'78 Alum Travels to Romania

“I have wanted to move to an Eastern European country since the days of Communism when I heard that missionaries were smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union illegally,” Bierdeman said. “I want to go not only as a believer, but I intend to put my skills as a licensed social worker to work for God. He put this in my heart decades ago.”

Bierdeman, a divorced father of three grown children, has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Illinois Wesleyan University and did two years of graduate studies in the applied analysis of behavior at Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa.

He has spent the majority of his career working with the elderly and their families in hospitals and nursing homes and currently serves as a social worker/care consultant for the Area Agency on Aging of Branch and St. Joseph counties.


Getting a job offer

Bierdeman found a job in Transylvania through an Internet posting from The English School in Targu Mures. In August 2008, the school offered him a chance to teach English as a second language — a position that is unpaid but offers housing and utilities.

Since then, Bierdeman has been on a frenzied one-man fundraising campaign, giving presentations to area churches and leaders and taking electronic courses toward a teaching certification while also doing his day job.

In addition to teaching at the school, Bierdeman hopes to help orphans and prisoners in Romania and to teach English to the poorest residents of Targu Mures. “I’m not sure exactly what to expect until I get there,” he said. “But these people need to learn to speak English, and they need to hear the Word of God.”

Heaven Sent Ministries, in Princeton, W.Va., is overseeing the financial contributions for Bierdeman’s “Mission: Romania.” Lyle Mullins, founder and president of Heaven Sent, said that although The English School is not a religious institution, it benefits from a partnership with Heaven Sent Ministries, which advertises for teachers for the school, helps coordinate trips there and helps manage mission funds for some of the teachers.

The school also understands the benefits of missionaries working to help the city and its people, Mullins said.


Desperate need

Romanian-born Gy Lydvig, 40, of Kalamazoo, said the disadvantaged people of Targu Mures very badly need the kind of educational and social help Bierdeman wants to offer.
Ludvig, a life coach and ordained minister who preaches sometimes at Unity of Kalamazoo and other area churches, was born to Hungarian parents in a Transylvanian city near Targu Mures and lived in Romania until 1993.

“I haven’t been to Targu Mures for about seven years, and I’ve heard that conditions have improved some in the orphanages,” she said. “It used to be horrible. In the past, there would be 30 or 40 or 50 infants with two or three caregivers. These children were never touched. Infant mortality was very high. They would become depressed and just die of loneliness.”
She also described a vast gap in Targu Mures between the affluent and the impoverished, noting that the prosperous and the penniless often live as neighbors.

“There is no middle class there, and the poor really suffer,” she said. “You can walk down the street past a mansion with a sidewalk that is paved with shiny marble. You keep walking and might find a shack two houses down falling apart. Inside that shack, they struggle to find food to eat.”

From an educational and economic standpoint, Ludvig said, Romania needs people like Bierdeman. “The younger generation in Romania is likely to speak at least some English, but many people in their 40s and 50s don’t know much English,” she said. “And I’d say the gypsies don’t speak it at all. Compared to countries in Western or Central Europe, Romania is way behind.

“If Romania is to catch up, it is vital that its population learn English as a second language. ... You can’t get jobs if you don’t speak the language.”


A born missionary

While Bierdeman is hoping to undertake a mission to Romania, he sees the entire world as his mission field. “All you have to do is walk outside your front door,” he said. “All kinds of people need to hear about salvation — at work, at school and maybe next door.”

To spread the gospel in his daily life, he passes out handmade paper bookmarks inscribed with a poem he authored that offers words of spiritual guidance and encouragement. He aso hands out his CD “Treasures,” whose jacket says it’s a compilation of original piano compositions “reflecting upon the joys and sorrows of life and our relationship to God and others.” He has distributed hundreds of copies for free locally and has performed his music in the U.S. and in Russia.

During an interview for this story, he excused himself briefly to deliver a copy to a young man seated alone in a nearby restaurant booth listening to music on his open laptop.

“I want to share the love of Christ and the message of salvation with everyone,” he said when he returned. “I want to meet people wherever they are and try to help them in the name of Christ.”


Drumming up funds

A slumping economy in the U.S. has slowed the fundraising for Bierdeman’s mission project considerably. Some financially strapped churches are reluctant to add missionaries to their ranks, but almost all of the churches Bierdeman has visited have contributed an offering after his presentation. Two churches have pledged to give him regular financial support, and several individuals have promised the same, he said.

Bierdeman said he has raised enough money to get to Romania and has been pledged a small portion of the $1,000 to $1,500 in monthly support he will need to live and work in Targu Mures. He’ll have to raise the rest for his mission plans to come to fruition, he said.

Bierdeman hopes to achieve his financial goals and embark on his journey by summer and to begin teaching by fall. Saying such a long goodbye to his children, parents and siblings, he said, is the biggest challenge he faces.

“Leaving my family will be the hardest thing I have ever done,” he said. “But there are people in great need, and God has called us to be the light of the world. I want to see lives transformed in Targu Mures."

To learn more about Ted Bierdeman’s planned mission project or schedule a presentation on it,  call him at (269) 273-8254 or send e-mail to bierdemans@juno.com.
To make a pledge for his mission project, contact Heaven Sent Ministries at (877) 525-4476 or P.O. Box 5392, Princeton, WV 24740 and give Bierdeman’s name.
To learn more about Heaven Sent Ministries, go to www.hsminc.org.


Article by Kelle Barr of the Kalamazoo Gazette
http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/01/mission_romania_this_good_sama.html