. Itwas
established with certain criteria. First, they must agree to follow
Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives. Secondly, they must accept
that the Body of Christ includes believers in all denominations,
including Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. Twenty people have requested
and been granted admission. We have had considerable success in our
work and you can read about it here.
The size of the address book has doubled to over 200 Christians and Christian
businesses. While other groups seek a large listing,we are seeking
ethical
quality, so our objective is not to impress you with a large number of
entries in the book.
The Best Practices guide is on the Internet at www.Liv-n-LetLiv.net/howdoyou.html
. Four WebPages take some of the mystery out of some of the legal aspects
of working in Romania.
My vision and prayer is to find colaborers in this work.
Christian Management Report accepted my article,"Discerning
Justice" for their October 2001 issue. You can download
it in .pdf form or see page 27 of the magazine. It outlines some
of the things I learned in my career regarding the vital importance of
a manager to be fair to his employees. It will give you an idea of
my management technique.
Our Romanian tutor, Aurelia Corbeanu, whom I encouraged to publish her
writings handed me her first book, saying "I wouldn't have had the courage
to do this if it weren't for you." Hope and courage--two key words for
the work here.
Written
Publications
Support
FINANCES
Support
$US Cash only
Excluding goods
1998
1999
2000
2001
General Ministry
9885
17,509
35,661
34,310
Year-to-year Increase
+77%
+104%
-4%
Special Projects
633
AIDS Medicine
2344
200,000 offered but not accepted
Romanian Family Assistance
520
179
V.I. Hospital Evangelization
339
490
V.I. Hospital Assistance
300
758
Orphans
270
GRAND TOTAL (Offered)/Received
9885
18,418
39,015
(235,670) 35,670
Year-to-year Increase
+86%
+112%
(+504)
-9%
Discussion. God has continued to bless the work here beyond anything
that I could ask or imagine. Last year, even without doing
any fundraising, God brought us to 100% funding.
Because I am firmly against the dependency
and character weakening which is caused by giving handouts,
we tried to find people to work for the children. We have not found
people with the minimum level of ethics and Gospel understanding in Arges
which would be necessary to construct a self-sustaining ministry.
We were offered 200,000 dollars in medication through Go Ye Fellowship
but the political situation in Romania made the hospital turn down the
donation. Thus, the situation in Romania is limiting the growth of
the work here.
It has been proposed by donors and my supervisor that we develop our
spiritual work in Italy in 2002.
Discussion.
Last year saw the first decline in the number of
donors. One donor from New Zealand has become a missionary.
Otherwise, non-US support would have increased.
I will take steps to recover some of the donors
that did not donate last year through personal letters.
DONOR DIVERSITY
Diversity
CY 1997
CY 1998
CY 1999
CY 2000
CY 2001 (Projected)
Number of donors (excluding special
projects)
5
33
43
56
48
Percentage from 4 largest donors
100
43
37
36
37
Percentage from outside USA
0
3
6
3
2
PERSONNEL
FY1998
FY1999
FY2000
FY 2001
Missionaries Supported
1
2
3
2
Short-term or part-time missionary-months
3
9
19
43
Total missionary-months
15
33
55
67
Year-to-year Increase
+120%
+67%
+22%
Annual turnover in personnel
0
0
0
20%
Discussion. Growth in personnel has been healthy. We have been able to integrate
new people well. The person who I mentioned impressing us last year
was Erika and she is hired and doing well. However, as mentioned in last
year's annual report, the difficulty finding qualified people has been
difficult. For this reason, we want to start looking internationally
for these people and to build a team.
Also as aluded to last annual report, we could not keep a 0% annual
turnover but had to let one person go for disciplinary reasons. Claudia
left with her husband after two years of faithful service. I pray
the Lord's best for them.
The short-term teams we have had have been mature people who have
glorified the Lord in their work. alluded
Alana, our New Zealand Nurse volunteer returned from England again this
year and worked several months among the orphans. Dana, a short-termer
that pioneered the AIDS ministry is now a long-term missionary in the Ukraine
with Good Sports. Gretchen, who came with me to Romania on a short-term
trip, is now a missionary in Poland. We pray for the success of these
missionaries who first tried their wings with us.
A Glimpse into 2002
Here is where I get to present our projections for the future of
Go Ye's ministry here in southcentral Europe. Our vision
has widened to incorporate Italy. I will break down our
plan into those two countries.
Italy
Teach Bible studies.
Inspire a world vision, partnering Italian churches
with Romanian ministries.
Move the Casa Biblica to become more recognized on the Internet.
Romania
repair a bathroom at the TB hospital.
through a partnership with Greater Europe Mission,
to continue the work with AIDS children.
through a partnership with the AoG, to continue the
work at the TB hospital.
continue to expand the Internet work.
publish a series of articles on child development.
2002 will have its challenges and opportunities.
Through God we can make the best of both. Aurelia, Erika and I thank
you for your participation in this ministry. It is an exciting era.
