David M. Howard, Jr.

3/22/05

REPORT ON MY TRIP TO
THE EMANUEL UNIVERSITY OF ORADEA ( ROMANIA )
March 9-19, 2005

I have just returned from my eleventh trip to teach at the Emanuel University of Oradea (EUO) in Oradea , Romania , on March 14-18. As usual, it was a great joy to return and to see old friends at the school, to teach students I had taught last year, and to meet a new batch of students this year. I am sending this report to colleagues, friends, family, and supporters of the work in Oradea . I have been going to Romania once or twice a year since 1998. (For background on this school and my trips there, interested readers can read my first and sixth reports, which devote extra space to this. These reports can be found on the "Romania" page of my Bethel Seminary Web site, at www.bethel.edu/~dhoward , along with maps of Romania , pictures of the school and the city, and other materials; alternatively, you may e-mail me and I will send you e-mail copies of the earlier reports.)

It was a very different trip in many respects. For one thing, this was only my third trip since 2001, whereas, previously, I had gone regularly every six months. It appears that future trips will be only once a year, for two reasons: (1) Since I assumed administrative duties at Bethel Seminary as the Dean of the Center for Biblical and Theological Foundations in August 2004, my time has been much more constricted, such that once-per-year trips are much more realistic; (2) the personnel situation at Emanuel is much stronger now, so that my missing a term will not be an undue hardship.

Another difference on this trip was that Romania has changed greatly in recent years. This can be seen in the great number of Western businesses that have sprung up in Oradea . The most recent of these is a gigantic Selgros "Cash and Carry" store that opened two weeks ago just across the street from the school; it is a German enterprise, and is like a giant Sam's Club. In my first visits, I felt as though I had traveled back in time by many decades, even a century or two. In recent visits, the Western influences are palpable, even at the school. Students at Emanuel now seem to have more disposable income: I saw many cell phones, CD players, nicer clothes, even a few laptop computers. There is a much greater awareness of the West, partly, I suppose, because Romania has now joined NATO and is scheduled to join the European Union in 2007; it has much less of the Communist-era feel that it did six or seven years ago. Almost all of my students understand English now, whereas in my early trips, almost none did. I still use a translator, but most students understand my English.

A third difference is that there is an Old Testament team of instructors in place at Emanuel for the first time. Dan Botica is the backbone of the team. He is a graduate of Asbury College (B.A.) and Seminary (M.Div.), and is completing his Ph.D. dissertation at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati . He is a wonderful young man, with many qualities that suit him well for this position. He is winsome and friendly, fits in very well with students and colleagues at Emanuel, has a very strong academic background, and understands the Western educational system, so that he can communicate well with me when I come. He served as my translator and host while I was there, and we had a wonderful time connecting personally and professionally. He has a delightful wife, Carmen, and two school-aged boys. I treated them to a nice dinner one night, the type that would come to ca. $100.00 in the U.S. Our total tab (including tip) came to ca. $35.00, though it was ca. one million lei in Romanian money. It certainly felt strange paying a bill for a million of anything ! J Filling out the team are two pastors of Hungarian congregations in the area, who teach part-time at the school, Adrian Giorgiov and Istvan Borzasi , whom I enjoyed getting to know better this trip. I look forward to working with all of them in years to come.

Emanuel University suffered some difficult setbacks in the fall, when they had to release 28 faculty members, due to certain Romanian governmental regulations. It seems that there is a formula for how many faculty positions below the level of full professor are allowed, and EUO did not have sufficient numbers of full professors to support the number of positions below them. In this regard, then, I perform a valuable service simply by going: my status as a full professor allows them to retain up to nine people below me, in any discipline (not just OT). (The regulations have visited a hardship upon Dan Botica, as well: his B.A. degree from Asbury College is not accepted as valid, so he is being required to complete a B.A. degree at Emanuel itself, at the very same time that he is working to complete his doctoral dissertation at Hebrew Union College !)

I followed my usual routine of flying to Budapest, Hungary, staying a day to catch up on jet lag (Romania is eight hours ahead of Minnesota time), and preaching twice in a village church on Sunday. I had two classes of Pastoral Theology students, teaching Old Testament Theology I to the third-year class and OT Theology II to the fourth-year class, whom I had had last year. Both were good groups, and we enjoyed our times together. The typical teaching load was six hours per day, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I met with students and faculty members, and caught up on other work, during the "free" times.

Some of the meetings were with the Old Testament team and with Dr. Paul Negrut, president of the school, and were most encouraging. We worked on a new curriculum of Old Testament courses, necessitated by changes mandated by the Romanian government. We also discussed opportunities for Bethel Seminary students to minister there, and Dr. Negrut assured me that they would be welcome. Greg Meland, Bethel 's Director of Supervised Ministry, has promised to work with us on this, as well, so I look forward to the possibility of taking one or more Bethel students with me on my next trip, in March 2006, the Lord willing.

A special delight for me each trip is the fascinating names of many of the students. Romania was settled in the early centuries of the Christian era by the Romans (hence the country's name: "Romania"), and echoes of great Roman (and Greek) heroes, poets, etc. persist in the onomastica - names such as Flaviu, Claudiu, Iulian, Ovidiu, Silviu, Tiberius, Corneliu, Lucian, Octavian, Adrian, Adonis. There are also many Russian names, influences from the Communist era: Valeri, Vitaly, Vladimir , Viorel, Dimitri, Oleg, Tatiana, Inga, Natasha. Many students have biblical names, too: Ilie ("Elijah"), Ion, Ioan, or Ioana ("John" or "Joanna"), Mihai or Mihaela ("Michael" or "Michaela"), Ana ("Hannah"), Cristian/Cristina, Emanuel/Emanuela, Simon/Simona, Petru/Petronela, Paulian.

I thank Dr. Leland Eliason, Bethel 's provost, for releasing me to go to Romania . I also thank my colleagues and students who have asked about and prayed about my trips. I thank David Lawrence, my teaching assistant, and Scott Strand, Bethel 's instructional technology specialist, for making the arrangements for showing my lecture videos and giving my final exams to three classes while I was gone. I thank Bethel Seminary's Faculty Cross-Cultural Travel Grant Committee for granting funds that helped to make this trip possible, along with the Emmanuel Foundation Fund in Wheaton, Illinois. I thank Dr. Paul Negrut, President of Emanuel, for his kindnesses and continuing confidence in me, and also Dan Botica and Adrian Giorgiov, new Old Testament colleagues with whom I look forward to working in the years to come. I also thank John and Ann Lenton for their kindnesses. And, I thank my wife Jan, who each trip sends me off and is left with responsibilities of home, children, dog, church, and much more, and yet who is very affirming of this ministry.

updated March 23, 2005