It all started last year (November, 2009) during a talk with Brother Marin Barbu (GC European Region Secretary), at a break of the last Italian Field Council meeting, before the reorganization of the Italian Field. While talking about the missionary work in Albania, I underlined the need to include also missionary skills in the missionary school program to increase the missionary spirit of the students and to prepare them to be effective witnesses, ready to preach the Glad Tidings to every corner of the world. After a while Brother Barbu asked me: “Are you willing to teach this subject?” “If there is nobody else that would teach and I am invited to do it, I will” was my answer. . . .

Months went by and finally, in March, 2010, I was informed by Brethren Marin Barbu and Marius Stroia that I was called to teach missionary skills at the Emanuel Missionary Institute, in Fagaras (Romania), in the summer of 2010.

After many hours spent preparing my lessons, on Sunday morning, July 25, 2010, I stood before a group of postgraduate students with a translator, Sister Semida Sascau. A new challenge, a new experience, was before me. I was teaching in a missionary school and, according to my knowledge, for the first time, a subject that as far as I know, had never been taught with this particular focus and emphasis in our missionary schools. I felt the great responsibility that was involved in the training of a new generation of missionaries to spread the Gospel to every corner of the earth!

The students, all living in Romania, were very attentive to the lessons. On July 30, 2010, some more students came from Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

On Sunday August 1, 2010, we moved to the Romanian Union campus in Porumbacu de Sus, because in Fagaras, where the Union headquarters is located, a delegation session was to take place. The classes were held for two days in the Porumbacu de Jos church. Most of us slept in tents, and we spent the evening around the fire. On that occasion there was also an outing in the mountains. Some of the students had already had two weeks of classes and had also helped in the construction of the building that will host the 21st General Conference delegation session. So they needed that day off for recreation in nature.

The classes ended in Fagaras on August 5, 2010. The two weeks spent with the students - not only in classroom teaching - but also praying, worshipping, eating, and spending free time together, was a positive experience.

We studied the Gospel work in its different multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural reflection for the propagation of the Christian faith. I used the term “missiology” for the subjects covered: the Gospel Mandate and the World; Preaching the Gospel; the Gospel Mandate and our needs; the Gospel mission in the Old Testament, in the Gospels, in Acts and the other New Testaments books; Jesus, the Missionary; the Holy Spirit and Missionary Work; the Missionary Church; Culture and Communication; SDA Missions till 1924 and the SDA Missionaries; SDARM Missions and Missionaries (and Albania); the Study of a Mission Project. There were also two workshops: one about Paul as a missionary and the other about the present missionary work in the country of residence of the students. And we also watched three films: one about J. Hudson Taylor, the second about William Carey, and the third about the missionary work among the Huaorani people in Ecuador.

What a wonderful heritage we have before us and what a wonderful privilege we have as messengers of the present truth!