BISERICA BAPTISTA GOTESTI

Mission at Giurgulesti

2011-12-13T05:37:00.000-08:00

The church at Giurgulesti had their annual outreach mission last week and we from Gotesti were invited to come with a team and do a programme and preach the gospel on Sunday the final day.

I came with 6 others including Slavic ( who led our programme) and Aliona his wife who together with Anisoara sang the songs in our programme.

Recently baptised ones Sergiu and Vasia gave their testimonies.

We took the passage from Luke 15 on the lost sheep and tried to show how this is an example of our experiences when we leave the Shepherd's way and go our own way i.e the lost sheep undoubtedly became hungry on it's own and so do we ( although ours is a spiritual hunger for love, assurance, purpose etc )
We then referred to the fact that Jesus is the answer to this emptiness - He Himself said "I am the bread of life" We looked at how the sheep probably got very hurt and how we also get hurt from various experiences in life - abuse rejection etc. Jesus said "I have come to heal the broken hearted" And various other things we also loooked at.

At the end of the message we made an appeal for anyone who wanted to come back to God and follow Him with the rest of their lives.

There were two that responded outwardly and here in the photo is Dana, one of those, being embraced by her father who is already a member in the church.

They held each other for a long time and wept.

It was a priviledge to be at that moment in her life and that of her family.

Pastor Mark

Chris Elston

2011-12-10T07:52:00.001-08:00

We were pleased to have Chris Elston again with us at the church in Gotesti.

Chris has a teaching English ministry in Emanuel church in Cahul.

Around 80 students come in various groups and many then go on to come to the church regularly.

We were just at their end of term Christmas party when a great time was had by all.

Chris came on a visit to us in Gotesti and preached on Sunday morning.

His message was on the grace of God. God demonstrated how much he loves us by giving His only Son to die for us while we were still sinners - Is there therefore, anything good He will withhold from us if already gave us the best he has - his own Son. Many were touched by the timely reminder of His grace.

Ion Manica, a former student of our bible school was also with us along with his wife Irina.

He is from the village of Tartarul and the church there meets in his house. It's been hard work for them for many years and yet his message was from the Psalms about being thankful in all things. It encouraged us all as we all know how difficult things are for them.

Pastor Mark

Physically Disabled Meeting

2011-12-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we had an intimate meal for our physically disabled members and church regulars.

Bottom right of picture is Nicu who has been blind from very early childhood and who was the first physically disabled person to get saved and become a member in our church.

Further up on the same side are Fedea and Gheorghe twins who have a degenerative disease that makes it very difficult for them to walk.

Having said that, they walk to church every Sunday for the meetings - takes them about an hour for a 10 min walk for the able bodied.

In this photo the physically disabled minsitry team are standing behind Fedea and Gheorghe.

The lady on the left wearing the hat is Valea. She is was that provided the food for the meal - a gift in celebration of her birthday although it was about a month early.

Interestingly hers is the one birthday of all our church members that I consistently remember because it is on the same day as mine.

Pastor Mark

Funeral at Moscovei

2011-11-28T05:53:00.001-08:00

I was recently invited to preach at a funeral in the town of Moscovei.

The man who had died was a member in the church there but many years before his repentance he was a much respected brigade leader when the coountry was communist.

Thus the church were expecting many people to turn out for his funeral and indeed they did.

In Moldovan evangelical funerals the body is kept in an open casket and the procession starts from the house. This is where I had the privilidege of speaking. I shared how the body dies but not the soul, the person we are inside. We spoke of the Bible's teaching that there are 2 places after death and we will spend eternity either in heaven or in hell. I shared that both Vanya ( the dead man ) and his wife Ania knew before he died that they both will be in heaven and so they will one day meet again with joy. I explained that in 1 John5:13 we are told we also can know this for certain before we die if we put our trust in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

Under communism evangelical churches were not permitted to preach the gospel publically except at funerals and weddings which is probably why they use the opportunity to preach several times throughout the funeral service to the many unsaved that come.

We walked from the house to the graveyard and stopped at various points to share the gospel. Here Sergiu the pastor of Moscovei Baptist church is speaking to the crowd as they stopped outside the church building. I cannot tell you what he was preaching as he spoke in Russian ( indeed my message was translated into Russian also, as, for most people in the village Russian is their first language). ( Moscovei is often called little Moscow by locals)

Mari was very poorly at home so I did not go all the way with them to the graveyard but they insisted that they feed me before I went so I sat down in the newly built canteen that they have for the vulnerable children's ministry and ate a lovely bors.

While I was eating the lady in this picture approached me - her name is Masa. She asked me if I remembered a mission that we did in 1996 in the cultural house in Moscovei. I said I remembered it well ( we had to get a translator to come from Chisinau, the capital, as Russian translators in the South were hard to find) I also said that we had done the mission at the cultural house in the centre of Moscovei and that a lot of people came every night of the mission but during the whole week only one person came out to the front in response to daily appeals to repentance. She said "Yes that is true - I am at that person" Despite a very hard life both before and after her commitment to Christ she is a member in the church and has been going on with God and serving Him ever since.

Go knows how to encourage us

Pastor Mark

Alpha Course

2011-11-27T11:09:00.001-08:00

Our winter Alpha course began on 30th October and we are now into the 5th week. The numbers have again been good this year with 50-70 coming each week.

We have had groups from Cantemir, Porumbesti, Badicu, Chircani and Gotesti as before and this year Dorin Moga who is responsible for the church at Baurcii has been bringing seekers each week.

As in all Alpha courses there is a meal to start with and we serve pizzas in our course which seems to go down well with everybody. There has been so many questions over the weeks that we decided to add an extra topic for this week - Repent and Believe. In the message we spoke of how we can never make ourselves good enough for God by good works on our part because He is perfect and our sins will not permit us to come into His presence but that He has resolved this Himself by putting all our sins and their judgment on Jesus His Son on the cross. We then explained how we need to put our trust in this work that Jesus did on the cross and thereby be counted righteous by God ( or counted as if we had never sinned ). Then we looked at how the Bible says we also need to repent and what that means i.e giving our whole lives over to Christ and committing ourselves with the Holy Spirit's help to obey Him in everything.

The message was followed by splitting into groups to discuss what we had heard.

Here Ruslan is with the group from Baurcii - some were hearing this message for the first time.

I helped lead Lucian's group from Badicu and was very encouraged about how open and honest they were about the state of their souls.

They all seemed to have grasped about repentance meaning making Jesus Lord of your life and were honest about the reasons they had not made the committment yet.

We'd value your prayers for these ones and the others as they consider these big decisions for their lives

Pastor Mark

Progress with Chircani Building

2011-11-22T06:23:00.001-08:00

We thank God, that with His enabling, and your support we are making progress with the Chircani building.

This is phase 1 we are working on which is replacing the roof.

As you can see the facia has been stripped to the brick and the roof top removed.

The double glazed windows have been fitted for quite a while.

Unfortunately as we began the work of roof replacement we discovered that there was more needing done than the original drawings required in terms of underpinning and raising coulmns which has added to the expense substiantially but the weather has remained kind and it has meant that if we do not run out of money we may indeed get phase 1 completed before the winter sets in which was our objective.

This is Avram whom many of you know. He is a member at Gotesti church and a very experienced and wise master builder - like Bezalel Ex 35:30,31- Avram is our foreman on the site at Chircani . He has been a real provision of the Lord as there has been a lot of specialist work needed regarding underpinning and columns etc and he has been that man.

We have had between 5 and 7 people working on site including a watchman.

If we finish this phase before winter then we hope to start phase 2 in the Spring which would be outside plastering and inside meeting room and hopefully 2 Sunday school rooms .

This architect's picture is the goal we are all working towards

Thanks for all your support

Pastor Mark

P.S Latest - we have started on the roof itself see photo

The Wedding of Sergiu and Liuba

2011-11-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

Just one week after Sergiu and Liuba were baptised ( see a previous blog ) here thay are getting married also at the church in Gotesti.

The church was full with a large number of mostly Liuba's relatives attending along with members of our church.

We were able to share a message on "Your Maker is your Husband" and speak of how He wants a personal relationship with us like a husband to a wife.

Liuba's father who is in very poor health made the effort to come and give Liuba away while Sergiu's mum was responsible for all the catering making most of it herself ( she has been a cook in kindergarten's and schools for all her working life catering for big numbers - this wedding was a stroll in the park for her). The food was delicious.

Slavic was M.C and he did very well. Most of those attending had never been to our church or any evangelical church so I guess they did not know what to expect when it came to the reception afterwards. Often, of course, they hear all sorts of incorrect rumours about what we are like but you could see them all starting to steadily relax as Slavic began to lead in games and funny stories etc

As the reception went on they were paticipating quicker in the games than our own members.

We had the priviledge of being at the top table as well as having performed the ceremony and preached. To the right of Sergiu as you look at this picture is Vasia Rascovschii. He was also baptised with Sergiu the week before and he was his best man. To the left of Liuba is her, as yet unmarried, sister Marina who interestingly was the one who caught the bouquet tossed by the bride. So watch this space

Pastor Mark

KIng's Together with Us in Outreach Mission

2011-11-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Every year around the end of October we have our annual outreach mission in our villages of Gotesti and Chircani. This year we had the joy of a team from my mum's church in N.I. - Kings Fellowship come out to share in the work of ministry for the mission and baptism. Also in the team was our good friend Mary Cottrell from St Michael's in Bristol.

Here they are singing a song in one of the evening evangelistic meetings.

The locals loved how they sang which was with such joy and power and the visitors from our villages burst out in loud applause every time they sang.

We had 9 in the team and split them up into 3 sometimes 4 smaller teams for the purpose of visiting various homes. They worked hard all week at this bringing love, sometimes aid into homes and sharing the gospel where the opportunity was afforded ( which was in most homes ). In one or two cases the hosts prayed for Christ to become their Saviour.

We visited together homes in Gotesti and Chircani and invited the hosts to come to the mission that we were holding in Gotesti each evening ( many came ) We also went to Hirtop and Plopi were we made various visits.

While in that part of the county we were invited to come into one of the schools and address the teachers - Phil shared a gospel message using the coloured wrist band and then Anne pictured here shared her experiences of the education system in UK ( she is a school inspector ). She was able to relate how her faith is worked out in the experiecnes of her job. The teachers really appreciated her and asked her to stay and talk with them more which she gladly did.

Our outreach mission week was in 2 parts - Mon-Wed was a youth mission. Here we see part of the evening involved playing various games. The youth also did a sketch each evening many of which had us in tears because of the power of them.

Then the gospel was preached by Phil Craig or John Shannon or myself. Around 20 young people made a response during the 3 days.

Those that responded from Gotesti and Chircani are being followed up with discipling by Igor.

Then from Thurs to Sunday we had the mission for all ages and again saw around 10 people make repsonses over the days of the mission.

Our good friends Volodia and Virginia Boncev (on left of picture) who pastor the church in Cantemir and Stefan and Veta Hanganu who pastor the church in Porumbesti ( front right) brought non Christians from their respective villages and are here pictured with Phil Craig (back left in white) and John Shannon (back right in white)

Sunday saw us end the week of evangelism with a baptism and dedication meeting.

The first part of the meeting was given over to Igor and Tanya who brought their second daughter Felicia for dedication. They committed themselves to bring her up in the fear and knowledge God and then we prayed the blessing that the Lord granted to be prayed over children as in Num 6:23-26.

Both of Igor and Tanya's mums were at the meeting which was great to see.

Then we had a programme of songs and testimonies where Vasia and Sergiu both gave their testimonies and Aliona and Anisoara sang. This was followed by a message from the Bible which spoke about how it is God's plan for us to each experience him personally - as the Bible says in Is 54;4 "Your maker is your husband"

The building was full with visitors from our villages but also from Porumbesti Cantemir,Plopi, and Hirtop.
Here Steopa from Chircani is being baptised by me with Ruslan assisting. The Lord has done a marvelous work in him as only this time last year he was a total captive of alcohol. However he came to the Lord received grace and forgiveness and has had his life completly changed. Interestingly I have known him for years as his wife is a memebr in Chircani church and I was talking to him a few weeks before his baptism. After speaking for a few minutes with him I said "Do you know Steopa I have known you for 10 years and spoke 100's of times with you but in all those years this is the first time I have had a converstaion with you when you have been sober. I never knew what an intelligent man you are." He replied with tears in his eyes that the drink has stolen many precious years off him. I told him that the Lord has spoken in His word that "H will restore the years that the locust has eaten." Pray for him as he has liver disease now.

Here is Sergiu being baptised. We are all having a chuckle as some wag nearby suggested we might need a step ladder to baptise him - he is around 6'6".

