EGM Romania

“I shouldn’t have even been interviewed for the position, but God made it possible,” reflects Daniel Bruda, who today serves as national director for Every Generation Ministries in Romania. The Romanian EGM board had already decided to close the interviews when they were working through the process of hiring their first director but decided to make an exception so that Daniel could meet with them. 

Today, those board members are glad they made that exception. Energy, vision and determination have been hallmarks for Daniel’s ministry these last 10 years serving with EGM, and God has seen fit to bless Daniel’s efforts to build a team of respected volunteers, board members and staff members who bear the same marks. Under Daniel’s leadership, God has allowed this formidable team to build a strong ministry which today provides children’s ministry training resources for the nearly 8,000 evangelical churches in Romania. 

Under Daniel’s leadership, a Romanian team has created a beautiful 3 year children’s ministry curriculum on 3 different age levels. Romanians are known to be open to technological advances and web use is wide-spread, so the curriculum went online! That’s why today you can often see a Romanian children’s worker accessing the EGM-Romania website to refer to their lesson curriculum via a smart phone in the Sunday school classroom. Well-attended regional conferences regularly provide training for children’s workers and a big national conference is also being offered annually. Not only is the national conference completely funded by Romanians, it has been the birthplace for a missionary vision which today funds regular outreach to Romanian church leaders in Vienna, Austria and Chisnau, Moldova. 

Raised in the communist era by Christian parents, Daniel is no stranger to ministry trials and is not easily daunted, even in the somewhat challenging ministry environment of Romania. His focus just now is two-fold: to develop regional EGM leadership who will provide individualized coaching in children’s ministry and to develop the last bit of funding necessary so that the Romanian ministry will be 100% funded from inside Romania. 

By the way, there are two men with the last name of “Bruda” who serve with Every Generation Ministries and if that has confused you at times, you’re not alone! Daniel’s brother, Alex Bruda, serves as EGM’s Central Europe regional leader. Daniel lives in the city of Cluj with his wife, Nicoleta, and young daughter Cristiana. 

Joe Cox

Vice President of International Ministries 

EGM Romania - 2012 National Conference

Every fall offers us a wonderful gift. It is the time when Children’s Workers from churches all over Romania join together with a strong desire to grow in the area of their giftedness. Some of them are with us for the first time where they discover the Bible model for teaching children. Relationship, Truth, Discussion, Experience and Response are the elements that provide us with the opportunity of teaching in way that is transformational. Others return to our conference by their desire to improve and grow combined with their positive past experience. All of the subjects offer a practical and biblical approach! The National Conference of EGM-Romania took place this year in Brasov (October 12-14^th 2012). The feedback provided by over 100 participants was so encouraging giving us the confirmation that the ministry is on the right path in honoring God and helping churches reach children with His love:

“Before attending your conference, I used to be a preaching type teacher. My whole conception about ministry is changed now. Today was the first time I had a discussion with my children and didn't deliver a sermon. It is so wonderful to listen and see how they personally grasp the concepts! It was a conference where I could see and feel God’s strong hand! Thank you for allowing Him to use you!” 

(Emanuela, Sunday school teacher)

“I appreciated and was pleasantly surprised to discover your clear, evangelical – biblical approach of children’s ministry. For such a long time, we had the impression that you can tell anything, in any way to the little ones, and that all that mattered was that they would feel good. EGM helped me understand the cunningness of the evil one. They offered me a healthy teaching that is relevant so that the children will have a real opportunity to know God. It is so wonderful to be able to deliver spiritual, eternal and profound truths in simple words and in a way children will really understand! We've seen that God gave you this wisdom.”           (Mihai, Sunday school teacher)

Marian Zaharia – EGM Representative

First Impressions

Alex Bruda made a great first impression on me, serving as my interpreter as I shared at an EGM-Romania children’s worker conference. Almost immediately after meeting him, I confided in a coworker, “He should be serving with Every Generation Ministries!” I’d had just a few conversations with him but already could see that his heart and vision were the same as ours: To see children transformed!  Subsequent meetings confirmed my initial reaction and I began to see all the gifts and abilities that could be of use in the ministry of EGM.  It wasn't long before we were talking seriously about EGM staff needs. 

Alex lives with his wife and two young boys in the Romanian capital city of Bucharest. They are the kind of super busy people who are known to be always ready for a new ministry challenge. With their vast ministry background, they are ready to help wherever, whether it is kid’s camp, a training seminar, a language lesson or some legal advice! They are very active in their own local church but also are eager to help other churches in their quest to do true biblical children’s ministry.

Today, Alex serves as EGM’s Central Europe Resource Team Director. In that role, he supports the EGM partnerships in the Central Region and God has used him greatly! When we added to the team in Central Europe, it made room for a new challenge of coordinating the field research work EGM is doing in the Middle East where we are exploring the possibilities of establishing a regional EGM ministry center. In addition to presenting children’s worker seminars in Jordan, Israel and Egypt, God has used Alex to establish an Arabic language children’s ministry resource website at www.egmarabic.org where isolated children’s workers can get the help and support they need.

