December 2005



Greetings from Romania!

Thank you for expressing interest in the New Horizons Foundation, a ministry, in affiliation with Young Life, to nationals in Lupeni, Romania! Before you proceed to consider volunteer options with us, we want to invite you to get to know us a little better. We feel that this will help you as you pray and contemplate whether serving with us in Romania is for you.

Due to the context here in Romania, we are very different than mainstream Young Life. In the 6 years that we have lived here we have sought to contextualize Young Life and sharing the love of God with youth to the particular needs and unique circumstances of our post-communist, Orthodox (+80% of Romanians consider themselves to be Orthodox Christians), impoverished coal-mining (56% unemployment) environment. This means that Young Life in Lupeni, Romania looks very different than Young Life in Suburbia, America. This may excite you or this may not be what you had in mind. But much of what we do would feel more like development work—helping youth develop their God-given capabilities (especially moral). And we work closely with the Orthodox Church, which is exciting, but can also seem strange to Protestants. We are also trying to pioneer two disciplines, adventure education and service learning, in both faith-based and secular contexts as a means of “Christ transforming Culture.”

After reading carefully through selected sections of our website (please see below), we believe you will have a better understanding of Young Life in Lupeni, Romania and whether it might be the place for you. If what you learn excites you, please contact us so that we can further discuss volunteer possibilities. Again, on behalf of all of us at the New Horizons Foundation, we thank you for your interest in this ministry to nationals in Lupeni, Romania. We hope you enjoy learning more about us and we hope to hear from you again.

Blessings to you,

Brandi and Dana Bates and the New Horizons Foundation in Lupeni, Romania

From our website – www.new-horizons.ro - please read:

• http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/tradition.asp

This section – “Leveraging Tradition” – attempts to summarize our theology of mission, namely why we seek to work within (rather than outside) the Romanian Orthodox Church (some 80% of Romanians are Orthodox Christians).

• http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/publications.asp

Please read our e-newsletters which are concise, quarterly summaries of our ministry, written expressly for our American donors.

• http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/index.asp and http://www.new-horizons.ro/about_us/our_history.asp

These 2 sections – “About Us” and “Our History” – give brief and helpful overviews of our ministry as it’s grown over the past 6 years.

• http://www.new-horizons.ro/impact/index.asp and http://www.new-horizons.ro/viata/index.asp

Give overviews of our 2 keystone programs: IMPACT (which is our version of Club) and the Viata Program (our summer camp).

The Viata and IMPACT Programs in Lupeni, Romania

www.new-horizons.ro * danabrandi@new-horizons.ro