He had been a very wild living man before we first came into contact with him - he came to Karis Pizza one night very drunk and insisted that Mari stay and eat pizza with him - meanwhile Ruslan Larisa and I were in a another room having a very important meeting ( Mari insists were hiding from the drunken 6'6"Sergiu )

Anyway she talked much to him and he finally left but she shot up a prayer to the Lord saying well Lord even him you can save. "Is the arm of the Lord too short to save anyone" It isn't and in the Alpha course that followed Sergiu and Liuba his girlfriend were saved.

This was Sunday 23 Oct and Sunday 30 Oct he and Liuba were due to get married - watch this space

Pastor Mark

Andy Jo and Su in Moldova

2011-11-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

We had a wondeful albeit short time in September when Andy Drake the new director of Eurovangelism and Jo Vickery the Minister at Downend Church of England in Bristol and Sue an experienced member of their church came out to us in Moldova to meet with the partners and also take a conference with men.

Downend partner with the church in Pelinei and thus they came to see all the different aspects of the work that Misa Hiorescu and Ina are involved in at the church in Pelinei and Usoaia where they have recently planted a new church.

The church runs a centre for vulnerable kids. Around 25 come 3 days a week to the church and have a meal and then play games and study the bible.

Jo and Sue were able to participate in the programme when Sue told a story to illustrate the gospel message.

On Sunday the team came to be with the church in Pelinei for the morning meeting when Joe preached and then later we all went to the church plant at Usoaia where Joe was able to bring the word again

On Saturday Andy spoke at a conference held in Gotesti church and attended by around 70 pastors and workers from the South.

His subject was how to reach men with the gospel and we learned many important principles and ideas.

Afterwards we took a photo of Andy and all who attended outside the church.

A hectic but great time together

Pastor Mark

Rachael and Abigail at Summer Camp

2011-10-31T04:51:00.001-07:00

Both Rachael and Abigail went to a summer camp for 5 days this year - it's the first time they have been away to such a thing as we usually have day camps in Gotesti.

The camp was run by Anatol and Nadia Dunas the pastor of the church in Cahul - he is pictured in the background in the red shirt.

Both our girls had a wondeful time of fun and also learning of the the Lord

Rachael came back changed and Nadia rang me from the bus on the way home to say what a helpful blessing Rachael had been - she's at that age now where her faith is maturing.

Abigail had a lovely time also and here they are pictured with David one of Anatol's sons and Andrea, the daughter of Mariana our manageress of the coffee shop and one of Abigail's best friends

We thank the team of Americans who came and participated in the summer camp and also carried the bulk of the expenses for the camp.

Pastor Mark

Water Melon fellowship

2011-10-31T03:09:00.000-07:00

As the summer began to draw to a close we organsied a time of fellowship with the believers

from Gotesti.

We shared water melon together and had a time to chat and relax

The big man in the photo is Sergiu a new believer who had lived a prodigal life until he recently repented in the Alpha course along with his wife Liuba.

They are planning to get baptised in the autumn when we have our next baptism meeting.

To his right is Georghe one of a pair of twins who are our members and who both have a muscle wasting disease - both walk to every meeting at the church although it takes them over an hoour to get to the church for what would be a 10 min walk for the rest of us. Courtesy of King's Fellowship in NI we have a car to transport the physically disabled which means we can take them home after the meetings. It will probably only be a year or so ( unless the Lord does a miracle ) before neither will be able to walk to church

Behind Sergiu is Tanya Rascovschii whom many of you know as she is Igor's wife ( our youth leader ) and is also one of our main translators.

Contrary to how it may seem she is not hiding a water melon under her shirt. They are expecting their second child some time around September.

After bloating ourselves with water melon we all went to play a game of volley.

Only the wise ones like the pastor didn't play

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

A Summer of Weddings

2011-10-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

We have had a rich summer of weddings this year with 3 taking place and another due in late october.

The first was between Claudia Caraivan and Roma Cheptene. Claudia is one of the 4 daugthers of Avraam and Veta whom many of you know. I have done the cunonia ( marriage ceremony ) for the 3 daugthers that have now been married ( Nadina the remaining one is just turning 18 so watch this space )

Claudia and Roma were married in Vad lui Isac church were Andrei Ciobanu ( whom many of you know) is the pastor. Andrei afforded me the priviledge of doing the cunonia while Misa Caraivan, Claudia's brother preached the message which meant the many non Christians had a chance to understand something of God's love for us.

Claudia and Roma have decided to live in Vad lui Isac which is his home village

As the summer progressed we had our second wedding this time in Gotesti between Viorel Regus and Olesia Vladimirov. Viorel assists Igor in the running of our youth group so all the youth took part in his wedding.

Slavic Bufenco was M.C for the celebrations afterwards and led us all in many interesting and original games - he's becoming quite proficient in this role

Finally at the end of the summer Mariana Cara married Andrei Taranenco the assistant leader of the sports ministry at O.M Moldova.

Mathew Skirton, the leader of the O.M work in Moldova and an old close friend, ( that is to say the friendship has been for a while not that either of us are old ) came to bring the message in the wedding along with many amusing anecdotes. Thus the whole wedding was conducted in Romanian by 2 English missionaries ( although I for one have spent more time living in Moldova than I did in England - having left NI in 1982 to live in England and then come to Moldova in 1994 )

Again there were fun celebrations afterwards.
In one case Mari and I were called out to participate in one of the games - something I hate doing after I was called on a previous occassion to participate in a game where I was blindfolded and needed to pick out Mari from 5 other women by feeling her hands - I chose the wrong wife's hands!!!

However in this case it was a game of Charades and Mari and I won easily - no pictures of this historic moment I am afraid ( and no prize either !!!)

Pastor Mark

Mariana has gone with her husband Andrei to live in Chisinau and the are serving together on the staff of O.M.

Pastor Mark

Summer Ministries

2011-10-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

We had 3 teams from Mission Direct come out to us this summer and as always they were involved in many and varied things in our minsitries in both Gotesti and Chircani.

Their building project was helping us with our church community centre in Chircani. This is the trench they dug by hand at the back. Unfortunately because of all the hassle we've been getting regarding the documents we were unable to start construction on the main body of the project so the team helped renovate the house of a needy believer.

We had 3 summer camps for children - 2 in Gotesti and 1 in Chircani. Around 80 came to the first camp in Gotesti of which quite a number responded to the gospel while around 30 came to Chircani. Our final camp was for a group from our Sunday school.

The MD teams got involved with crafts and games and also helped much with cleaning and dishes and other such things

Each year the teams also participate in our meetings at the churches in Gotesti and Chircani

This year we were very pleased to have some old friends on one of the teams. John and Marian Shaw in the centre of the picture.

We first met them when they came out to Moldova around 1995 to visit their daughter Julia who was on our team at the time.

John preached in all the meetings while he was here.

The teams also went out on visits to various needy homes in both villages taking aid packets to them.

We'd value your prayers for these things especially for the Chircani Community Centre which we have now been released into working on

Pastor Mark

Dedication of Sasa

2011-08-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

At the church we do several dedications each year usually of babies whose parents are members in the church.

They are all special to me and the church.

Many are often children of a couple who were both saved in the church and baptised as adults.

Some of the parents were saved as children and have grown up in the church

So I trust you can see why they are all special to us but this one had even more significance

This is Sergiu and Lilia Traistar dedicating their first child whom they had named Sasa, after Sergiu's late father.

Why is it particularly significant? Because Sasa Traistar was the brother who planted our church in Gotesti.

It was in it's infancy when he was discovered to have terminal cancer. He worked until it was no longer possible for him and then moved with his family including the young Sergiu to USA to get the care he deserved until he died.

A few years ago for various reasons Sergiu came back to Moldova and to Gotesti where he met Lilia whom he later married and here they are dedicating and praying along with us for the young Sasa to grow up in his grandfather's footsteps in the very church that his grandfather planted those years ago.

I am sure Sasa senior was in that cloud of witnesses watching on with his hands raised in praise to God the pose of him most remembered by those of us who knew him
I know I was thinking of him as his son prayed for his grandson.

What a faithful God we have

Pastor mark

Cristina and Ovidiu's wedding

2011-07-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

The day after Kate and William got married in late April our own royal couple Cristina Cara ( sister of Marina ) from Gotesti and Ovidiu Voicu from Pitesti in Romania got married in his home town.

I was invited to do the ceremony while Ovidiu's pastor brought a message from the Bible.

We and various relatives of Cristina all travelled to Romania together and stayed over night. They had a set meal for the reception.

They had planned to have the wedding out in the garden but just before the start time a thunderstorm swept in and the wedding needed to take place inside.

However the sun soon came out and the photos were taken in the garden.

Here's the bride with her sister Marina ( Iulian's wife )

Our friends Neil and Joan were still with us and came along to the wedding before travelling back to the UK the next day.

Cristina was one of our main worship leaders as well as being a children's worker so it is some loss to us as a church but she is already active along with Ovidiu in their church in Pitesti

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Chircani's Easter Programme

2011-05-14T03:09:00.001-07:00

On Easter Sunday in the afternoon we did a programme for the parents in Chircani.The kids smartly dressed as you can see sang songs and shared poems.

The outfits were made by some of our believers.

Joan Robinson, one of our friends, who with her husband Neil was with us over the Easter period, gave her testimony during the meeting.

Ruslan preached, explaining why Jesus, God the Son, left heaven and became a man. He used the example of lots of tiny birds being outside a house in winter time and a child opening the window and calling them to come into the house before they die.

The birds don'tt come. Then the father of the child comes and tells the child that they only way she can convicne the birds to trust her and come inside is to become a bird herself live among them and convicne them of the danger they are in then they will come into the house. Thus Jesus did becoming and man, sufffering in every just like us so that he was and is able to understand and empathize with us. Ruslan appealed to those parents that were there to come into the house - God's family through Jesus and be saved.

A word for us?

Pastor Mark

Easter Meeting

2011-05-14T02:13:00.001-07:00

Easter time is the most significant time of the year in the Christian calendar and Moldova is no exception. All citizens greet one another for a period of 40 days with "Christ is Risen" and a reply of "He's risen indeed" - Tremendous testimony to the truth.

Here our kids are doing a sketch with 6 coloured flags as a means of presenting the gospel ( it's like the coloured beads of the wrist band ministry ). Black is sin, yellow is the grace of God ( the undeserved kindness of God that gave Jesus to die in our place to pay for and remove our sin which is a barrier to God so we can come into personal relationship with Him). Red is for His blood which he shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins etc

Unintentional comedy was provided as Jesus sitting on a donkey that was a little too big for his hooves almost fell off.

A goodly number of people came to honour God including the mayor of the village who brought an encouraging and interesting word - this reminds me to ask for prayer for the upcoming local elections June 5 for which the mayor is restanding along with several other candidates. Pray that honesty prevails.

I brought a message about Pilate. A man who had the authority to release Jesus and whose conscience clearly witnessed to him that Jesus was guiltless "I find no fault in this Man" and to whom God spoke - when his wife sent a message that she had a dream to have nothing to do with this righteous man. Pilate tried evey method to avoid having to make a decision about Jesus - trying to get the Jews to judge him and then Herod to judge him; trying to release Barabbas in His place. But in the end Pilate had to make a decision to stand with Jesus or against Him ( Jesus said in the Bible "If you are not for Me you are against me") Finally the people cried out to Pilate if you don't condemn Him you are "no friend of Caesar's" and when Pilate realised that to stand with Jesus would mean loosing his position, friends, influence, wealth etc he chose to stand against Him. At that moment Pilate lost his life for eternity. ( Math 25 tells us that Jesus is the judge on the final day and Jesus has already said he who is ashamed of me I also will be ashamed of him in the final day.) What a tragedy that a man that was not so blind that he did not see the truth still lost his life by the decision he made to choose position over Jesus. I tried to encourage all present not to make the same mistake.

We had some friends staying with us over the Easter period Neil and Joan Robinson. Neil gave his testimony during the meeting which helped many, I believe, to see the Father heart of God

May the risen Jesus reveal himself to you over this Easter period

Pastor Mark

Chircani adolescents at Table Tennis match

2011-05-14T02:02:00.001-07:00

Jora, Sasa and Ruslan have started an adolescents group at Chircani which meets every week

They play games and have bible teaching and steadily a regular groups of kids has formed.

One of the games they play is table tennis using a table that was bought by funds provided by Eurovangelism.

Jora, Sasa and Ruslan decided to organise a table tennis match between the Chircani kids and a team from the Gotesti adolescents groups that Igor runs and here they are in the middle of the match.

Unfortunately, depending from whose perspective you look, Gotesti won the match but a great time was had by all.

Yours truly was asked to come and bring an evangelistic message to the group and encouragingly around 5/6 responded to an appeal whom Jora and Sasa are following up.