I’m very glad that my first impressions have become lasting ones!

-Joe Cox

Update on the Romania Website

As we look at the changes in the world these days, we have enough reasons to worry. We have many challenges to adapt to with technology, and especially to raise children in this digital world. The impact is even more severe in Romania as we feel churches and families were not prepared for this.

Our goal as a Ministry is to transform Children in Christ through His Church. Instead of focusing on the obstacles, we have to find a way to reach our goal. We prayed to be wise and see the open doors God has for us in this digital age. We remember that roman roads and the Latin language were the leverages used by the Church of the first century to share Christ’s message “to the ends of the world”.

Learning from this example, we started seeing that Internet, computers, Smartphones and IPad’s can be used as tools to help our Ministry expand. Technology can help us see transformation produced by Christ in children’s lives from Romania and from the Romanian communities spread throughout Western Europe. We started to connect the dots, we already had a Curriculum program based on biblical teaching, we had many people asking for materials, we had a poor distribution in Romania but we had a real explosion of the internet and unbelievable growth of the tablets and Smartphone market. We saw the DOOR – an Internet curriculum website, where every church and every Romanian can have access to all the quality curriculum materials produced by Romanian Teachers.

We stopped looking at the way technology was changing as a threat and considered it as an amazing opportunity. We can now see teachers on the street or in the buses traveling reading the bible lesson on their Smartphone, or we see them equipped as they watch the video training on the display of their laptop or their tab.

In the first two weeks of its launch, more than 250 teachers have subscribed to this platform. We expect next year, over 2,000 teachers to use this tremendous resource.

-Marian Zaharia

EGM US Representative - Hungary

Romanian website launches this month

 

Every week there are children’s workers in local churches trying to come up with some way to impact the lives of boys and girls for Christ in their communities and their church. During the week they are carpenters, bank tellers and taxi drivers. On the weekend they are challenged with connecting the Word of God with the real lives of children that God has entrusted into their care. Every Generation Ministries is working to provide those children’s workers with great training and quality Bible teaching tools that they can use to to touch the lives of children.

If you are reading this blog you know the power of the internet as a content delivery tool. This phenomenon is not limited to the United States but a fact of life in many of the countries where EGM is serving. EGM is harnessing the power of the internet to expand the reach of our ministry. We are working with our national ministry teams to launch websites to provide streaming training videos and Bible teaching materials for children’s workers. Just a few weeks ago, our Romania ministry launched a new website where children’s workers can subscribe and receive Bible teaching materials and also streaming training videos. The teaching materials were developed by our Romanian staff and are biblically sound, developmentally appropriate, super creative and most importantly help children’s workers in local churches connect the Bible to the real life of children in their Romanian context. We already have over 300 subscribing churches and are excited to see what happens in the fall.  We have been very fascinated by Romanian churches in Austria, Italy, Spain, Greece, Moldova and …….the US who have subscribed to the website! Check out the website at http://resurseegm.ro/ . The website is in Romanian but you will find a translator button in the upper right for you to explore a bit in English. Every Generation Ministries has plans for launching Spanish and Arabic websites in the next few weeks. Find out more about our internet initiative and other EGM news at www.egmworld.org or like us on Facebook.

Making History

It's pretty standard practice in the United States to have an offering for a particular ministry endeavor at a Christian event. But it was history in the making when it happened recently at the fourth annual Every Generation Ministries-Romanian national conference.


First, months before the conference, EGM staff members in Romania worked hard to raise funds from Romanian churches to bring Nabila, one of the EGM-Egypt staff members, to the conference as a guest speaker. This had never been done before! The Romanian people loved her.


Secondly, the offering was being taken to help children go to a camp not in Romania, but in Egypt.


Thirdly, the method used to raise the funds was cutting edge for Romania. In addition to the traditional offering, conference participants had been asked to contribute items for a silent auction. Women's shoes, a can of Coke, baby clothes and handicrafts were among the items donated.

Perhaps the most astounding thing was that the amount raised was an astronomical amount for this small group of less than 100 children's workers to give - enough to send 25 Egyptian children to camp for a week! Wow!


Throughout her visit Nabila was asked to share in three Romanian churches, participate in a radio program and shared in two "Egyptian Nights" where small groups met in homes to learn more about the ministry of EGM in Egypt. Offerings were collected and again the Romanian people responded generously. There will be a total of 45 children going to camp next summer in Egypt because of the love shown by the believers in Romania. Praise the Lord for what He has done and will ocntinue to do!


If you, too, have a heart for the children and children's workers in Egypt why not join our Romanian friends by making a gift to EGM today so that this important work might continue? Click here to join the team!  >

God's Healing in Romania

Click on to watch a video from one of our National Ministry Team, Leadership Development workers.Emese works to transform children in Christ through His church in Romania. Emese has battled cancer before and recently had a surgery that the doctors told her was to remove what looked like cancerous nodules from her neck. Here is her story.