Tatiana Balaban, Moldova Speaks about ROM 2016

For many the 2016 ROM - Renewing Our Minds (ROM) Leadership and Reconciliation Gathering was a life transforming experience. Soon we will tell you more about its transformational impact upon the lives of young leaders from many countries. At this moment, however listen to what Tatiana Balaban from Moldova has to say about her ROM 2016 experience.

WATCH ROM 2015 REFLECTIONS

As we are coming closer to the next big ROM event, the 2016 ROM Gathering, let us reflect on the vision and mission of ROM as we watch the latest ROM video reflecting on the ROM Gathering 2015.

Appeal: Help Us Build a New Generation of Leaders

Thank You for Donating Today!

Dear Friends,

With our recent refugee relief missions in Serbia and Croatia we demonstrated that the young leaders emerging through our leading ROM – Renewing our Minds and EDI – Economic Diplomacy and Integrity Forum projects are more than ready to apply in real life situations the principles of radical leadership of service inspired and modeled by the person of Jesus. 

Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation (Forum) is now moving forward with seven international leadership projects planned for 2016. However, at this time we would like to draw your attention to the 2016 Renewing Our Minds (ROM) Gathering of young leaders, that will take place in Fuzine, Croatia, August 11^th – 28^th. We are expecting 60 young leaders from at least 15 countries to take part this two and a half week long intentional learning gathering. 

For many years ROM has been an impacting international mission advocating radical leadership of service, peace building and reconciliation. ROM teaches young leaders how to embrace each other across various ethnic, racial, national, religious and political divides. It challenges paradigms and assumptions, and refines the characters of young leaders according to the teachings and example of the person of Jesus. 

A group of participants attending ROM 2015

For the hundreds of young leaders from 50 countries, becoming a part of ROM community over the past seventeen years has become a defining and life transforming experience. Many ROM alumni have emerged as leaders of influence in their countries, who are today making a difference in the political, social, humanitarian and religious arenas. Likewise, over those years ROM has given birth to a number of new leadership projects and initiatives. 

Since most of the ROM participants who will take part in the 2016 ROM Gathering of young leaders live in the countries that are economically challenged we need your help. Most of them are not able to cover the conference expenses. We never allow financial limitations to be the factor that will decide if our program candidates should not attend our programs. This is why we are now asking you to help us help those who are not able to cover the expenses of the 2016 ROM Gathering.

Thank you for partnering with us in this important initiative of peace building, reconciliation and development of leaders transformed by the person of Jesus in a divided world. I am sure we will all agree that our work is becoming increasingly needed in the world that is becoming more fragile each day, and in need of leaders who are willing to serve and love their neighbors radically and in the Spirit of Jesus.

We will keep you informed faithfully about the progress of this fundraising action and the development of the 2016 ROM Gathering as we move closer to August 2016.

Love and blessings.

Tihomir Kukolja, Director, Renewing Our Mind

Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation

Investing in a New Generation of Roma Leaders

Barabas-Savu Stelica and Cristina Si Stelica are an amazing couple from Sigishoara, Romania. They are also serving as church pastors and educators in several Roma villages near Sigishoara. Barabas is also an ethnic Roma. He was the first well educated young Roma person in his village with a degree in Political Sciences. Although Barabas and Cristina could have pursued some good and well paid carriers in Romania or abroad, both have committed their lives in service to the Roma people in Romania. Their work is spiritual and educational in character. Their vision is to help develop a new generation of Roma children and young people, well educated and in love with Jesus. Barajas and Cristina are planning to develop a special ROM - Renewing Our Minds project in order to develop young Roma leaders. This interview was recorded in Fuzine, Croatia, in August 2015, at the time of the 2015 Renewing Our Minds (ROM) Gathering. Time: 16:55 min.

Why we Care about the Refugees?

These were the days of early September last year. We were only a couple of weeks away from the finish of the 2015 Renewing Our Minds (ROM) Gathering in Fuzine, Croatia. A group of ROM leaders developed a quick plan to mobilize its community of friends for its first refugee relief mission.  

In less than two weeks our friends from several countries collected sufficient funds and some material aid, so that by mid September our international ROM Response Team (RRT) gathered in Belgrade, Serbia ready for action. In Serbia we partnered with IFES Serbia (Evangelical Student Association, or EUS), and were joined by the EUS teams from Belgrade and Serbia.

Those were still the early days of daily massive inflows of refugees into Serbia. The government seemed to appreciate the enthusiasm of various self-organized groups. Our team, together with other international groups (from Serbia, Austria, Germany, France, Slovakia, Hungary, USA) were at that time still acting as the first responders in the growing refugee crisis in Serbia. In those days big international humanitarian agencies were only assessing the situation or setting a stage for their work, and the government supervision of the aid distribution was only in its infancy. Those days demonstrated that self-organized groups of volunteers were able to adequately take care of the essential needs of the refugees.