Keep these ones in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Baptism Meeting at Gotesti

2011-05-10T02:39:00.001-07:00

On 10 April we had a baptism meeting in Gotesti church to which we invited churches that had partaken in the Alpha course that we ran over the winter. In fact the baptism was the last week of the Alpha course - a sort of pratical lecture.

As you can see we had a good turnout of people, not only from our villages of Gotesti and Chircani but also from the other villages participating in the course.

We had 10 people being baptised and 7 of them had come to faith in the Alpha course.

There are at least another 10-15 that are going through discpleship studies and we would hope to see many of them come through to baptism in the Autumn

Ruslan, our deacon, led the meeting and Aliona led the worship with Olesia and Nadina assisting.

The pastors of the churhces that brought baptism candidtaes to the meeting assisted me in the actual baptisms. Stefan from Porumbesti had 7 people from his church getting baptised. Here he is with Grisa who gave his life to the Lord towards the end of thr Alpha course and then Volodia ( in black ) from Cantemir together with me as we baptised Denis - the son of one of his members and a young man who seems quite on fire

Our trustees were out with us at the time of the baptism meeting and they took part in the celebration. Here Dave Lynn, our treasurer, is singing a duet with Julie Collier - a long time supporter of the work here both finacnially and in prayer. Her husband Geoff was out last year when the trustees came.

Then there was John Dyson - our senior trustee and a veteran of visits to Moldova. (I think he said this was his 16 or 17th visit to Moldova)

John preached the gospel message at the meeting and one of those who responded was the wife of a young man who had come to faith in the Alpha course so all in all an encouraging time was had both in the time of the Alpha course and the baptism meeting as a result

Pray for more of the same

Pastor Mark

Surprise Visit from Colibasi team

2011-05-04T01:03:00.001-07:00

We were surprised and blessed to have a group of youth from the church at Colibasi come and visit us.

Colibasi is the biggest Baptist church here in the South with around 500 members.

These youth under their own steam and self funded try to regularly visit other churches to support the church's ministry.

They brought a programme of songs and poems and were a refreshment to all.

Some of these ones were as young as 14 and following in the tradition of the Colibasi church that has always had a great reputation for worship having a large choir and also a large group that play mandolins

Our own Ruslan finished the meeting with a word from the scriptures and also a closing prayer

Pastor Mark

Badicu couples at Karis

2011-05-04T00:41:00.000-07:00

One of the blessings of having our Karis pizzeria is that there is a function room and other churches are able to use it for special events

Here Lucian, from the church at Badicu, brought a group of couples from his village to have a meal together and enjoy an evening out in celebration of 8th of March - ladies day. It was a surpirse outing for the wives.

They have just finished and Alpha marriage course at his church and these ones were enthusiastic attenders.

It was a joy to be with them and you could feel the close relationship they already have even though only 2 couples were actually church members

Here they are playing a game. A couple stands back to back and each have a fork and a knife. The fork represents the wife and the knife the husband. They are then asked questions e.g "who takes the rubbish out each day" Then each has to raise either fork or knife or both fork & knife to say which is correct. There were some fun results.

We were asked to bring a word from the Bible to finish the evening and so Mari and I both shared a short word.

Lord more of these kind of evenings please!

Pastor Mark

8th of March meeting

2011-03-22T02:10:00.001-07:00

Each year on the 8th of March Moldova honours all the ladies of the country. Girls and wives receive flowers and are pampered for the day ( the other 364 days are men's day )

We also do a programme for the mothers at the church.

Here the girls and boys are celebrating Spring - the day coincides with the Spring time of the year.

The umbrellas represent the flowers opening

All ages present their programme. Here the little ones are doing their spot with David temporarily forgetting his lines and Liviu beside him demonstrating what it means to be laid back ( or walking in rest to be more spiritual )

The leaves of the trees for the healing of the nations? LORD LET IT BE SO! - especially in these troubled times in which we live.

Then the older ones - and our Rachael is now being included in the older ones category!! - how time flies! She'll be 12 on 9th May!!!

Mum Jesus loves you the sign says - and so do we!

Finally all of the children brought a spring flower to their mums and then off we went to eat meals made and served by the mums - short lived day of rest and celebration for the ladies!!

Pastor Mark

Visit from Giugulesti Church

2011-03-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

On Sunday 27th Feb we had the pastor and a group of youth come from Giurgulesti Baptist Church and participate in our Sunday morning meeting.

Giurgulesti is around 90Km further South from us and is right on the border with Romania and also Ukraine.

The church there has been established from just after the war while Pastor Fedea has been there as missionary and pastor since 1990.

After our own worship group began with a couple of worship songs the Giurgulesti youth group then did a programme of songs and Christian poems.

We had Misa Caraivan the leader of the youth at National level for the Baptist Union also with us and he brought a short message of encouragement towards the end of their programme.

Then Fedea Parparlov, the pastor of Giurgulesti Baptist Church brought the main message for the day. His theme was being led by God in His care.

We all felt encouraged and lifted up.

Their programme with us came to a close as Fedea's daugther Rebecca and their youth leader sang a duet.

It also gave us all an excuse to go and have a pizza together in Karis Pizza after the meeting.

Ah life is so hard here in Moldova!!!

Pastor Mark

Week 4 Alpha

2011-02-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

We've been encouraged to see increasing numbers come each week to the Alpha course we are currently running in Gotesti.

This week 70 sat down to eat with people coming from 7 different villages.

We added an extra study this week preaching from Luke 19 on Zacheus as it speaks so much of the personal relationship that Christ wants to have with us. Just as he said to Zacheus that He must stay in his house so he knocks on the door of our lives and says "... if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and eat with him.." Rev 3:20
This gave the groups a further oppotunity to talk about issues like repentance and receivng Christ and when I travelled round the various groups exactly these subjects were being discussed.

One group was asking how we hear His voice speaking to us and Sergiu who has recently given his life to the Lord answered very clearly much to our encouragement.

Ruslan had 18 in his group this week from Cantemir, Cania, Porumbesti; not generally a very manageable number but we were very encouraged when 5 of them said they wanted to give their lives to Christ.

We prayed with them after the group

One of the girls from this group got saved in the second week of Alpha and is absoltuely on fire.

In fact the whole group caught some of her flame in the discussions.

We'd very much value your prayers for these and more to keep coming and to be drawn closer to Christ

Pastor Mark

New Alpha Course

2011-02-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

We have started a new Alpha course in the church at Gotesti and are into our second week

Around 50 are coming so far from 5 different villages in our region.

For those of you that do not know the format of the Alpha course. We have one meeting per week for around 10 weeks and on each occassion we start with a meal together where we can chat and enjoy one another's company and then from the front a message is given on a theme

The first week's message was Who is Jesus and this week we looked at Why did Jesus die.

Then we split into groups and discuss questions or thoughts arising from the theme of the message or any other taxing questions.

This is the group from Badicu village with Lucian the pastor right of picture. A very intelligent and active group.

One lady in one of the other groups felt she wanted to give her life to the Lord after the meeting and with joy and tears received Him.

The man on the left looking into the camera in this picture is Volodia, the pastor of the church in Cantemir.

This group included some of the oldest ones attending but one of our other groups included some youth as young as 16 so we are blessed to have a great mix of ages and backgrounds finding the Alpha course of use

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Christmas Meeting 2011

2011-01-29T05:12:00.000-08:00

We had an encouraging turn out once again at our Christmas celebration meeting which we held on Dec 26 this year as it was a Sunday.

There were a good number of unsaved who attended many coming to us for the first time.

We had a children's programme as always and Ruslan brought the word this year.

Here the youngest are ones acting as angels ( happens just once a year in my experience )

Then the older ones did a nativity play

Here all the players are gathered for the final bow as it were

All the costumes were made by ladies from our church and several of these kids are not regulars ( yet ) in our Sunday school

Then our adolescents also did a play and our youth did a song.

Just looking at our youth group here - the front row of girls includes 2 who have their weddings already planned this year Claudia and Cristina and another who's planning for next year. ( still a secret - watch this space )

Please pray that many who came to the Christmas meeting will continue to come to the church and even join the Alpha course we are starting 30 Jan 2011

Pastor Mark

Help for those in Need

2011-01-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

It's winter time here in Moldova again - a hard time for the poor and vulnerable.

Pensions are very low and wood for heat is expensive as indeed is any other form of heating.

To give you an example - to heat a home properly for a winter would cost about 3-500$ per month ( which is the cost of 6-10m3 of wood per month) and the winter can last 3-4 months.

This is a cost not much less than living in the West but the pension for Costa, in this picture, is about 50$ p.m for everything - food, heat clothes etc.

His grandaughter and her husband live with him but it is hard for them to scrape together work to provide for all of them as a family.

We are blessed to have received gifts from readers of this blog and others so that we have a fund to help with wood and food but as you can imagine there is a massive need and a small fund.

Still, "better to light a candle than curse the darkness" and so we do what we can.

Here Costa is receiving about 1m3 as did around 20 other families - obviously this will not keep him warm the whole winter but rather we hope it means that he and the others will have and emergency store of wood to stave off the cold when it gets to it's serious lows in the winter - maybe -10C to -20C

Again thanks to gifts from supporters in the West we have been able to give an aid pack of basic essentials to needy families.

The pack contained 25Kg of flour and 5l of oil this year as funds were a little lower and we still wanted to keep helping other villages not just ours.

There were 300 families helped in 12 different villages overseen by 7 different church plants.

Please keep praying for our country in this social need.

Last week in our village 5 people died in freezing temps. One wonders if the same would have happened in the summer.

May thanks to you all for all that you do for us here

Pastor Mark

Love in a Box comes to Moldova again

2011-01-17T02:16:00.000-08:00

We have been very blessed to, once again, have received shoe box presents for the kids in our schools here in the South of Moldova for Christmas.

Mustard Seed is the organisation from England that has sent us these boxes.

In fact this year they were able to send us 2 lorry loads - 15,000 boxes in all which meant that over 40 villages here in the South had the blessing of some, if not all, of the children in their village getting a Christmas present of a shoe box full of gifts.

Here is one of the schools in our village in the Flaminda area getting their presents.

Boxes are sent to us for girls and boys ages 3-5; 6-11 and 12-15. It is largely children in the UK that fill the boxes with different gifts and the quality of the gifts are so good that it makes me proud to be British -indeed they are love in a box.

A.M.E.C, an international children's organisation gave us children's tracts that tell the Biblical story of Christ's birth and why God became a man and came to earth. We were able to give each child that received a box one of these tracts.

The main school in Gotesti is in the centre and we invited the teachers to bring the kids from their classes to our church to receive their gift.

Here classes 1-4, ages 7-11 are receiving their gifts.

In our church we were able to do a bit of a Christmas programme and short message to the kids about the meaning of Christmas.

Marina and Tanya, here pictured, are the two girls that are teaching the religion lectures in the school. They opened up a shoe box gift that in fact contained a story about the best Christmas gift "ISUS" - Jesus who died to pay for and remove our sins so that we could come into a personal relationshsip with Him - which is the true meaning of Christmas.

I also finished with a short message explaining that we have a personal relationship with God and know all our sins forgiven not because we are good and deserve this but because we have turned to Jesus to save us.

We finished by saying at this Christmas season it is a time for reflecting

"Do you have this personal relationship with God that Jesus came to give us?"

Pastor Marj=k

Igor Sin at Gotesti

2010-12-12T10:44:00.001-08:00

We had the pleasure of having Igor Sin as our guest speaker on Sunday 12th December.

He is the pastor of the 1st Baptist Church of Cahul.

They have 120 members and a very active youth and children's minsitry.

Igor qualified from Bible school in Romania and has been pastoring the church in Cahul for 3 years now and has seen growth in all areas of the church during this time.

He spoke to us from Phil 2 on humility and left us all with some serious challenges about our own lives albeit expounded in a very gracious manner.

We had Slavic and his team leading the worship and one of our oldest members Liuba brought a poem to us in Russian.

We were able to go for a pizza after the meeting and Mari and I had a lovely time of fellowship with Igor talking about various aspects of the work and visions and plans.

Pray for them as a church and their various outreaches this Christmas time

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Religion in School

2010-12-12T10:12:00.001-08:00

As you may remember we are now permitted to teach an optional religion class in schools throughout Moldova.

We have over 50 requests from parents for their kids to attend an optional religion class at the end of lectures on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The Orthdox church in our village also had over 200 requests.

I understand that nationally over 25% of pupils have chosen to take the optional religion classes, a figure that has surprised the education dept.

We have been able to form 4 classes - 2 for ages 11-16 and 2 for ages 7-11.

This is one of the older bracket age groups. In this case 11 and 12 yr olds and includes our daughter Rachael.

I attended the lesson this week and found every single child to be actively participating in the various activities and also in responding to questions etc.

Tanya, one of the many qualified teachers we have in our church, is in charge of this class.

