Alum Profile: Romeo del Rosario, Ph.D. 1981
Dr. Romeo del Rosario is a missionary and the director of the Cambodia Mission Initiative in the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. He is also teaching at the Cambodian Methodist Bible School (CMBS), training numerous local leaders for the Cambodian Methodist Church. In addition, he is serving as the chair of the theological education committee, which is responsible for the continuing theological training of pastors and church workers in Cambodia.
He received his Ph.D. in theological and religious studies, with a major in ecumenics and mission, from Boston University in 1981. His dissertation analyzed and described the schism which occurred in the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Philippines in 1933, focusing on the struggle for autonomy and indigenization within the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
After earning his degree, Dr. Rosario has served many countries as a missionary and teacher for more than 25 years since the mid-1980s: From 1985 to 1988, he taught at Theological Hall (now Sierra Leone Theological College) in Sierra Leone, West Africa. From 1989 to 1992, Dr. Rosario worked as liaison between the United Methodist Church and the Middle East Council of Churches in Jerusalem, West Bank. Then, he served as a lecturer and then dean of the Sabah Theological Seminary in Malaysia from 1992 to 2001. Before taking his current position in Cambodia, he worked for the Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines as an officer-in-charge.
Acknowledging his achievements, Boston University School of Theology named him as one of the four winners of the 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award. He is currently involved in a very important project for the future of the Methodist Church in Cambodia: With the goal of an autonomous Methodist Church in Cambodia by 2016, he is playing a leading role in writing the Book of Discipline in Cambodia.
Profile by Hye Jin Lee.