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Helping Build the Church in Romania through Distance Education
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 We have a vision: to help build the church in Europe. One way we seek to do that is by providing
distance education to believers who would not otherwise have the opportunity to get to know God through the study of His Word.
We work with a number of other
ministry partners to accomplish this
task. Here are the practical steps
we take toward our goal.
After we
discern, through prayer and exploratory efforts, which country and language we are going to work in, we begin the arduous task of training and equipping
people on-site in course development and facilitation. Yes, we could give them a computer course and then leave, wishing them God’s richest blessings. But without a knowledge of HOW courses are developed, they could not have the much-needed expertise to go on and develop courses in the future. Without help in contextualizing the course—making it culturally relevant—the course would be ineffective and stilted. And without a facilitator to get the ball rolling
and set a schedule and answer questions, many students would fall by the wayside.
Currently, we are focusing much of our efforts in Romania, where the need for pastors and church leaders is
extremely pressing. The average pastor in Romania serves four churches and cannot carve out a full four years to attend
a resident Bible college. Recently, one of our ministry partners,
the Learning Technologies division
of Mission Aviation Fellowship, sent a trainer to join eDOT in equipping Romanians and local missionaries in course development and facilitation. Kathie spent
five days giving hands-on training to missionaries and Romanians such as Amiel, a 22-year-old graduate of Bucharest Seminary who pastors a church of 800. “All the teachers and schools in Romania should know and apply the education principles we studied,”
one Romanian eagerly affirmed.
The church in Romania, freed from the bondage of Communism, is fervent in
its desire to equip pastors and leaders to advance the church. Pray with us that we will have wisdom as we help them in this task.
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