We are very encouraged with the syllabus which clearly covers all the essential and basic teaching of the bible. It is the sort of course I would teach new believers that have had no experience of the basic doctrines of the bible.

Here Tanya is teaching on the fall of man and God's resolution of the problem of our sin. i,e how our sin has separated us from God and how God in human form ( Jesus ) came and died in our place taking our sin and thus bridged the gap, bringing into a personal relationship with God those who give their lives to Christ and trust in Him.

I hope shortly to attend at least one of Marina's classes and will post a blog when I've been. Marina teaches the 7-11 yr olds.

Do please keep Tanya, Marina and the childen in your prayers

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Moldovan Elections 28 Nov 2010

2010-12-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

The general election for the parliament of Moldova took place last Sunday - 28th Nov 2010.

In the run up to the election day we were priviledged to have the OSCE team for the South West come to our pizzerie for their planning meetings and their feedback meeting.

OSCE is the international observers organisation and the team with us that was responsible for Cahul, Cantemir and Leova was made up of 24 members + drivers and translators.

Andy McEntee (left ) from the UK and Jan Holton( right ) from Norway, the older two in this picture were the leaders of the team and they have been here more than a month organising all things.

It was interesting hearing about their job and gaining fascinating insights into what's happening behind the scenes.

As a pizzerie it was a relatively new experience for us providing drinks and snacks in a kind of conference style but they seemed pleased with the service ( even thought there are things we have learned ) - certainly they were good guests to have and seemed to enjoy what we provided.

Now the elections. Our thanks to those of you who prayed diligently. They went trouble free.

The results were Communist party 42 seats down from 48 at the last election, PDLM (Stejarul which means oak tree ) 32 seats up from 18 at the last election This is the party that Valeriu Ghiletchii and Slavic Ionita are with - both Valeriu and Slavic are members of parliament again. PDM ( Marian Lupu's party ) 15 up from 13 This party is made up of mostly ex communists P.L. 12. down 3. Their leader Mr Ghimpru was the leader of the parliament in the last election.

This means that the A.I.E ( alliance for integration in Europe) made up of the 3 non communists parties can form a coalition again and would have 59 seats which will permit them to govern again but leaves them 2 seats short of the 61 out of 101 parliament seats needed to elect a president.

Without an elected president they are not able to rule for 4 years but new elections will have to be called within 1 year.

As I write these parties are in negotiations which are likely to be quite hard going.

Pray that they will be able to form a coalition and thence a government and that a miracle would happen and at least 2 of the communist members would vote with the A.I.E.'s proposal for a president.

Pastor Mark

Visit to Baimaclia

2010-11-24T02:27:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of having this role of serving the churches in Cantemir is that I get to go to these different churches and meet the leaders and the people.

In the last weeks we have been involved with Porumbesti as they have gone onto a new phase, having opened their church building

This last Sunday I visited the church at Baimaclia where Valentin Sacali and his wife Zinaida lead the work.
The church was planted by Valentin in 1990 and quickly grew to nearly 40 but in these last years they are down to 26 members due to believers emigrating mostly to USA.

Here Valentin is bringing a final word of encouragement after I had preached a little bit earlier, on Eph 2:8-10

How we are saved

How we are not saved

And why we are saved.

Valentin, Zinaida and their 4 children live in the building attached to this church building which really just has the meeting room and a pastor's office ( they could really do with some Sunday school rooms and a creche ).

Valentin supports himself by running a mill and bakery supplying fresh bread to Baimaclia and several nearby villages. Like many of the village churches they do not have a sound system or yamaha and here, again often the case, the pastor leads the worship, in this instance with an acordion.

Nonetheless there was great joy amongst us and it was a pleasure to be part of the fellowship of the Lord's people in this village of 3000.

Pray for me and them as we consider how we might work together in the future

Pastor Mark

General Election Moldova 28 Nov 2010

2010-11-24T01:24:00.000-08:00

This Sunday sees a general election in Moldova just over a year after the last one.

The reason for this is that although the democratic alliance had enough seats in parliament to form a government they did not have the min 61 out of 101 to be able to elect a president.

Thus constitutionally they could only rule temporarily until this situation was resolved.

In the summer the government called a referendum to change the constitution so that the president would be elected by a vote of the electorate rather like the American way but the Communist party were very against this and campaigned not to turn out for the vote so that there would not be enough of a percentage of the electorate that voted to pass the result. They got their way and so now we are going to a general election.

Valeriu Ghiletchii, the former president of the Baptists Union, here speaking in our church last Saturday, is one of 2 evangelical Christians standing for re-election.

He and Slavic Ionita are standing with PLDM the Stejarul party. And although neither are members of the party Vlad Filat the acting prime minister regards then highly enough to have given them positions of 11 and 18 on the parliamentary list
Our parliament here is elected by proportional representation which means the

more votes for a party from the whole electorate the greater number of seats a party will have in the parliament. Each party therefore names a list of potential candidates up to 101. Obviously for number 101 on a party list to get elected then nearly 100% of the electorate would have to vote for that party.

For both Ghiletchii and Ionita to be elected Stejarul would need 18-20% of the vote.

Both Valeriu and Slavic are representing all evangelical Christians and the Adventists and have the support of these Unions so that most believers will vote for Stejarul so that Valeriu and Slavic can be elected. (Stejarul also has policies that are closest to conservative Christianity values )

Valeriu was sharing the many encouraging signs of God's hand working through he and Slavic in the last year in the parliament - their aim is to be salt and light in parliament.

And so we pray

Pastor Mark

new Believers Meeting at Porumbesti

2010-11-12T03:38:00.000-08:00

Following the mission week celebrating the opening of the new building in Porumbesti Pastor Stefan and his wife Veta called us to assist in the first meeting of new believers.

There was an encouraging turn out with 10 of the 15 adults that responded during the week coming to the new believers meeting.

Of the 5 that didn't come one we knew is working in the flour mill ( he has already asked to be baptised wanting to demonstrate his total dedication to Christ publically thru' baptism )

Three others were older ladies and they live quite far away so that may have made it more difficult to come.

The other was a man who had a drinking problem. When I mentioned to Stefan my disappointment that he had not come Stefan told me that he had visited him earlier that day and when Stefan had discovered that he was separated from his wife Stefan exhorted him that this was not how a true believer should live and that he should go and get reconciled to his wife ( who lives in another village ). He wasn't at the meeting because he had gone to do what Stefan said he should.

During the mission week many of the kids that came to the children's outreach mission also responded to appeals. Stefan encouraged the kids not to come to this new believers meeting but rather to come to the new club which they plan to start this Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Veta, Stefan's wife will start English lessons using materials called "English for a New Life" which uses the gospel of John to teach English but also help students to come to know Christ

Igor from our church in Gotesti led the new believers study helping Stefan and Veta to see how the material works

Pray for Igor as he continues to help them in this work and for Stefan Veta and Elena ( a girl form the church as they start the new children's work this Saturday.

Pastor Mark

Opening Mission at Porumbesti

2010-11-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

This is the church building of the Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Porumbesti, a village of 1700 people and that until now has had no building for Christians to meet in.

With the help of Greenway Community church from Bristol, UK and others from the West Pastor Stefan Hanganu pictured here and his team of workers have managed to construct this building from the foundations to it's present state in 10 months.

The speed with which the church has been built has been a witness to those who live in the village.

Although the building is not completed ( they hope that God will provide and they will be able to finish it by this time next year ) the meeting room inside is finished and thus the church felt it was time to do a special week of meetings and invite all the village to come and join them. As you can see from this picture a good number turned out each evening.

A team from Greenway Community church who partner with Porumbesti church came out to be part of the opening mission. They were in the village every day from 10.00 am and were involved in visiting homes in the village and participating in the mission that Porumbesti ran for adolescents to which about 15-30 came each day.

Then in the evening meetings they sang songs, gave testimonies and Chris Poulson, the leader of the team, and myself shared in the preaching of a gospel message each evening. Here Chris is preaching on the lost son from Luke 15.

Many hearts were touched as he shared of the grace of God to the returning son and the joy that resulted and then of the hardness of heart of the older son and how by his choice he remained outside the house - many in the meeting realised that they were still outside God's house - not the building but outside a relationship with Him - and steadily throughout the week people began to reconcile themselves to God.

All of the team members gave their testimonies at some stage during the week. Here Mark is using a £5 note to illustrate that even after he crushed it, stamped on it and dirtied it, it is still worth £5 as indeed we are to God, a fact he personally realised after he had ruined his own life and then was found by God.

After the meeting each evening the team members grabbed a translator and went to talk to those who had remained behind for tea and biscuits ( almost everybody ). Here Keith (who was on the team that came out last year) is together with Liz ( also a veteran from last year ) sharing with someone who had come to the meeting as a result of their visit earlier in the day. Rachael, our 11 year old daughter, was translating for them.

In this picture Kerra on the right with hair tied back is working with Natasa, one of our translators, and sharing with two young women

The team were a blessing to the work and good company to be with.

May the Lord repay them for their sacrifice

Pastor Mark

Dedication of New Church Building at Baurci

2010-11-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

This is Dorin Moga, leader of the church at Baurci, speaking at the opening ceremony of the dedication of their church building on 31 October 2010.

He and 2 other leaders in the church have been working night and day for months to complete all the work necessary for the building to be finished.

Various sponsors from the West have helped with the funding but no-one doubts that this House of Prayer was built by God and these faithful brothers.

Mari and I were invited to be one of the speakers alongside 3 other esteemd guests all of whom brought a greeting or message to what as you can see was a packed auditorium with many from the village and guests from other churches attending

On the left Andrei Ciobanu, pastor of Vad lui Isac and B.U superviser for the South of Moldova. In the centre Ion Miron, the current president of the Baptist Union who was the principle speaker along with on the right Ruslan Melestean, direction of the Bible Mission based in Chisinau.

Br Ion spoke on how we are here on earth to be lights while Br Ruslan shared on the word multumesc - thanks - and pointed out how we so often neglect to be thankful - quite a challenging word to us all.

We also had the extra blessing of participating in the dedication of the latest addition to the Moga family - 2 month old David. Here Br Andrei is praying for God's blessing on the child

The worship time in the service was richly blessed by guests - here in the centre of the picture are a husband and wife duet that are part of the Bible Mission's team and to the left of the picture is the choir from Vad lui Isac church.
There were many others that made a contribution to the worship

After the meeting was finished all present at the dedication were invited to pose for a picture outside the church building in, as you can see, bright sunshine.

Then when all the formalities of the service were over we all sat down to a nice meal prepared by the ladies in the church.

All in all it was a wonderful ocassion to be part of

Pastor Mark

Religion in School teachers conference

2010-10-21T11:37:00.001-07:00

As you may know a law was passed here in Moldova during the summer that religion as an optional subject was now to be taught in schools in Moldova.

The Orthodox church produced a syllabus as did the evangelical churches and both were approved by the education department.

A couple of weeks ago all the qualified teachers in our area who were committing themselves to teach the Evangelical syllabus in schools were gathered together to get some training and received the teaching pack etc. We had 5 attend from Gotesti.

Mr Mihail Malancev, a very well known Moldovan theologian and director of the Baptist Bible Seminary in Chisinau was the main speaker.

He has much experience also in the field of education and speaks around the world on Christian education.

He helped us see the significance of an evangelical curriculum in a school education system and inspired all the teachers to their task

One of the ministers of education for the South also came to the conference and was very helpful and encouraging in his talk.

Our teachers were inspired by the day and made themselves available to serve wherever there may be a need.

In our school in Gotesti there were 65 children from the age of 7 to 16 whose parents signed a request form for their kids to get the evangelical religious education lecture in the school.

Last week after some initial teething problems we started all the groups in the school.

Marina ( on the right of this picture ) takes 2 classes on Wednesdays for 7&8 yr olds and 9&10 yr olds with around 15-20 in each class.

Tanya, on Thursdays, takes 2 classes for 11&12 yr olds and 13-16 yr olds. around 10-15 are signed up for each class.

These classes have started late into the year and so they have had to tie together some of the subjects to try to make up the lost lecture time but their first lessons were about the Bible as the word of God and the creation and the fall.

Keep these two dedicated girls in your prayers especially since they are both young mothers

Pastor Mark

School Teachers Day

2010-10-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Every year in Moldova teachers in school are recognised for their hard work on teachers day.

The children usually produce a special programme and pupils usually also bring gifts to their teachers as they are able.

Since Karis Pizza opened we have been able to honour our teachers also by providing a pizza meal at Karis Pizza for all the teachers that want to come.

This year we had around 45 attend.

Here in the centre of this picture is Mr Bibic who is the senior IT teacher in the school and also takes dance lessons after school and alongside him is his wife also a teacher ( of mathmatics ) in the school.

