How it all began...

By Chris Fox, EPIC Director

I have been working in Eastern Europe for over 30 years, long before the various ‘revolutions’ took place, and therefore I have many friends who are pastors and church leaders.

In the mid 90’s I began asking them what sort of help, if any, they might need in the future, assuming that the status quo remained the same and they were still free to evangelise and preach the Gospel without restriction.

Over and over again the reply was, ‘yes, we do still need your help but we would like regular contact not one off visits’. You see, in the past it was not possible for names to be known or letters written and all contacts were made anonymously and quickly because of the danger involved. One got used to clandestine visits at night to hand over literature and other much needed items, but all that has changed and churches in Eastern Europe don’t want to be on the receiving end all the time.

The economic situation has changed so much over the last decade. Many countries have joined the E.U. and are very ‘Western’. If you go into their shops they are similar to ours including the western prices. The maximum pastor’s wage is around £200 per month, but you see children’s trainers for sale at £40 and fridges for £400.

The further East one travels the bigger the gap between rich and poor. Nowhere is it more apparent than in Romania. There are such extremes of poverty and wealth, and the government seems powerless to do anything to stop the gap widening or to control the import of pornographic magazines and videos, or to address the causes of the breakdown of family life resulting in thousands of ‘street children’ wandering around the cities.

These are some of the problems the church is up against. On the whole the congregations are very poor, We know churches where only two or three families own a car. Many pastors have two jobs because the congregation is too poor to pay him. The average wage in Romania is £60 a month and in Bulgaria it is even less.

However, lack of resources doesn’t stop a church from growing and reaching out to the community. It just takes so much longer. One example would be the building of a new church. Instead of being able to buy all the materials at the beginning, only some will be purchased. The work will start and then be delayed months if not years because in the meantime inflation has caused a bag of cement to go up 15 times in price! A new church building was begun in the town of Targu Jiu and the pastor of this church spent 8 years supervising the construction work.

I formed EPIC to be a link, to enable churches here in the UK to have a ‘meaningful relationship’ with a church in Eastern Europe Not just by giving money but to get to know the people, the area, and to share in the opportunities to equip and strengthen Christians ‘over there’. At the same time benefiting from the link church praying every day for the needs of the congregation here. To crib a quote, “it’s good to pray” and it doesn’t matter which language!

Where similar schemes have failed in the past is because maintaining the link is seen as the Minister’s job and he never has the time! My idea is to involve as many people as possible and to link families so that they can write to each other and have a photo on the kitchen notice board to remind them to pray for each other.

During the length of the partnership there will also be exchange visits for holidays, for teaching and training and maybe language camps for teenagers and work parties which can involve anyone between the ages of 10 and 75! To have some input into the life of another church is exciting, costly, and challenging but the blessings will soon be evident and the English church will never be the same again!