meet our missionaries
Dr. Dana Bates
Multi-Country
Dr. Dana Bates
Multi-Country
Dr. Dana moved to an impoverished coal mining region in Romania in 1999. He developed Romania’s first adventure education and ropes course summer camp called Viata (“the Life” in Romanian), which has given around 700 youth a transformative summer camp experience every year and introduced them to the Orthodox Way of life. As a follow-up to the summer camp, Dana developed a service-learning model called IMPACT that, besides teaching all sorts of life-skills, introduces youth to Orthodoxy by living the “liturgy after the Liturgy,” becoming agents of change in their communities. IMPACT has gone on to become a global best practice and is used in over fifty countries through organizations like World Vision. Dana has worked closely with the Romanian Orthodox Church and plans to share these experiential learning models throughout the world through the Orthodox Christian Mission Center and her partners. Dana converted to Orthodoxy in 2003 and went on to get his PhD at the Oxford Centre for Missions Studies on Orthodox theology in dialogue with development studies (causes of poverty and well-being). Dana has two children, Briana Jelsa and Gabriel Matei. Their passions are hiking, mountain-biking, and spending time outdoors.
Ministries & Projects
Youth Education & Ministry
Since developing the widely-used IMPACT service-learning model while in Romania, Dr. Dana is working to share this and related models for youth education & ministry with the Orthodox churches in many areas of the world, helping them to develop the youth programs that are so vital to a healthy church.
Currently, there are 39 IMPACT youth groups in Kenya and Uganda, with almost 1,000 youth engaged in life-changing community service, solving real problems and showing how faith can make a difference. Projects include gender violence prevention, projects related to health issues, and many water sanitation projects. Here is but one example from Uganda: One IMPACT group made over 10,000 bricks, sold them, and used the proceeds to repair a borehole, restoring precious, clean water to their community. See the Photos section below and click to expand the picture to see the IMPACT group, the bricks they made, and the borehole. Great are the Achievements of Faith!