Here are some of the main leaders in the school including Ms Olga Sinegur in the centre of the picture who is the head teacher.

This year we were also pleased to have some former teachers now retired with us.

To the left of the picture is Mr Alister Boghean who is not only a retired teacher but was a mayor of the village for a while some years ago.

Pray for these dedicated teachers who do a faithful job year in year out for little pay

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Repairing the Church

2010-09-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

We have begun the expensive, time consuming but absolutely necessary repairs to our church building and the building beside.

During the winter the roof of this building was covered in snow and it finally gave way.

Thus we have been removing the destroyed sections of roof, clearing up the debris etc inside and then we sealed up the part of the building where the roof hadn't fallen down.

This means we are still able to use half the building for storing aid etc.

The roof of our church building was in desperate need of repair.

The apex had been leaking for some years now and we have always had flooding when there was a heavy rain.

Many of the roof panels were cracked and needed replaced

The rest of the roof needed power hose cleaning and then all needed painted. We found that many of the roof trusses were also in poor state

Then the toilets need totally overhauled.

Inside we replaced the worn DVP flooring with tiles

Here are Sergiu and Ilusa laying the tiles but various brothers from the church in Gotesti and in Chircani were involved throughout

In the Spring we will need to paint the outisde of the church and replace the tiling at the front of the church grounds etc etc.

We are not yet finished and it is just as well that our planned baptism in October has been delayed until the new year as we would have had a job to get all finished in time.

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Here are some of the team that have been doing the work although Ilusa one of our key workers was not here on this particaulr occassion as he was organising the harvesting of our sun flower seeds for oil for the aid packets.

In fact the brothers have all been mixing the work at the church with time out for their own needful things.

There is a great deal of work that needs done inside the church also as well as these things outside.

Pray the Lord provides and enables

Pastor Mark

Gotesti City Does it Again

2010-09-27T09:31:00.001-07:00

We're delighted to report that our 12-15 yr olds football team won the O.M. cup again this year.

Here are some of the team members posing for a team photo with the cup in our church.

We presented them the cup at the end of the service.

Unfortunately not all the boys where able to attend the presentation ceremony as many had to help their folks harvesting the corn from their fields. (None of these lads on £300,000 per week)

Here is our vice captain holding up the cup ( our captain was harvesting ).

It was a very close tournament this year. Our team drew their first 2 matches with teams B & C who both beat the weakest team in the tournament by 4-1 and 5-0.

Team B&C then played each other and a win for either team would have meant that Gotesti could not win the tournament.

With 5 mins to go B&C were drawing 1-1 when team B was awarded a penalty.

They missed it and went on to draw meaning that Gotesti had to beat the weakest team in the tournament by 6 goals or more to win the cup.

With just a few minutes remaining Gotesti were leading 5-0 and then scored a sixth.

And just to seal it they added a seventh in the dying seconds.

This is the second year in a row that the team has won this tournament and it is a testament to the hard work of Igor and Viorel training them both for football and also from the Bible.

What particularly encouraged me was how the boys conducted themselves both on and off the pitch.

O.M have said any team winning the cup 3 years will get to keep it - just like the world cup

Pray we don't get too proud

Pastor Mark

Dedication of Alisa

2010-09-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

A couple of Sundays ago we had the dedication of Alisa Lazar, first child of Aliona and Viorel.

It's our tradition to dedicate both the child, the parents and ourselves as church members to the Lord to serve in Alisa's spiritual growth before praying a blessing on her.

Here I am explaining that before we ask the Lord to grant his blessing upon Alisa, Viorel and Aliona as parents need to dedicate themselves to bring up Alisa in the fear and knowledge of God by teaching her His Word as she grows up and by be a living example to her.

Here I have just finished praying the words of the blessing from Num 6:23-26 upon here.

She was one dear little girl with not a cry or a whimper the whole time.

This must be one of my favourite photos ever taken at Gotesti church. In the centre is Alisa being held by our oldest member and her great grandfather Costea. Despina in the back is also one of our members and Alisa's grandmother and then Alisa is flanked by Aliona her mother one our members who grew up in the church

God is faithful

Pastor Mark

New Church Plant at Ursoaia

2010-08-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Ursoaia is a village of around 1700 people just a couple kms from Pelinei where Misa Hiorescu ( pictured here sharing from the word in Ursoaia meeting) is the pastor.

Misa was born and raised in this village and so for years it has been on his heart to see a church started in the village.

There is not now, nor ever has been, a Christian church of any kind in this village so what a priviledge it was for us ( I and one of our worship teams ) to be called to assist Misa in a week long mission to launch the church.

Around 20 people came each evening and on Saturday evening we did the meeting outside.

The actual meeting place is half of this shop lengthwise that you can see in the background.

Sunday saw the most number of villagers come and during the week Misa's mother gave her life to the Lord and a few others also made responses to gospel appeals

Vova and Tanya believers from our church in Gotesti gave a testimony and poem respectively

Vova's mother is originally from this village and she came with us from Gotesti and encouraged her sister and husband who still live in the village to come to the meeting on Sunday

Each evening after the meeting everyody stayed to talk more and we saw that all these were seeking at one level or another.

This is just the beginning of the work in this village. I, the worship team and Vova and Tanya plan to go there next Sunday when the ordinary Sunday meeting will take place at 4.00 pm but we realise what is needed is meeting and talking with people one to one for them to understand that we are not some cult that has strange ideas.

Pray for Misa and his team as he does this week in week out and for the youth and children's works he wants to start soon.

Pastor Mark

Baptisms at Pelinei Lake

2010-08-30T08:57:00.001-07:00

I and one of our worship groups from Gotesti were invited by pastor Misa to come and take the baptism meeting at the lake just outside Pelinei on Sunday 22 August.

Seven people were baptised including 4 from Pelinei and 2 from Ursoaia.

It's a beautiful setting and although the water was not as warm as it looks from these pictures it was a joyous occasion.

Misa Hiorescu, in the foreground here, is the pastor of Pelinei church and also of the newly forming church in Ursoaia, the next village to Pelinei.

There were a good number of people who came including many were not Christians and later after a gospel message and appeal there were some that responded.

After the programme and message came the baptisms.

The man in the picture being baptised is a believer from Colibasi church - the biggest church in the South ( he'd missed the recent baptism meeting they had had earlier) and the young woman being baptised is Antonia, Misa's 16 yr old daughter.

May the Lord continue to bless the work Misa is doing in both Pelinei and Ursoaia

Pastor Mark

Progress at Chircani Church Community Centre

2010-08-30T04:35:00.001-07:00

We have at last started to do some work on the church community centre in Chircani.

Here a team from mission direct are helping fit doube glazed windows to the existing building.

As you can see they are also working on painting the fence that they were involved in building.

Sadly you may also observe that the fence is close beside the church rather than near the road.

We had hoped to be able to purchase the land in front of the church so we could have a kids playground and nice grass and flowers but the local council refused us permission to buy it.

We have been running into many problems with our documents ( what else is new!) which has meant that we were not able to start the main construction changes this summer but we are trusting that this will give us time to raise more of the 48K needed for this project so we can start with full power in the Spring of 2011.

As you can see from this picture we have finished the windows ( and will soon also have the doors done ) and we have done a temporary paint job on the outside. We will do some painting etc in the inside and thus have a meeting room ready to have our Sunday meetings and children's meetings throughout this winter.

Pray with us that the various bodies do the documents as they should do and we are able to start

Pray also that all the funds come in for us to be able to finish this project by the end of next summer.

Pastor Mark

Floods in Gotesti

2010-08-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

In the light of what's been happening in Pakistan to say we have had floods in Gotesti seems almost a condradiction in terms.

This is the village cementry and for those who have been to our village they know that where you see a lake in the background was, up until July of this year, arable and planted land.

The river Prut burst it's banks and there are hundreds of hectares of land now under 4m of water.

Fortunately, no-one was killed or seriosuly injured

What did happen however was that many lost their land and some their homes.

This is the homestead of a friend (in fact one of our best customers at Karis Pizza ). The water entered into the first floor level of his house aparently

The trees at the very back of the picture is where the river Prut actually is so you can see how far the water has come in land.

The main road to Chisinau from the South which runs through Gotesti has also been cut off since the floods in July.

The water has been gradually receeding but the road is still cut off.

The interesting thing about all this problem with flooding that we have had is that the end result is a very picturesque Gotesti as you can see.

So much so that the government is considering proposals, of rather than draining the water leaving it to remain as a reservoir.

Seems like it would make a nice tourist spot to me.

Pastor Mark

Children's Summer Camp

2010-07-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

We ran a day camp at Gotesti 5-9th July for kids aged 7-11.

Around 90 kids came every day and here they are doing a programme for the parents on Friday the last day of the camp

The camp ran each day from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm and the kids would get games, teaching and a mid-day meal in that time as well as arts and crafts etc.

We had the Mission Direct team with us and they were fully involved in the week.

Here Greig is helping the kids with some crafts and the others were involved in outside activities like games etc.

The team were a particular blessing helping release our church team to do the ministry by doing all the practical things like preparing the food, cleaning the dishes etc

We were encouraged at the end of the week by how many of the parents or grandparents that came to the final day programme

Please pray for these parents that they may start coming to the church regularly

Pastor Mark

Baptism at Cahul

2010-07-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

On the 18th July, we had the priviledge of being asked to come and preach at one of the oldest
Baptist churches in the South.

Spirina Baptist church.

They met as a church throughout the time of communism although the building was not constructed until after the revolution.

When we first came to Moldova and were working in the schools in Cahul this is the church

that we attended.

Of course there have been many changes since then ( that was 1994 ) not least in those leading the church.

Little or no financial support has meant that several pastors have left for USA during this time.

This is the current pastor Nicolai Tsin sitting down for a meal after the baptism meeting
with the youth from the church - most of whom have come into the church during his time of minsitry

Here are the 5 young people that were baptised during the meeting.

We heard short testimonies from them all and I was impressed with the clarity of their faith.

One girl had a a very difficult time with her parents being very against her faith but it seems the parents were at the baptism and thus heard the gospel being preached

Several of these ones are already in the worship group.

As you can see there was a good crowd at the meeting including many people who did not yet know the Lord.

Please pray for Igor who is in the same boat as the previous pastors who have left. The Lord has done so much during his time of leading and he is very popular with the church members. It would be a shame if he also had to leave.

Pastor Mark

Laptop

2010-07-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Following our adventurous journey from Moldova to Brodina to collect our kids from their grandparents.....

We got to the bottom of the mountain that Mari's folks live on - it's about 2Km to the top and it feels like walking up at a 60 degree angle.

It was 11.00 pm and pitch dark and torrential rain when we got there.

As we loaded up ourselves for the trek up the mountain everyone objected to the 6kg of baggage I had decided to bring with me - my laptop.

"It's too hard a trip in this weather..... You'll never get to the top carrying that weight...... What do you need a laptop for?"

Undeterred by everyone's objections I set off carrying my 6kg burden.

Now as many of you know I have asthma and that together with the conditions meant that by the time we had got about 2\3 up the mountian I was exhausted and could go no further.

Nobody said anything - they didn't have to - the cracking of the thunder seem to say "we told you so"

Then Iulian, our driver, who himself was carrying about 7kg offered to take my laptop and carry it to the top.

At first I didn't want to give it to him. Why? Because I felt so guilty. It was my own stubborness and refusal to listen to advice that had gotten me into this mess and now should some else suffer the consequences? It wasn't fair and I felt guilty and too ashamed to give the laptop to him.

But then I realised something about Iulian. He wasn't judging me. He wasn't saying "I'll take your laptop while thinking "but I hope you realise how bad and undeserving you are of the help"

No. Iulian, I know, loves me and I knew his only intention in the offer was that he wanted, out of love, to liberate me from the burden so I'd be free to get home.

Then I thought to myself how often we are like this with Jesus.

We have some sin we are carrying or mess we got ourselves into that was our fault and that we are guilty for.

Jesus comes and says give it to me. I died on the cross for you so I could take this burden from you. I did it not so I could make you feel guilty for the cost of your sins but so that I could, in love, remove them from you as far as the East is from the West and so set you free.

The joke is I still didn't give my laptop to Iulian. The reason? Pride. I a 54 yr old man wanted to look as good as the 29 yr old Iulian and get to the top myself carrying the 6kg.

And again I thought how often we also do this with Jesus. We carry some burden - some bad habit or failing or inadequacy and instead of coming to Him to lift the burden our pride says no I can do this myself.

So I gave my laptop to Iulian and got to the top of the mountain with joy. It still wasn't easy ( our Christian lives aren't ) but it was a whole lot easier than carrying that extra 6kg that Iulian had.

Reminds of that old hymn

"What a friend we have in Jesus.

All our sins and griefs to bear

....