Those were the last hot late summer days in 2015. In the morning our team would go to a big supermarket in Novi Belgrade to purchase the goods: bottled waters, some juice, croissants, energy bars, apples, bananas, napkins, wet wipes and more.  Then four vehicles, packed with humanitarian aid and our team would drive to the Serbian-Hungarian border near Horgos. Most of the time, however we dedicated to the Serbian – Croatian border between Sid and Tovarnik, meeting the refugees face to face, and sharing with them our humanitarian articles. Even today our teem refers to our refugee mission in Serbia as the “Ccornfield mission”, since for two days we were encountering thousands of refugees walking on the dirt road that led the refugees into Croatia through cornfields.

There is something profoundly moving and personal when one has the opportunity to encounter refugees face to face, give them food or clothes with one’s own hands, listen to their stories, meets smiling and behaving children and thus participate - at least for a few moments - in their struggle to survive the journey which for some of them begun even two to three months earlier. There was something noble in being given the opportunity to drive at least some mothers and their small children a bit closer to the first collecting place on the Croatian side, although still in the no-man’s land. It was reassuring to hear and see their expressions of gratitude, such as: “Our own people do not care, but you Christians love us!

In September up to 10000 refugees would pass through those cornfields in a single day. By early December the circumstances changed radically. The refugee corridor was now moving through Croatia, Slovenia, Austria. A number of EU countries manifesting a hostile attitude towards the refugees grew. Hungary, Slovenia and Macedonia decided to fence off their borders with some of their neighbors. And when the devastating terrorist attack overwhelmed Paris, France in November, many where only too quick to place the blame for the attack on the recently arrived refugees. Almost immediately the daily intake of refugees moving through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia was visibly reduced, because Greece would not let any refugee into Macedonia unless they were Syrians, Iraqis or Afghanis. At the same time Turkey, encouraged by the EU through a financial incentive, started slowing down the refugee transit beyond its borders. Meanwhile, the EU continued to demonstrate a lack of decisive leadership in convincing its member states to share fairly in receiving the incoming refugees.

By early December, when our ROM Response Team was ready for a new action, this time in Croatia, the flow of refugees was well regulated and supervised through at least Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. All refugees were taken in an organized way from the Macedonian border in Serbia to the Serbia-run refugee transit camp in Adasevci, near the Croatian border. From there coordinated buses and trains were taking them directly to the recently built Croatian refugee camp in Slavonski Brod. Then, a few hours later the same refugees would be taken by trains directly to the Slovenian refugee camp in Dobova, and then to Austria and Germany. In December the average flow of refugees through the newly opened refuge camp in Croatia was about 2500 people, occasionally reaching 5000 every day.

Our ROM Response Team of 15, in partnership with the Croatian NGO “Moj grad Zagreb” (Zagreb My City), had a privilege to volunteer for a week in the Croatian Refugee Transit Center in Slavonski Brod. This camp, should this become necessary, could provide a temporary shelter to at least 6000 refugees for longer periods of time. Our main task was to build two shelters that were donated to the Croatian Red Cross, and dedicated to UNICEF as shelters to be used by the nursing refugee mothers. We also volunteered in a number of other ways, of which we loved the best the moments when we were able to assist other volunteers in helping refugees with some new clothes, warm shoes, hats, gloves or jackets.

The well structured order of service at the camp stands out, and probably makes the Croatian refugee camp into a best organized refugee camp on the refugee corridor in Europe. The other feature of the camp that stands out is the respectful treatment of the refuges. Every time when another train would enter the camp, 1200 refugees would be guided, in orderly manner, by the Croatian Police through the registration process. Them they were taken to the tents in which a number of volunteers served them with whatever they needed at that time. At the end they would receive food packages, and then taken back to the train and further to Slovenia. The whole process, between the arrival of a refugee train and its departure would last between two to three hours. On average between two and three trains, filled with refugees would arrive to and leave the Croatian refugee camp every day.

Our two ROM response teams enjoyed every minute of our service to refugees. We are at this time planning new refugee missions. Some of them will be implemented by our partnering organizations, while others will be carried through by our ROM Response Team. In the months ahead of us we would prefer the “cornfield missions” to those of supervised camps. We are looking forward to meeting refugees face to face again.

Why is a leadership and reconciliation initiative such as ROM – Renewing Our Minds, with its umbrella organization Forum for Leadership and Reconciliation, involved in saving the lives of refugees? Especially at the time when the opposition to the current global movement of refugees and immigrants grows ever more hostile in Europe, and in the USA too.

Refugees are not terrorists. Among more than a million of refugees who entered Europe in 2015 only a few among them are people eager to cause trouble. The overwhelming majority are genuine refugees and immigrants who are only trying to find a safe place for their families and children. The experiences of our team with the refugees testify that refugees are beautiful human beings who are at this time looking up to us to help them with some acts of kindness, empathy and understanding. Many of them have tasted the bitterness of war. They have lost their fathers, mothers, children, family members and close friends. Most of them have lost their homes and everything else they used to have, and there is nothing left in their homelands to return to. And for many of them returning back would mean a certain death. In short, Europe is at this time witnessing the migration of the hundreds of thousands of what we could call “the homeless of the world”.

