What do you see when you look at this map of Romania?
You might see a flounder-shaped country with lots of dots and names of cities, both large and small, names and places that you may or may not recognize. You might notice the capital city of Bucharest lower down on the belly of the fish and the MLI logo, indicating MLI’s headquarters on a flag planted nearer the mouth of the fish in Timisoara. About halfway between the two—Bucharest and Timisoara—you may notice, Alpinis, MLI’s leadership center nestled in the Carpathian Alps.
Leaning in a little, I’d like to invite you to see further what this map represents. Rather than just dots with hard-to-pronounce place names remind yourself that every dot represents a strategic partner within MLI’s network of indigenous churches, fifty congregations bearing missional witness for Christ in diverse rural and urban communities across the country, including ministry engagements near the borders with Ukraine, Serbia, and Bulgaria…and in some very remote allocations.
Looking more closely still, what else might you see? How about, through the cultivation of MLI’s Church and Mission initiative, 500 men and women engaged in a church-based discipleship initiative, now called Entrust, in twenty-four sites strategically located around the country!
And deeper still, with the eyes of imagination, focus on any one of the 30 or so “church partners” dots and imagine that you are walking up the steps of a modest but well-kept church building. You are greeted with a gentle handshake and the word pace (“peace”) by an older couple who kept the faith during the darkest days of Romania’s communist regime. As you walk down the aisle to find a seat in the sanctuary the couple proudly introduces you to their daughter and son-in-law. “Their English is much better than ours,” they tell you. In impeccable English, the daughter enthusiastically describes her work in an orphanage down the road. Her husband humbly asks for prayer since the international joint venture company he works with locally has recently asked him to consider working at headquarters based in Germany—and he feels that this could be profoundly disruptive for his wife and children, as well as his leadership of a cell group in the church. As the service begins, your eyes are drawn to the large cross on the wall behind the pulpit. At a whisper level, now settled into a well-worn wooden pew, you greet their two children, a boy getting ready to start his 5th form (middle school) and a daughter launching into her second year in high school. In their youthful countenances, you see the light of the Lord and a genuine love for their parents. In their voices, you hear the hope of Romania’s future and feel confidence in their next-generation Christian witness within this culture.
Raising your voice in praise to God–even though you don’t know the hymn in Romanian!—you thank God for the blessing of being connected to this part of Christ’s body…and you open your heart afresh to Christ’s leadership in your own life.
Reflections on a Joint Mission to Uganda
Emil Toader
Zionsville Presbyterian Church/ZPC (IN) has partnered with MLI in Romania for more than 25 years. Ministry friendship between us—Romanians and Americans–grew fast and strong. Today, through the mediating work of MLI, ZPC is involved in a variety of facilitating efforts in south central Romania (Giurgiu, Alexandria, Zimnicea, Slobozia, Fetești, Călărași and Cluj): initiatives involving leadership development, mission training, youth camps, pastor support, and church planting.
Alongside Romania, ZPC has other areas of witness in the world, one of these is in Lira, Uganda. At ZPC’s invitation, last fall, Nicu Bragadireanu (Giurgiu, south Romania) and I (Emil Toader) joined the ZPC team in Lira where we saw a flourishing holistic ministry that serves hundreds of orphans, church planting, medical care, and community development projects. During our stay we preached in churches and encouraged our friends—but mostly we learned from our Ugandan friends about having joy and stability in dire circumstances.
The trip was a life-changing and eye-opening visit for me. As well, it was an invitation for churches in Romania to come alongside our brothers and sisters in Uganda to invest in the transformation of lives in Christ. A recurring question among our Romanian-American team members was this: how do we even talk about what we have experienced here?
We met people who are filled with joy amidst severe poverty and suffering–overwhelming needs such as a lack of basic infrastructure of roads, utilities and services, extreme sickness and death caused by AIDS and other tropical diseases, hundreds of orphan-children smiling and interacting politely who depend on their school for daily meals and care. Of course, we were reminded of similar needs in Romania and the work of healing that God has asked us to do in our own context.
What God’s people are doing in Uganda alongside ZPC is inspiring: community development projects through wells for clean water, medical care, and farming–ministry that the churches of Romania were able to participate in as a result of the blessing which they have received through their decades long partnership with MLI and ZPC.