Oh what peace we often forfeit

Oh what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to Him in prayer

Pastor Mark

Caught in Romanian floods

2010-07-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

Well, as you can see from this clip, we got caught in the recent floods in Romania.

We had taken the girls to Mari's parents the week before and were due to go to collect them on Monday.

Interestingly, Iulian was obliged to come with us as one of my documents had expired and when we got to Suceava the downpour had gotten heavy but we passed through until we got to an area about 15 km on from Suceava. As you can see the area was flooding and we were caught behind many cars who could not pass through the flooded road. We walked up to the flooded area and spoke to the police that told us it was not possible to get back as Suceava was now cut off and if we had courage then go on through the floods. This we did and encountered many other areas of heavy flooding but eventually got home to our kids at the top of the mountain where Mari's folks live.

However, by the next day various other bridges for our route home had collapsed, 11,600 people had been evacuated and the road by which we had come had also collapsed into the river.

So we had to go back by a different route up through the mountiains. We felt like the 3 kings that were warned to go back by a different way after visiting the baby Jesus. Anyway God was with us and we arrived back home in Moldova safe and sound.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Mari's Graduation

2010-06-01T05:24:00.001-07:00

Here's my darling wife getting her BEE bible school graduation certificate.

I couldn't be prouder.

This is the same course that we run in Gotesti for pastors, leaders, church planters etc in the South except that the course was for women.

Pastor Lucian the director of the BEE course in Romania is presenting the certificate to Mari as he did for the other 29 students that were part of the course.

Most of the ladies were either leaders of the women's ministry amongst Baptists or Pentecostals in Moldova or wives of leaders or pastors.

We husbands were invited for the final subject in the course - "A healthy marriage" which included teaching and one to one discussion in couples of various questionaires.

Lidia Schiopu who is at the microphone in the picture was their teacher throughout the course and shared the teaching with Pastor Lucian during these 3 days of the marriage course also.

It was an emotional fairwell for all the ladies and Lidia as the Moldovan ladies now pick up the baton for continuing to minister as ladies in Moldova and mentoring other ladies to spread the work.

A big task indeed as one of the husbands who spoke reminded us since 70% of membership of churches are women.

Always in need of your prayers

Pastor Mark

Tolica

2010-06-01T04:55:00.001-07:00

This is the village of Tolica ( or at least one half of it ).

It is a village of around 1000 residents in the North East part of the county of Cantemir and one of the villages that comes under the brief the B.U gave me for the county.

I have not be able to visit it until now as it's a bit in the countryside and when the winter weather is upon is the roads become difficult to travel on.

However I went this last Sunday with one of our worship teams from Gotesti and had a lovely time.

Stefan Rosca ( pictured in the middle ) is the pastor of the baptist church that has been planted in the village.

He's an old friend having come to the very first in house BEE bible school that we ran in Gotesti around 10 years ago.

He is a history teacher in the school and has been pastoring the church since before that time.

They managed to build a church building some time ago although as you can see like most church buildings in our patch it is not entirely finished.

They have around 15 members although most are old.

Nonetheless there were 2 adult non Christians at the meeting on Sunday who were both clearly challenged by the whole programme and message.

They stayed afterwards to ask more questions and were in agreement to meet again and talk more.

We're planning to go on another day soon and do a day long mission - to include street evangelism, door to door, and an outreach mission.

Always in need of your prayers.

Pastor Mark

End of year for our girls

2010-06-01T04:08:00.001-07:00

In Moldova the first 4 years of school life from age 7-11 see the students remain in the same class with the same teacher. Only after this year do they separate into different classes.

Thus graduation this year was quite an emotional time for both Rachael, her class, her teacher (Miss Natalia to the right of the picture ) and us as a family since all the students would be no longer together.

Rachael is holding a "graduation" certificate that recorded her results for the year - she had an average of 9.36 ( out of 10 ) for all the subjects and was thrilled to have come first in the class.

The teacher then had the class go through various resumes of what they had learned in the last 4 years.

Of course it was the last day of school for both our daugthers and here they are posing in our garden before going to school.

It's been lovely weather over the last days and our cherries have come out and our strawberries.There's also been a healthy amount of rain during May so we might get a decent potato harvest.

In our church we pray for rain and rejoice, praising God when it comes - a little different one imagines from the UK.

Abigail also had her end of year pageant. Their teacher had them dress up in traditional Moldovan outfits and sing Moldovan songs and poems.

Do pray for their teacher who has been coming to the church quite regularly recently

Mari also invited Rachael's graduating class over to Karis for a free pizza.

They are the group in the background behind Larisa and family

Always in need of your prayers

Pastor Mark

Ambassadors in Sport come to Moldova

2010-06-01T03:36:00.001-07:00

I came to the Lord in April 1984 after a life lived very much in the world with all it's trappings.

I got born again and joined the Wharf Rd Baptist church but I was 28 and had no friends in the church of my age and background so the transforming process in the first 2 years of my Christian life was very hard.

However. Ray and Crista Tucker, mature Christians of many years standing, answered my advert in the local paper "Christian man seeks Christian home" and I moved in to live with them.

They mentored me for the first 2 years of my Christian life.

Ray is now European director of A.I.S and they came out this year to do a TREC course here in Moldova. Ray is the man in the middle of the picture - he is actually only 25 years old so you can see what 2 years of living with me in 1984 did to him. (Only joking Ray)

TREC is a training course that equips Christians to coach football to an UEFA standard as well as sharing the gospel and starting a ministry with the young people who come to the course.

Ray and the team did the course in Chisinau at O.M head quarters to which around 40 pastors and leaders came to be trained over the 4 day course including many from Cantemir where we have a responsiblity.

After the course in Chisinau, Ray came down to us in Gotesti with his team -

Graham from Spain and Fabrizio and his wife Rebeca from Italy. Igor had already started a group last year in Gotesti and has now started another in Chircani with Ray and the team's help.

On Sunday the team ministered in the church in Gotesti with Ray preaching the message

We trust they will come back next year and do the next level of the coaching training

Pray for all the groups that are being set up in Cantemir, Porumbesti and other villages in our county

Pastor Mark

Trustees Visit

2010-05-17T06:18:00.002-07:00

It was good to have our trustees with us again ( as is always the case at this time of the year ). John Dyson, who is also my pastor, seen here preaching in Chircani and Dave Lynn sitting beside Ruslan in the foreground listening to John. ( or perhaps sleeping - sorry Dave just a joke)

Hiliary, John's wife ( in the picture here ) was able to come this year, having missed last year through illness and they brought Rachel from my home church in Barrowby, nr Grantham - it was her first time in Moldova.

Last year we visited Catea, one of the members of Volodia's church in Cantemir. ( Barrowby is partner with Cantemir church )

Her son Iurie ( in the picture) has been severely physically and mentally disabled from birth.

One of his many needs is adult size pampers (sometimes 3 per day needed ) which cost 40p each - incredibly expensive for their family.

We were able to give her a gift of a year's supply of pampers through the kindness of one of those who was on the team last year who gave and raised the money.

It's been harder for Catea this year as Iurie is becoming quite agressive.

We were also able to bring a gift of food aid includng a 30Kg sack of flour + 6l of oil courtesy of aid grants from Eurovangelism.

Catea's husband had broken his arm when he fell off his cart ( his unruly donkey jumped off with a start ) This happened right at the time they were weeding their plots of land so poor Catea had to do it all on her own.

Here Volodia and I are sitting with another one of his members - 23 yr old Nina who is blind and paralysed but a wonderfully positive Christian whose contentment and joy moved us all.

She was 11 yrs old when she fell from a tree banging her head and the tumour that developed paralysed her and steadily took her sight away. She wasn't expected to live more than a couple of years.

A few years ago Volodia was doing mission in their area and had the opportunity to come into their home. She was very touched by the Christian songs he sang and Volodia was invited back to do Bible studies in their home. Not long afterward she and her mother and sister all gave their lives to the Lord.

Nina has only ever passed beyond the gate of their house when someone with transport has taken them to the church. In fact only once per day is she taken from the confines of her room outside into the sun. Rachel, from our team, was very moved when she compared the lot of Nina to a friend of hers who is similarly disabled (although not blind) and yet because of the benefits of our National Health system in the UK is able to get out regularly with Rachel to the theatre or to a restaurant, in fact able to enjoy an almost normal social life.

I was good for John and Dave, as leaders of our mission, to get to meet all the pastors of church plants that, either through ourselves or through Eurovangelism, church partners in the UK have been found for.

We meet every 2 months when they bring their report for their partners and we also have a time of sharing and encouraging. It's a precious time.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Mission at Hirtop

2010-05-17T06:18:00.001-07:00

This is a view of the village of Hirtop from the grounds of the Baptist church plant in the village.

Around 800 people live in Hirtop and it is one of the villages in the county of Cantemir that we are seeking to help and encourage in my new role.

This is Misa with his wife Aliona and their two children Liviu and Catusa. He is leading the work in the village.

They have only 6 members and the work is hard because it's a relatively new thing in the village and so people are generally suspicious.

Life is hard for them. He has a bedridden father at home that they look after and because they have no financial support to pastor the church he has to go abroad frequently to work for 3-6 months at a time. It affects the family. It affects the work.

We brought a team a few Sundays ago and did a mission with them in the village.

You can see in the background (in the forecourt of the church building that they built with their own hands and money) Slavic and Aliona who were leading the worship team for the mission.

Aliona gave her testimony and I later preached out of Acts 17 on how the resurrection of Jesus is the assurance that one day God will judge the world by Him and thus we need to get right with Him now when we hear Him speaking to our hearts.

There were several unbelievers there who had come for the first time. Misa said afterwards that he was encouraged that "in his words" they were having the gospel clearly presented to them in song, testimony and message for the first time.

Our prayer is that, if it's the Lord's will, an evangelical church with a similar gospel outlook will decide to partner with Hirtop.

Keep us all in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Giving Seminars

2010-05-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of Sundays ago I had the priviledge of being asked to do a day of seminars at Vad lui Isac church on the subject of "Giving to the Glory of God"

Other churches in the region were also invited and members from Manta and Pascani churches were among those who came about 270 in all.

We did 2 seminars in place of the morning service and then lunch together followed by another 2 seminars in the afternoon.

We looked at what our motivation for all our giving should be from Prov 3:9,10 i.e to honour God - by recognising that all we have comes from Him.

We then looked at how Abraham and Jacob did exactly this - they recognised that victory and the supply for life came from Him and they manifested this recognition by honouring Him in returning a tithe of all they received to God.

Jacob even said "...of all you give me I will give a tenth back to you.." Gen 28:22

What we then discussed was that this tithing had taken place 400 years before the law was given and that in my view God gave the law of tithing to remind the people of Israel what was pleasing to Him since they had got so far away from God by the tienm the law was given that they no longer knew what was pleasing to Him.

Thus tithing far from being a law should be a minimum goal if we want to honour God with our increase.

We looked at how the Bible shows 2 categories of giving to the glory of God. "Tithing" which we defined as "To give back to God a tenth part of your increase into the church, unconditionally as an honouring acknowledgement that all you have comes from God" Prov 3:9,10; Mal 3:8-10

and "Free will offering" which we defined as

" Every other kind of giving to the glory of God that comes from the remaining 90% of your increase or from your wealth"

We looked at some of the different categories of free will offering such as helping poor belivers ( as we see in 2 Cor 8:1-15 ), further giving into the church budget, supporting a ministry in your church, supporting a missionary or missionary organisation, helping the unsaved poor, a church building project etc etc and then we looked at how God teaches to do these things with our free will offerings ( although it is not obligatory ). We then looked at how to be good stewards of the many demands in these areas examening such passages as Math 5:42 in the light of 1 Tim 5:9,10.

There seemed to be a good, positive response to what was taught and Andrei the pastor of the church told me that the giving in the church increased fourfold the following Sunday.

My response;- "Let's see what it's like in a few months"

Pastor Mark

St Michael's in Chircani

2010-05-04T06:06:00.000-07:00

We were very glad to have a team from St Michael's church from Bristol with us in April.

Here they are singing a song in the Sunday meeting at Gotesti.

We had them busily occupied while here ( nothing new in that says anyone who has ever been here on a team )

But although they slept and ate in Gotesti they had come to link up with the church in Chircani

and in particular with Ruslan and family who are overseeing the work in Chircani.

There are about 1000 residents in the village of Chircani and we have 11 members in the church there which has grown from 6 members that was the church around 2 yrs ago.

We also have quite a few people showing an interest in the gospel and a growing children's work there.

Last year the Lord blessed us and through a brother from the UK we were provided the funds to buy this building to convert into a church community centre.

Our vision is to convert the building to have a meeting hall for Sunday meetings etc along with an indoor baptistry + 2 Sunday school rooms, a youth room and a sports room and then a later phase would be to convert the left half of the building into a community centre for the poor and for the physically disabled etc.

