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Renewing our Minds (ROM) Gathering 2009

In August 2009 Dr Scott Boldt, through the work of the Edgehill Reconciliation Programme, took part in the eleventh Renewing Our Minds, or ROM gathering in Fuzine, Croatia serving as a speaker, mentor, facilitator and participant. 

There were 15 countries represented in the eclectic gathering representing diverse religious backgrounds ranging from Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christian as well as Muslim, Jews and people who describe themselves as atheist or no longer attending a Church. 
 
The ROM Gathering is a journey focusing on Reconciliation and Leadership Development.  The teaching methods are interactive and relational, and they include interactive lectures, workshops, dialogue forums, small group activities, outdoor team building activities, study trips, excursions, role reversal exercises, group and individual mentoring and counseling, sports and entertainment. 
The first ten years of ROM have shown that the experience for most of the participants becomes life changing.
 

Some of the recorded statements say: 
 

“When I first participated in ROM I could not believe that people so different could love and respect each other without prejudice. I’ve never experienced before that I could be loved by those who were supposed to be my enemies.”  (Participant from Croatia)
 
“Now I know myself better. It is true that as you are ready to encounter diversity, you can see and understand yourself better.”
(Participant from Armenia)


“ROM was the first thing in my life that felt so sincere, so loving and so inspiring. It captured my heart. It is amazing to see how the teachings of Jesus did not only change me, but also my brother; and they now continue to impact my parents too.” (Participant from Bosnia-Herzegovina)
 

2009 was the first year ROM was reduced from a 3 week to a 2 week programme; nevertheless, it continues to have a deep impact on participants.   
 
One participant from Nazareth, Israel tells this story:

 
My number one ambition with what I do, which is (tour) guiding, was always to show Jewish people as monsters. Yes, we were trying to reach reconciliation, but then we would spend one hour about explaining what they were doing to us, such as "look at this and look at that". Being at ROM, away from Israel, from Jews and Arabs, reminded me that there is a world outside suffering from similar situations, and even much worse!

I had the privilege to hear different and amazing people speak about different subjects, starting from history, religion and politics to personal stories. Then I realized how stupid people are wasting their energies in fighting over boundaries, ethnicity and religion.

And so my mind began to change about many things, and I was glad, for people are very much a product of their own thoughts, and it is by changing one's mind and heart that people find purpose. And then I thought "yea, changing the world sounds nice".

 

 

History
 
Immediately following the Balkan wars (1991-1995) in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, a group of young adults actively involved with Life Center International (LCI), a faith-based, interdenominational and humanitarian organisation in Croatia, gave birth to the Renewing Our Minds Initiative, or ROM. 

Vesna Tift (former Vuletic), Drazen Glavas, Nate and Ali Ussery, Jim Teall and a few other young adults around LCI, led by Stevo Dereta, LCI President, and mentored by Anthony Cordle, Jim Brown and others, prayerfully sought the answer to the question: How should the organisation that until recently worked with bringing healing to hundreds of war victims from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina identify its mission within a context of the post-war challenges at a time of major political, social and economical transition?


The obvious social maladies in the late nineties visited across Southeast Europe, and especially the emerging countries following the breakup of former Yugoslavia, were economic distress, ethnic, religious and political divisions; corruption in leadership and abuse of its power; with many people hurting, distrustful of each other; and the entire generation of young people lost, confused, in apathy, with no vision for the future and no role models to follow.

It was in response to those challenges, and with the focus on the future of Southeast Europe, that the ROM movement was born. Its purpose was to be a platform from which experienced leaders and mentors would invest into a new generation of leaders the values of servant leadership, reconciliation, friendship and following Jesus of Nazareth. Those four became and remained the key ingredients of ROM.
 
The first Reconciliation and Leadership Development Gathering, or simply named ROM Gathering, designed as a motivational and life defining experience targeting young leaders across the Balkan region, was launched in the summer of 1999 in a small mountain township of Fuzine in Croatia, with 40 international participants in attendance. 
 

ROM’s Vision and Mission
 
From the very beginning, the ROM vision was identified by its founders and leadership teams as a pursuit of transformed leadership that will build a transformed society that sustains peace, justice and benevolence for all, inspired by the character and principles of Jesus of Nazareth. Consequentially the ROM mission focused on developing leaders of integrity, committed to reconciliation, friendship and peace building in Southeast Europe and beyond, who having become renewed in their minds, characters, attitudes and actions in the likeness of Jesus, were steadily transforming their constituencies, communities and countries. 
 

ROM was never intended to be a movement with a partisan religious or political agenda or ambition. Instead, its strategy was focused on personal transformation that leads to a benevolent leadership; achieved through relational and multidisciplinary education that leads to resourceful friendship, mentorship and networking, as well as to practical initiatives and new learning communities across ethnic, religious and other societal divides. Its core values have been the pursuit of love for God and others before oneself; personal and societal integrity; unity in diversity; forgiveness, reconciliation and building of sustainable peace; and sacrificial leadership.

For more information on ROM please click here.