Working towards greater indigenous sustainability in Eastern Europe

by James Vaughton, CEO

TEN is committed to do what we can to help partners move towards sustainability for the building of God’s kingdom, in all areas of their ministries.

TEN has always been at the forefront of working towards Christian leaders being locally sustainable. We’ve done this through supporting the resourcing and raising up of indigenous leaders since Dave Foster first ventured behind the Iron Curtain and Gary Cox made it clear that Eurovangelism would stand with Danny and Vera in Serbia.

We continue to see the development of centres of training for ministry, run by in-country leaders. Following in the footsteps of Emanuel University in Romania, TEN has supported the development of ISTL in Albania, Mathetis Bible School in Romania and Bible schools in North Macedonia and Kosovo. Local leaders no longer need to travel to Western Europe for good quality theological training!

It would be fair to say that local financial sustainability remains a mountain to be climbed. Wonderfully, several of our partners have diversified their support from reliance on some western donors and engaged in TEN’s matched funding programmes, and others have set up small businesses to sustain their ministries.

In line with TEN’s approach of supporting local leaders we continue to look for ways to support local partners where they are developing more local financial sustainability. In this edition of Connect you will read of some of the ways our partners, supported by TEN are taking on this challenge. Please pray for this work.