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NAB Health Care Professionals Needed for Community Development Work among the Unhealthiest People in Europe
Approximately 13,000,000 Roma/Gypsies live in Central and Western Europe. By comparison, Hungarians number only 9 million, Serbians about 7 million and Portuguese 10 million.
However, the average Gypsy lives 10 years less than other Europeans. This is due to a hard, harsh, often third-world lifestyle; poor diet; bad habits and deficient health care. Although Central Europe has national healthcare, for the Roma it is curative and not preventative, discriminatory and prejudicial and used only as a last resort. Most Roma are concerned about their health and that of their children, though generally ignorant about how to be healthy.
This is a huge window of opportunity for us who want to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in deed as well as word to the Roma nation. Our Community Health Evangelism (CHE) teams enter Roma communities offering them the hope of holistically healthier lives, families and communities through following King Jesus. One area of focus is physical health through community training in preventative health care.
For us to do this effectively, however, we need trained health care professionals serving on our CHE Teams in Hungarian and in Serbian-speaking regions of Europe. As Jeannie and I look to retirement in 2020, we are praying for two NAB couples to come to Central Europe to replace us. But God is encouraging us to pray that one person in each couple is a health care professional who will be a medical presence in our Roma communities, to…
- help set up health-care screenings in Roma communities,
- train Roma in preventative health-care,
- develop programs that produce healthier children and adults,
- help Roma become better advocates for themselves in the public health system,
- train Roma to be preventive health-care volunteers in their communities,
- and bring the health-giving love and Good News of Jesus to these lost people.
If you believe God may be speaking to you about this wonderful opportunity to use your health-care skills and gifts, please contact Ron Seck via email at ronseck@me.com. We will be happy to tell you more.
Ron and Jeannie and the Million Village Challenge
As I write this, Jeannie and I have just wrapped up a mind and faith-stretching week at the International Wholistic Mission Conference in Phoenix, AZ. This was preceded by two days of meetings of the CHE Representative Council. As CHE Coordinator for Central Europe and the Balkans, I sit with 10 other leaders far more qualified than I on this Council.
Some of our agenda items are rather mundane, but some defy the imagination. One of those is the Million Village Challenge.
Two thousand of the world’s people groups are still unreached with the Gospel. Eighty-five percent of these groups reside in rural communities. There are approximately one million villages left to be reached in the world. Reach these and you have almost finished the task. The Global CHE Network of mission agencies, churches, and denominations with national teams on the ground and in villages in 130 nations has been uniquely positioned by God to reach these last communities. So, God has given to us a Million Village Challenge!
For the last several years the GCN has joined other wholistic-mission-minded groups around the world in strategizing and implementing strategy to introduce Christian wholistic outreach and development into 10,000 new model communities by 2020. If this follows the pattern of how the wholistic mission movement has spread to 130 nations, these communities will be the catalyst, the light shining on the hill showing God’s good works, that will stimulate communities around them to join the gathering wave.
During the week Ron led a meeting of mission agency leaders that have joined the NAB and are now moving into Central Europe and the Balkans to do wholistic community outreach and development. The subject was: how can we collaborate effectively to implement model communities in every nation of this region by 2020? What an exciting time to be in missions!
Our NAB Workers Lead CHE Trainings in Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Hungary
February and March were busy months for Marijana Cizmanski, NAB International Worker and ZZ Serbia Director. In addition to starting entry work in two Roma villages outside Novi Sad, she also first traveled to Veres, Macedonia, to help conduct a Community Development Vision Seminar for almost 50 church workers. She then flew to Podgorica, Montenegro, ten days later to co-facilitate at the first Vision Seminar on Christian Community Development in that nation. In March, she helped train Child Evangelism Fellowship workers from throughout Serbia on how to integrate children’s Community Health Evangelism curriculum into their ministry.
In mid-April the MEK Hungary team, including Laci and Eszter, Ron and Jeannie, led a week of training for church workers from Zsambok and Janoshalma, Hungary, who wish to implement CHE into their Roma communities. Soon the MEK team will travel to Janoshalma to visit the ten Roma house churches in the vicinity to consult on the best ways to begin their outreach and development projects in their neighborhoods.
From May 20-25, Ron and Jeannie will be with a CHE Team in Stip, Macedonia, facilitating the first CHE Training Conference in Macedonia for a ministry that has planted 19 churches in the east part of that country.
Please pray with us that this training on our part will turn into action steps on the part of those we have trained and that poor people in these countries will become disciples of our Savior and Lord.