Here is a photo of a proposal that an architect has given us which providing his estimate is real we are thinking we will go ahead with.

Always in need of your prayers

Pastor Mark

New Bible School Begins

2010-04-03T08:08:00.001-07:00

No sooner finished the last Bible School and we've started a new one.

We have 15 new students who all want to be equipped to serve the Lord better.

The students come from 9 different villages here in the South.

The vision is to help equip these ones to do the work and also to teach and equip others

From left to right these are Vasile, recently appointed pastor of Brinza church which has around 200 members followed by Fedea pastor of Giurgulesti (70 members ) and Sergiu ( 68 members) pastor of Moscovei.

These men have been faithfully and sucessfully serving the Lord in their various churches but have never had opportunity to get the equipping that a Bible School affords.

This course that we provide gives them this opportunity without having to leave the work.

Here are Igor and Anatol, two key workers from the church at Vad Lui Isac.

The first week was looking at the book of Galatians.

We were encouaged to see all students taking an active part in thought provoking discussions.

We trust that our relationship with these various workers will grow as the course progresses.

Please pray for them

Pastor Mark

Graduation Day

2010-03-24T00:56:00.000-07:00

As many of you probably already know we run a church based Bible School at Gotesti as a service for not only ourselves but also the work of God here in the South.

This is a Bible School course done part time over 3 years.

Students study such subjects as Galatians and Romans, the Christian life, How to Study the Bible, How to prepare a message, Church Dynamics etc.

There are 4 one week courses in each of 3 years making 12 in total.

The advantage of it is that the students get the standard of both teachers and teaching of a full time Bible School while not having to come out of the work of God that they are in, in their villages and towns.
The course has been produced and sponsored by Entrust4 an international organisation that runs these kinds of courses throughout the world.

On the left of this picture is Harvey Newton, the Entrust4 director for Moldova.

Harvey was a pastor for many years in the USA and is a graduate of Dallas Seminary.

He has been serving in Moldova for around 15yrs.

In the centre of the picture with his graduation certificate is Pastor Ion from Valeni. His church has over 70 members and he is typical of the students that come

to the course, i.e. a pastor who is faithfully and sucessfully pastoring a church but has never had the opportunity to get any training.

Beside Harvey in this picture is Tudor, the youth leader in a church called Hirtop.

Others coming to the school are missionaries working in new villages trying to plant the village with a church.

Of the 5 that finished the course and graduated 3 are pastors and 2 youth leaders in their churhces.

We held the ceremony at Karis Pizza and finshed with a nice meal together.

The next post you will see here is about the new Bible school that has just started 22 March in which we will be sharing the teaching with Harvey and the costs of running the school.

Pastor Mark

Baptism Meeting

2010-03-22T04:02:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 14th of March we had a baptism meeting.

These meetings always attract a good turn-out and Sunday was no exception - we estimated there to be 100+ adults in the congregation of 250 that were not yet commited Christians.

There were a large number of people not from our villages but from Badicu, Romanscova, Porumbesti whose churches had brought various ones to baptised as well as guests from Cahul, Cantemir, Chisilea and many other villages and towns who have been bringing people to the Alpha course.

The man being baptised here is called Misa and beside him on the right is Stefan Hanganu, the pastor of Porumbesti.

Misa is in his 60's and has been a Christian for quite a while but had not quite come into the fullness of relationship with God.

After the special day in the course when we meet for a whole day and do studies on the Holy Spirit, Misa said at the end of the day to Stefan.

"It's time I got baptised because I want to be filled with the Spirit"

Don't rush to write to me. He hadn't misunderstood the teaching and wrongly concluded that we were saying that he had to be baptised to received the Spirit. We had been speaking about one of the reasons why we are not filled with the Spirit as we should be is that it's like we have a whole lot of rooms in the house of our souls and although we have invited Jesus into our house\hearts there are maybe some rooms that have remained locked which we don't give Him access to and so we are not filled with the H.S. in these parts of our lives.

He thus understood that he had been holding back from following Jesus's example of getting baptised and on Sunday put that to rights.

We as always preached an evangelistic message - on this occassion taking the life and response of Zacchaeus - Luke 19:1-10.

We gave the opportunity to those present to invite Jesus to come and stay in their houses ( hearts ) as their Lord and saviour as Zacchaeus did and 13 answered the call.

Ten of these 13 were ones that had been coming to the Alpha course and that meant that overall in this course 20+ people have prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and saviour.

We were also delighted that one of those who came out to the front was Vitali ( right of picture).

You may remember him and his situation being in a previous post.

He needed a serious operation on both lungs.

Many of you prayed, God provided and he had a successful operation.

Many of you continued to pray for his salvation and here is taking what we hope is at least a first step to entering into a full relationship with God.

We plan to start some studies with him and his wife Catea next week - she is also seeking. Please pray for them to come fully through.

Thank you for your continued support in so many ways

Yours and HIs

Pastor Mark

Mothering Sunday

2010-03-14T17:53:00.000-07:00

Every year in Moldova we have the equivalent of mothering Sunday.

It is actually a day for all ladies, mothers or not and it is celebrated on 8th of March.

We had a special church service on 7th March in recognition of the day and invited families.

There was a good turnout with many new people coming as their children were in the programme

The children also did a lovely programme as always

Here our 7-11 age group did songs and poems and were dressed in red and white which are the significant colours for the 8th March celebration

Meanwhile the youngest group appeared in angels costumes to remind their mothers of exactly what they are not.

Only kidding - they're little darlings really

A lovely touch thought up by the Sunday school teachers was that each child take a flower and find their mother in the congregation and give it to her

Here Rachael is passing her flower onto Mari

Later in the day was the latest installment in our Alpha course.

We are still getting around 60 come each week from all the churches in the region.

There were 12 that gave their lives to Christ the week before and all were at the meeting on 7th March

The subject was "The Church" - we spoke of how new birth brings us into the family of God, the church, and also of the priviledges and responsibilities of being part of the church.

We also looked at baptism and invited them to come the following Sunday at the same time when we were planning to replace the Alpha study with a baptism meeting with 8 candidates due to get baptised from 3 different villages.

Pastor Mark

Ruslan and Larisa's baby

2010-02-15T04:14:00.000-08:00

Many of you have been asking how Larisa is getting on and whether the birth of their baby is close.

Well it isn't close, it has been and gone -last Friday, a week early. (It'll be great to have her as a member in the church - to have at least one person early for the meetings)

Here is mum and baby in the hospital. She is such a quiet and contented child we had to smack her to get some reaction - only kidding!!! ( before I get any law suits )

She was 3.7Kg at birth and both she and mum are doing well.

It seems they may be out of hospital after a couple more days.

They haven't decided on a name for her yet.

Watch this space!

Pastor Mark

The foot of God

2010-02-15T03:54:00.000-08:00

This is Vitali and Catea Ichim, pictured at our meeting in Gotesti on Sunday.

He just left hospital last week after the second of 2 operations on his lungs. The costs were met by two of the readers of this blog - for which we thank God and them on Vitali's behalf.

Neither he or his wife Catea or their 4 kids are Christians ( or as Tony Anthony says - they are all pre Christians ).

He is ( or was ) a shepherd and unfortunately as a result a worm had got from the sheep into his lungs and had been destroying the lungs so that an operation on both lungs removing the infected part was the only way to save his lungs becoming cancerous.

Now where does the foot of God come into all this? Well Vitali shared of a lucky "coincidence" that he sees having saved his life.

During the summer when he was looking after the sheep one of the rams kicked him in the ribs. They swelled up so badly that he had to go to the hospital and get an X ray in which the doctor also noticed this problem which they then discoverd was this worm.

The doctor's word was that they just caugth it in time

"Coincidence"? - "Foot of God" I say!!!

Pastor Mark

Seriously Cold

2010-01-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

We, here in Moldova, like most of the rest of the world have been experiencing extreme weather.
It has been down as low as -25C with even lower being experienced due to the wind chill factor.

Thus we are greteful to the Lord and many of you who have helped financially and enabled us to give a small amount of wood to several needy families in our villages.
This family consists of 6 kids and they had no wood at all at home. Their father, as in many Moldovan families, is working abroad and sending money home to support the family but of course there is a worldwide crisis at present and he has not had work for quite some time.

Here is one of the many poor families that have no relatives etc to help them and thus have no help in winter

These kinds of temps can and do kill people like these every winter

Steopa, a divorced man, was ill this summer and unable to work.

Funds from yourselves enabled us to give him this very small amount of wood - just enough to get him through this dangerous time

These kids pictured here with their grandmother lost their mother to cancer about a year ago. Now their father is also close to death from cancer.

They have no income and all are school age.

This man gave up his low paid job in the school to go to Siberia on a contract job to support his family

He worked 3 months and did not get paid - not uncommon. He returned worse off financially than when he left

You don't want to know how many others also in need that we were not able to help but at least over 20 families did get some help.

With our gratitude

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Thing's don't always go well

2010-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

Thank you for keeping up with all our blogs and for the many encouraging e mails you send us.

One of the things that often comes up in your e mails is excitement as to how well things are going here and how the Lord is working.

I thought it would make a nice change to mention some of the things that haven't gone so well recently.

This is our storage building beside the church where we keep our wood, our aid, many tools etc

The big snow got to the ancient asbestos roof and in one fell swoop solved all our air conditioning problems. Fortunately the room with the aid in it is at extreme left of picture and the roof didn't come down there. Our men have met to see what is the least expensive way of trying to save our store house but with straw brick walls and now a collapsed roof things are not looking good and a sizeable investment is going to be needed.

Meanwhile, a few days after this happened some thieves took the opportunity, breaking into our tool room in the church store house and stealing several bits of expensive equipment. ( The police caught them 2 days later and we have recovered all - PTL )

Then round about the same time some snow got into our roof space ( we have no idea how ) and when it melted our ceiling swelled with water until we felt we must lance the boil ( see picture ) before the whole ceiling came down on us.
That's a wee job for the Spring when it comes.

Then on Tues our ancient heating system in the church finally gave up the ghost.

The cold weather was just too much for it and 4 radiators sprung leaks as well as several points in the piping system. ( We need a new central heating system)

I'll not mention the cracks creeping up the walls of the church due to dodgy foundations work nor the leak from the roof into the pastor's office.

I remember reading a story of a pastor who was well known for starting his Sunday morning meetings with a prayer of thanksgiving always finding something to thank God for no matter how bad things had been.

One Saturday there was a terrible thunderstorm. In the bad conditions his wife had an accident in the car and she and the kids were injured although not seriously. Just as he got back from the hospital the roof of his house partially collapsed due to the weather conditions so he had to move into temporary accommodation, where the one child who had not been with his mother in the accident contracted a virus as was up most of the night.

When he came to start the service the next day the whole congregation having heard of his trials eagerly awaited his opening prayer to hear what the pastor would find to thank God for in the previous day's disasters.

He began Dear Lord

I thank you that every day in life ..........

is not like yesterday

My sentiments exactly

Pastor Mark

President Basecu comes to town

2010-01-28T07:53:00.001-08:00

The newly elected president of Romania came for his first foreign visit in his new mandate to the Republic of Moldova.

He is spending 2 days in Moldova and to-day ( the second after a visit to Chisinau ) he came down South to us.

He is the bald man in the centre of the picture

He visited a war memorial cementry in Tiganca

The South West of Moldova where we live was originally part of Romania and the front lines of battle in WWII were fought around this area with many Romanians being killed and buried in this cementry about 10Km from us in Gotesti.

Many people from our village and other nearby areas braved the -10C temps to turn out to see him.

One of those loyal souls was Suceava girl Mari McCormick. (In fact she had sent an e mail a couple of days ago inviting him to pop in for a coffee at Karis Pizza on his way onwards to Cahul - he didn't, having already been booked into a Restaurant in Cahul )

Here she is posing in front of the car that was transporting Traian Basescu during his time in Moldova. (Not sure the driver would be too happy about this picture of a dirty car.)

Mari came back home sparkling - she'd got to shake his hand and bless him in the name of the Lord and if Mr Basescu has any discernment he'll have gone onto Cahul also sparkling having shaken the hand of my wife.

Pastor Mark

Baptism at Cantemir

2010-01-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

On Sunday 17th of January we had the priviledge of being invited to do the worship prigramme and preach at a Baptism service in the church at Cantemir.

I was encouraged that not only I from Gotesti was able to be of service to another church in our region but also our worship group.

We hope that as we are invited to other churhes that we will have formed 2 or 3 worship teams so that I or indeed Ruslan will preach but we will have different worship teams from our church in Gotesti and in Chircani assisting other churhces in this way.

