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Teacher Training in Romania

Rebekah Hoorn

It was his eyes that captured me. Not the color, the size, or the shape, but the sparkle. My student understood, and he was ecstatic! From then on I was hooked; teaching has been in my blood ever since. Many years have passed since those days when I helped my very first “student” (my little brother) learn how to read, but it is still the glint of understanding in my students’ eyes that motivates me as a teacher.

I used to think that nothing could be more exciting than teaching a group of children truths from God’s Word and seeing the light of comprehension begin to dawn in their eyes. In my first two years of ministry in Romania, I’ve learned that I was wrong. Even more exhilarating than the glint of understanding in a child’s eyes is the excitement in the eyes of a teacher when he learns new tools for reaching the children that God has entrusted into his care week after week. And we, as a team of missionaries, are privileged to watch that process unfold over and over again all around the country.

When our team began the process of translating junior Sunday school curriculum from Regular Baptist Press several years ago, I’m not sure that we fully understood how God would use that curriculum project to multiply our ministry all around Romania and into the neighboring Republic of Moldova. When the first books were printed, the team decided to couple distribution of the curriculum with teacher training workshops. We didn’t want to simply “throw resources into the wind” without helping the teachers to understand how to use them as a tool to reach the children of their churches and their cities.

Since the first workshops in September 2005, God has opened doors for twenty-three training sessions, meeting with over 300 teachers representing forty-four different churches around Romania and Moldova. God has gifted our team with many teachers, and they have been able to share both their heart and their expertise with our Romanian brothers and sisters. We have also had opportunity to host regional teammates from Ukraine and Slovakia as they have joined us in training Romanian teachers.  

Several years ago, our youth pastor challenged our high school graduating class to adopt 2 Timothy 2:2 as our theme verse: "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.”  Although God has led the ten of us in many different directions since those days, I occasionally sit down and review how God is allowing each of us to live out this verse in our own ways. And I am realizing again that I am privileged to see this verse come alive in the ministry to which God has called me: as I was taught to teach, I can now train others to teach and pray that they, in turn, will train the next generation of teachers to reach Romanian children. In March 2007, we observed a major milestone as Florin, a national who has been part of our teacher training sessions since the beginning, led a training session.

The sparkle in the eyes of a child when he finally gets it still makes my heart pump a little faster, and I am sure that I will always teach children in one capacity or another. But now I am also ensnared by the honor of being a part of the next step, of training teachers who live in villages that I may never visit, who teach children that I may never meet, who will train the generation of teachers to follow them.