As with other church partners in America, I see in our ZPC friends a true expression of the “church in mission,” in Romania, and around the world.
Churches Supporting MLI in 2025
We invite you to look over the map here and allow the Lord to lead you in a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing for the various local congregations in the US who are supporting gospel-based ministry in Romania through the work of Missio Link International.
Interview with Pastor Gabi Dragoiu
The nations are coming to Romania like never before. In the city of Timisoara alone, more than 10,000 foreign born persons (neither Romanian nor members of the EU) have found their way to Romania over the past few years in search of education, work, and a means to provide for their families. Like many Ukrainians, some are fleeing violence and devastation at home. Some are arriving with student visas to equip themselves for the future. Others carry work visas and a hope to land a job that will allow them to remain in Romania and send money home to less fortunate family members. A few come as Christian believers with a deep longing for fellowship and worship alongside brothers and sisters. Nearly all of them face challenges navigating a new language and culture. The good news is that, with the support of MLI’s Church in Mission ministry, a handful of God’s people in Timisoara are living out the biblical injunction “not to forget to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13.2). And lives are being transformed.
A particularly effective and new strategic partner, in this vein, is the Bethel International Fellowship, an initiative begun two years ago in the basement of Bethel (1st) Baptist Church (Timisoara) through the leadership of Gabi Dragoiu and his wife Thien Bao, a Vietnamese woman Gabi met while they were both studying at Moody Bible College in Chicago. From a recent interview, here’s how Gabi describes the humble beginnings of what is now a small but vibrant international fellowship: “when we (first moved back to Romania), we were searching for an English church ministry in
the city for my wife to be able to integrate easier…which we were not able to find….(In time), we felt an increased burden to start something…fully in English…that might respond…to the needs of the many foreign people we were encountering in the city.”
From an initial launch just a couple of years ago, this small but growing church community is beginning to look like the image of “the nations” gathered around the throne of God referenced in Revelation (7.9). Again, Pastor Gabi: “…there are people coming into our city from countries that we never imagined. Of course, we have classic European countries like Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and France, our close neighbors. But we also have people from Haiti, and Ethiopia, and from Equatorial Guinea. I didn’t even know about some of these countries until these immigrants came to our (church) community!
From an initial launch just a couple of years ago, this small but growing church community is beginning to look like the image of “the nations” gathered around the throne of God referenced in Revelation (7.9). Again, Pastor Gabi: “…there are people coming into our city from countries that we never imagined. Of course, we have classic European countries like Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and France, our close neighbors. But we also have people from Haiti, and Ethiopia, and from Equatorial Guinea. I didn’t even know about some of these countries until these immigrants came to our (church) community!
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” –Hebrews 13:2
Pastoral Conference at Alpinis Leadership Center
Florin Iosub
September 1-5, 2025, at Alpinis Leadership Center, we had the opportunity to host MLI’s annual pastoral conference for pastors and church ministers, together with their wives. About 48 pastors and church workers (96 people in total) participated, some even with their entire families.
The main guest speaker was Pastor Sam Polson, along with his wife Susan Polson. Sam is the pastor of West Park Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. The theme of the main sessions was “The Awe of God in Ministry.” Sam and Susan also led one of the workshops organized during the conference— “The Theology and Practice of Prayer.” Two other workshops were led by Pastor Daniel Bulzan (The Potential of the Lord’s Supper to Renew and Transform a Church) and Pastor Florin Iosub (Fidelity and Testimony in Evangelical Couples/Families).
In addition to the main sessions and workshops, the conference included various other moments in which participants had the opportunity to worship through song and prayer, socialize around the campfire, relax in nature, or even go on a mountain hike. For some of the pastors, the conference is the only opportunity for relaxation and vacation, given their limited resources and the impossibility of spending a vacation with their wife/family in a place like the ALC.
A Word from MI Knoxville
Throughout this Church in Mission edition of the LINK (as a compliment to the Alpinis LINK, last June, and the Children at Risk LINK, last February) you will hear evidence of promises made by God and now fulfilled among his people who are, as children of Abraham, blessing others through the blessing they have received—even now blessing the nations! Thank you for taking time to read this. And thank you for making possible such a blessing to and through the work of Missio Link International, an integral part of the body of Christ in Romania for nearly 25 years.
Thank you for sharing in this work with us,
Kenny Woodhull
MI Knoxville
