Football and TUMI’s Capstone Curriculum – what could they possibly have in common? Let me share a story with you.
I joined The Urban Ministry Institute staff eight months ago, with responsibility to oversee the translation of TUMI publications into a variety of languages. The Lord has led us into connections with ministries around the world. Some of these “connections” have some interesting background stories. One such story concerns TUMI’s connections in Romania.
TUMI’s first contact with the Elpis Foundation happened a couple years before I came on board. They have an active TUMI satellite location in Dej, Romania. Pastor Calin Morar and his team there have been in the process of translating the TUMI Capstone Curriculum. There is extraordinary interest in Capstone among a large network of Romanian-speaking pastors in Romania, Moldova, and western Ukraine. Many of them have no formal theological education, and Capstone has become for them an answer to prayer.
Last fall, my wife Kathy and I were in Manhattan, Kansas, for a K-State football game. We stayed overnight in the area, with Sunday morning plans to visit a small rural church in that area attended by my cousin. It was our first visit. The church’s part-time preacher is Dr. Paul Barkey, a retired Army chaplain. In his sermon, Pastor Paul mentioned his recent trip for ministry work among the Gypsy people of western Romania. That got my attention.
After the service, Paul and I talked about our common interest in training Christian leaders in Romania. He quickly saw the value of Capstone to his ministry, called Friends of the Gypsy Roma. A few months later, Friends of the Gypsy Roma was approved as TUMI satellite #225, in Oradea, Romania! Pastor Paul’s years-long ministry among the Gypsy people will now have a way to offer seminary-level education to their pastors and church leaders.
In April, Pastor Paul traveled to Romania. He met Pastor Calin and obtained some Romanian-language Capstone copies from him. Paul then introduced this material to his friends in Oradea, with plans to return there in coming weeks to launch Capstone training. Discussions between our two Romanian Satellites have continued, strengthening their connections with great excitement. We ask you to pray with us that Capstone will be a great blessing to the Church among Romanian-speaking peoples of all ethnicities.
None of us could have anticipated how this developed. Only the Lord knew what would happen, and He used a football game to bring it about!
