Group builds center in Romania
WEXFORD — Seven people from Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North spent a week in Arad, Romania, to help in the construction of a new pastor training center.
The team included Mark Ort and his son, Jack, 14, of Saxonburg; Mike Gates and his son, Evan, 16, of Callery; Greg Hedderman of Pittsburgh; Darla Barie of Pittsburgh; and Brooke Rhodaberger of Butler.
Mark Ort, an elder of the church, said “The purpose of the training center is to train pastors for church planting in Eastern Europe. This will give people the ability to stay in Eastern Europe instead of having to come to Chicago to train.”
“The objective over there was to target Eastern Europe, so you have pastors being trained, going into Serbia, Hungary, to the north and hopefully spread out from there,” Ort said. “This place is going to impact that culture over there for generations.”
The training center is expected to open in January, Ort said. Then next spring phase two of the project will begin with the construction of an auditorium for a church.
Harvest Bible Pastor Jeff Miller said, “We are definitely going back. As soon as the seven got back, we were already excited to plan a trip next year.”
Ort said there is a church in town that has grown to 800 members. The church needs to have two services to accommodate all of its members.
Back in January the church received an e-mail from Harvest Bible Fellowship in Chicago, a church planter with 120 churches around the world, about mission opportunities, Ort said. The e-mail offered an opportunity in Romania.
“It was not what you would think typical mission work would be like, working with kids or doing medical type work,” Ort said. “It was a trip to assist the building of a pastor training center, so we were very excited about doing that.”
Ort said the leadership brought the idea before the church.
There were two fundraising efforts by Harvest Bible Chapel, Ort said.“There were three offerings taken that raised in excess of $17,000, which is pretty amazing considering the size of our church,” Ort said. “We were able to raise that much money just to send over for them to have materials.”Ort said as the materials were coming in a team was assembled to go over and work. For the trip itself, $16,000 to $18,000 was raised for the team.The members of Harvest Bible Chapel was the last group to go to Arad at the end of August.The team's job was to do the drywalling and some insulation work, Ort said.“We were able to accomplish a lot of work there,” he said. “We did at least double the work they thought we were going to do.”Ort said community members came to the construction site and wanted to know what was being built.“When they found out it was a pastor training center, they asked if they could build a kindergarten there to educate their kids,” he said. “I thought, 'Wow, what an opportunity to be able to educate the kids of the neighborhood and be able to share the Bible with them and the scriptures and the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ.'”“For me, my job as a Christian is to show people that Jesus loves you regardless of what station of life you are in. You can still find love from Christ,” Ort said.“That is the reason I went over, not that I am an expert builder or drywaller or world traveler — seeing the sights was nice — but my main objective and the team's objective was to go over there and show these people 'Hey, we love you and we want to help you build and train pastors so that kids and kindergartners can learn about the love Christ has for them,'” he said.The team also learned about the Romanian Revolution in 1989, Ort said.“We got to see buildings that still had bullet holes in them and some neat history tours,” Ort said.Ort said after the revolution it seemed like a lot of families and people were grappling with who they really were.“They never had anything. They were oppressed and they were shot at,” Ort said. “Now they are trying to figure out 'Hey, I am free now and I can work and buy things and can have electricity.' That is just stuff we take for granted.”At one point in the trip the team went to Timisoara, which was the birthplace of the Romanian Revolution. There were 1,400 college students who came to protest who were killed on the steps of a church.“To stand there on that set of steps and realize 'Wow, these people gave up their lives for their freedom not so long ago,'” Ort said.The team went to a Romanian church with the people hosting them, Ort said.“It was one of the highlights of my life to go there and hear people singing in Romanian,” Ort said. “It was pretty moving.”
