We will be joining a team of Baptist Mid-Missionaries working in Northwest Romania.  The greatest opportunity our team faces is the organizing of indigenous baptist churches among the Gypsies (Roma) of Romania.  They are an outcast people and largely overlooked by mission movements worldwide.  There is some work started but so much more to be done.  We will place ourselves in a specific church plant being involved in supporting that ministry in whatever ways necessary, hoping to act in a supporting role to a national pastor.  Along with this, we hope to focus attention on developing a structured training program for Roma pastors.  Potential and existing Roma church leaders have vast needs ranging from learning to read to grasping the Scriptures adequately enough to lead their own churches.  We also have a burden for working with young people, possibly through a university ministry. 

The following are our short term goals:

1. ‣reach Romania by the fall of 2010 and acquire the Romanian language in one year
   

2. ‣spend the rest of our first term being mentored by a church planting missionary and laying the groundwork for a Bible training program
   

The following are our long term goals:

1. ‣church plant reaching self-supporting, independent status
   

2. ‣the establishment of a Bible training program as well as its nationalization
   

3. ‣continued partnership in the church planting movement reaching unreached areas
   

4. ‣development of a viable youth/young adult ministry through key churches