For the past seventeen years ROM has been inviting young leaders of the Southeast Europe and the world to be radical leaders in their service to their communities and the world. By repeating the words of Jesus that “whatever we do for the least of these we do for Jesus” we have been encouraging them to follow Jesus consistently, going beyond the lip service of religion to the spheres of practical love and service. One generation after another of young leaders encountering ROM has been taught that genuine leaders would recognize the time and place when they would be called to leave their polished offices and get their hands dirty, not from corruption but from serving and loving those in great need.

So our involvement with “the homeless of the world” at this time is a statement of empathy. On the one hand it is a message to the ROM community at large that this is the time for everyone of them, in whatever position of leadership they are serving at this time, to stand up for refugees, the most disadvantaged group of people in Europe at this time. To the other friends we wanted to demonstrate that we mean business; that ROM is not about cosmetics in leadership, but about the real thing. We wanted to take seriously the words of the Lord Almighty: “Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow of the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.” Zachariah 7:9.10. NIV

Meeting Jesus on the Refugee Trail in Houston

Dear Friends,

The refugee crisis in Europe remains to be the most difficult challenge Europe has faced since WWII. Many in Europe are responding to the refugee crisis with fear, judgmental attitudes, even hatred. Others, on the other hand, are not sparing to walk many extra miles to be among those who desire to help “the homeless of the world” on their trail from Syria, Iraq and other countries to the Central Europe. 

What do the lives of the refugees who travel with their families for weeks and months look like? Why are so many leavening Syria, Iraq and other countries in the vicinity? Should we as Christians be helping the refugees on their trail through Europe? Why did the Renewing Our Minds ministry (ROM), a leadership and reconciliation initiative, decide to become involved in the refugee charitable work? These and other related questions will be included in the interactive presentation “Meeting Jesus on the Refugee Trail” on Wednesday, Jan 27, 2016.

Tihomir Kukolja, Renewing Our Minds (ROM) Director, recently returned from the second ROM refugee mission in the Balkans. He will share stories from his time on the Serbia-Croatia border, and more recently, from his service in the biggest Refugee Camp in Croatia. He will be joined by Liviu Bocaniala, a well know Romanian music artist and a member of the ROM Response Team in sharing their stories of labor under the foggy, wet and cold winter conditions. Only a few weeks ago their team of 15 built two shelters for refugees - nursing mothers. Their action was motivated by the summons of Jesus: “Whatever you did for the list of those you did for me!”

It is a must presentation which you would not like to miss.
Come and Invite your friends! MDPC - Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Parlor, Wednesday January 27th, 2016, at 6:30pm

You are my Friend

The news that we will be building shelters for nursing mothers came as the perfect representation of the coming Christmas.  It suddenly made a lot of sense to welcome every small baby and their mothers who were coming from God knows how far – from Syria, Iraq, even Afghanistan. We quickly understood that it was not us delivering gifts to them. They became a precious gift to us.

So the threatening look and feel of the camp, emerging grey from the thick fog, became just a brilliant stage set for the next play in our lives.  It was time to leave the fancy costumes behind, and put on the heavy work suits and stoop down into the mud. It was time for the fingers used to playing an instrument, to be bruised by nails and hammers.

Did we curse when hammer missed the nail?  Did we argue with each other and with ourselves?  Oh, yes!  And for that each of us asked for forgiveness - from our Master and from each other. But the point was that the lower we got, the more mud we tasted, the colder we got, the more the white buildings grew.

One day, Conrad and I dropped the tools and went around the corner to help with yet another group of refugees coming by a special refugee train. I do not know any more who it was, but someone gave me a bag and told me, "It is full with the winter stuff: gloves and hats and scarfs".  I started taking loads of that stuff into my arms and moved into the crowd, observing who needed that extra protection from cold.  I made sure I matched colors, especially for the women. 

I gave one man a scarf and I immediately observed his son was in great need of winter clothes, which I did not have. I only had a hand full of scarfs.  I chose one and gave it to him - it was a nice one, with many colors, the kind you can wear around your neck, or transform it into a head band, or even into a nice, warm hood.  The little boy loved it!  He was smiling and smiling and smiling.  He was addressing his father in their own language.  And suddenly he turned to me and said, "You are my friend!". And he kept smiling.  And then I did the most stupid thing. Because I didn't know what else to do - I ruffled his dark hair and I turned around and... left.

Keeping a sense of fashion in the middle of that dirty madness; and putting our hearts out, filled with the holy touch of friendship - bold signs of humanity, as the cold and wet and dark slime of death is visiting the nations! That was just a little bit of how we, a small group of friends from several countries, learned more about humanity and grace, suspended in time and fog, just before Christmas 2015 in the Croatian Refugee Camp in Slavonski Brod.

Liviu Bocaniala