There were 3 candidates for baptism, one of whom was from the church in Hirtop which is also in the Cantemir region.

Dima on the right of picture could not get the smile off his face from start to finish.

Later we preached on Mark 1:15 where we are told Jesus began to preach saying "Repent and believe in the gospel"

We were able to explain that to repent means to turn away from all that you know to be wrong in your life and commit yourself to following God - giving Him ownership of your life. Believing in the gospel we explained means recognising that your sins are worthy of punishment and that

Jesus died on the cross to take your punishment so that believing in Him will get you forgiven and reconciled to God.

When we gave people the opportunity to make this decision to repent and believe one lady from the congregation responded. her name is Diana and she also came to the Alpha course later that evening.

Here, Claudia, one of our worship group is giving her testimony which came across very powerfully on how God works in our hearts to show us what we are really like.

The banner in the background translated says "I can do all things in Christ.."

Under the sign Praise the Lord for He is good we see pastor Volodia and his leaders photographed together with the candidates.

After the meeting we got the opportunity to further talk with various ones who had been touched by God during the meetings.

All in all it was a wonderful occassion to be part of.

Pastor Mark

New Alpha course starts

2010-01-21T11:41:00.001-08:00

We had a very encouraging start to our new Alpha course.

We had around 60 come from 10 different villages in the Cantemir region. Of the 60 only 20 were from our leadership teams.

Each week of the course consists of a meal together, followed by a message on a theme after which we split into groups to discuss the message.

The theme for the first week of this course that is used in scores of countries all round the world is "Who is Jesus"

It is a very powerful message that uses non biblical historical writings and biblical texts to show that Jesus is God and the answer to all men's needs.

Some travelled from as far away as Chisilia taking around and hour to get to us.

Here they are, eating and enjoying each other's company. Anatol, at the left of the picture is pastor of a church in Chisilia with 100+ members

Here 3 villages are together in this group and you cannot see all the participients ( useless photographer called Mark McCormick-we'll not be hiring him again)

The villages are Cantemir ( a town really ), Volodia and Virginia at the left of the picture pastor the church there. Then Misa, who is the pastor at Hirtop is at the head of the table. Ruslan, the deacon at our church is sitting beside him and he led their group in the discussion time
as he has already had experiencing leading Alpha which are discussion groups not bible study groups - a very different dinamic. Porumbesti is the other village represented

Pray for the man at the bottom right of picture who is close to committing his life to Christ

This is my group which consisted of myself, Slavic and 8 guests from Gotesti and Chircani
These guests included, the head and vice head teachers in one of our kindergartens. a former vice principal in our local school and the current principal of the school in Chircani.

Some of the feedback from the groups showed that people were challenged by the evidence for the miracles that Jesus did and his resurrection which in themselves of course lead us to the challenge that He is indeed God and therefore "what does he expect of me?"

Ruslan Grosu also brought a group of young people up from Cahul.

There were actually 8 or 9 of them but half joined Igor's group which was also made up of young people from Gotesti Chircani and Baiamaclia.

There are several in these groups that are also close to committing themselves to the Lord, so we'd value prayer.

Pray also that as the weeks go by the groups will grow closer and feel they can be more open one with another.

Pray that others who said they wanted to come but didn't will come next week and that those that did come will come continually.

Pastor Mark

Adolescents on their winter camp

2010-01-05T01:38:00.000-08:00

Well once again it is that time of year when Igor and Tanya take the adolescents group away for a winter camp.

We thank God that He provides the funds for this. This year one of the supporters of Eurovangelism seeing the ministry advertised in the gift catalogue gave a gift of 500 pounds which covered 2\3 of the costs ( the accommodation costs have risen 150% this year although they are still much cheaper than they would have been going to any other accommodation.)

We had 23 including 8 leaders and workers go to the 5 day camp.

The camp was held at the O.M. centre in Chisinau where we have it each year. Their time there was split between bible teaching and discussion groups, games and sport and special trips into the capital.

Igor led the group with the boys and Tanya the group with the girls

The teaching topics were

1) What is a real Christian

2) How to become a new adolescent

3) When God is your Father

4) Jesus as a best friend

Igor and Tanya were blessed with the wonderful family atmosphere that existed the whole time and the adolescents opened up their hearts throughout the camp.

Igor preached messages in the evening that were on the same theme but he did not make an appeal simply saying that if anyone felt they would like to be a new adolescent, know God as their Father etc they could come for prayer at any time.

Seven adolescents came throughout the 5 days ( 4 boys and 3 girls )

Of the 15 adolecents that went only 3 could we say were maybe already the Lord's and the large majority of these kids are from non Christian families.

Igor was very encouraged about the level of understanding and sincerity shown in their prayers.

The kids had a great time with various organised games inside the O.M. accommodation but they also went out to the centre of the capital to see the Christmas lights.

Of course one of the big highlights for all of the kids and even the leaders was the trip out to the ice skating rink which they did on the last night.

Keep praying for those that responded and for this group that meets on a Tuesday - we have 25-30 coming at present

Pastor Mark

We thank God and all of you for your prayers for this winter camp and pray for the growth in the Lord of these ones that responded during the camp

Pastor Mark

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T05:42:00.000-08:00

Well what a Christmas celebration we had this year
This photograph does not include all our children or their teachers ( about 100 in all ) who were in another room preparing their programmes.

We reckon we had over 120 non Christian adults at the meeting - many for the first time as they were parents of children in our groups who were doing the programme.

Also for the first time we were doing the meeting on 25 December ( except when it fell on a Sunday ) The new democratic government has made 25 December a national holiday as well as January 7 ( the Russian Orthodox Christmas which was always recognised here in Moldova sicne the revolution.)

There was some concern that if we held the meeting on Friday 25th that there would be a smaller turn out than if on Sunday ( it's always our biggest turn out of the year ).

But we had our biggest turn out ever

Each of our children's groups in Gotesti did a programme. This year we have had to split our smallest group into 2 as we have no room big enough for the group.

The smallest kids did a nativity play and the older ones from the Grupa Mica dressed up as Santa Claus and angels of the Lord. Santa had a small poem exlpaining what benefits he brings to each of us while alternately an angel compared the benefit that Jesus brings. It was challenging to think how we in the West have somehow arrived at the state that Santa is exalted above Jesus

Here Grupa Mijlocie ( middle group ) is singing a song. The outfits were made by some of our Sunday school teachers.

There are over 30 in the group that come regularly to Sunday School and as you can see here only 3 boys. So this is a need for prayer but we thank God how blessed we are with the number of children that come to our meetings.

We are now having nearly 40 adolecents come to the Grupa Mare which meets on a Tuesday and here we are blessed with a good number of boys that come.

This age runs from 12-15 and here Igor is probably having most success in discipling boys in this age range with many of them taking up assisting in children's work and practical help.

Igor and Tanya went off with 15 of this group for a winter camp in Chisinau, the capital kindly part sponsored by a Eurovangelism supporter. Of this group only 3 could we say with some degree of confidence are Christians so please pray that a harvest is reaped amongst the rest before this year is done.

When we got home from the meeting we turned on the TV to the national television station of Romania -TV 1 - the equivalent of BBC1. The news reader began the main lunch time bulletin with these words " Merry Christmas. Two thousand years ago the virgin Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus who is our Lord and Saviour. All round the world millions of Christians, Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants are celebrating his birth to-day"
I sat and listened with rising joy to a national news reader on a secular TV station speak of the virgin birth as an historical fact.

It's been a great day to-day. May the Lord do more than we ask or think this coming year.

Pastor Mark

Shoe boxes

2009-12-23T01:56:00.001-08:00

Once again this year we were able to give shoe box presents to all the kids in our villages from 3-15 for Christmas.

Mustard Seed managed to get 13,000 boxes to us from donors in the UK despite the financial crisis which meant that not only we but around 30 other churches in the South were able to bring this great blessing to the kids of their villages.

Because of the flu epidemic we were not able to present the kids with the presents in the school which meant they had to come to the church to receive them. Here we see the 12-15 yr olds getting their presents while we were also able to share with them the true meaning of Christmas.

I saw a TV programme recently say that the true meaning of Christmas was peace and loving one another. I suppose they were correcting the commercialism of the season with this idea.

This is good but the real true meaning of Christmas is that around 2000 years ago God became a man and came to earth living among us for around 33 years as a man. God the Father gave God the Son as a gift to us sinners ( hence the exchange of gifts to remember what He did ). Jesus went on to die on a cross so that if we turn from our sins and trust in him we can be forgiven and receive a new life of joy and purpose which starts on this earth and continues into heaven.

There is plenty of historical evidence outside the Bible to prove that Jesus was here, did miracles that proved He is God and then died on a cross and was raised again. If we just took stock for a few moments of the true significance of what we are celebrating at Christmas i.e God who made us has been to our planet then it would immediately begin to change our perspective on the the whole purpose of what we live our lives for.

If you're reading this blog and you don't have a personal relationship with God, knowing all your sins forgiven and the certainty of knowing you will be in heaven when you die ( as the New Testament promises to those who have repented and trusted in Christ ) then may I recommend that you find the nearest Christian church that runs an Alpha course or a Christianity Explored course and join up as soon as possible. These courses usually last around 10 weeks meeting together once per week. They give you opportunity not only to have a nice meal together and then hear about these truths through a message but also to ask questions in a smaller group format.

Once again our thanks to Lisa and Michael and the team at Mustard Seed who put in a lot of hard work to get these shoe boxes to us and also a special thanks to anyone who might be reading this blog who was a donor of one or more of these boxes.

May God bless you with a double portion of the joy that your gift brought to these kids this year

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Adolescents at Cantemir

2009-12-21T01:33:00.001-08:00

As many of you may already know we have been asked by the Baptist Union here in the South to take an assistant role for the Cantermir region.

Part of our role is to help consolodate the exisiting churches.

Here we are trying to help Cantemir church with a new adolecent group they have started with Igor our youth leader bringing a team to develop the work.

Around 10-15 lads from 15-18 yrs old come to the group held in the Cantemir church building.

They are all in technical school and all doing the same course.

They are from different villages outside Cantemir and so are staying in the dorms in the college and have nothing to do during the week.

They're a good and attentive bunch and here is Igor sharing a message with them.

Other churches in the region are already coming to ask help for other aspects of their work.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

The Visit of community church@ greenway, Bristol.

2009-12-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

David Roderick is the director of Eurovangelism who have been great supporters of the work here in South Moldova ( as well as the rest of Europe)

Dave comes each year to report back on the progress of the various aspects of the work that Eurovangelism support.

This year we had the special blessing of him coming with a team from his home church - community church @ greenway from Bristol.

This is the meeting in Gotesti on Sunday 14th Dec when the CCG were leading our people in a worship song with actions

In fact the team were very involved in our meetings during the week with testimonies and preaches and worship leading and even sketches.

But in truth they got stuck into all the aspects of the work that Eurovangelism are part of.

Church planters, Aid, Physically Disabled Ministry, Children's work.

Eurovangelism have been connecting up churches in the UK to partner with church plants here in South Moldova with David being the UK link and me the Moldovan link. The church at Porumbesti is the latest church plant that Eurovangelism are helping find a partner for. More details of this exciting church plant with a vision for it's surrounding villages coming up in a later blog.

Support for producing aid packets for the poor is another annual help that Eurovangelism give us and in fact not just us but other churches that we are involved with here in the South.

Needy families like Catea here in this picture receive a 5 kg packet of rice, pasta, sugar 30kg flour and 5l oil. - about 30 pounds in value.

This family have already been helped by others fitting their home with electricity - He is a shepherd - an honest but very low paying occupation and now he has got seriously ill with a worms in his lungs caught from the sheep. They have eaten into both lungs. Without medical insurance ( at 100$ per year too expensive for this family ) they had to borrow a large amount to get an operation to cut out part of one of his lungs to remove the problem. He needs a similar operation on the other lung.

Thanks to the help from Eurovangelism 300 families in 15 different villages overseen by 8 different church plants will receive an aid packet of at least 30Kg of flour and 5l of oil.

Other supporters having seen the need of the poor in the winter gave some gifts last year which has enabled us to help at least a little with the cold by giving 2m3 of wood to each family which hopefully will mean that these families will have enough to avoid the risk of dying of hypothermia when it gets very cold ( -5C to -20C)

Margaret Lilley was also part of the team. She works for Scripture Union and is also responsible for 5-7 yrs at Spring Harvest each year.

O woman of much experience she came and shared in Kindergartens and on the Saturday did a conference for children's workers to which around 40 leaders from Cantemir came
They were very encouraged with the quality of the teaching.

Sadly as our time together with the team came to a close I started to come down with flu and some of the team began to join in.

Winter has now got a grip here with 1m deep snow in places.

I have quite a few speaking engagements over the Christmas period so pray for safe journeys for me.

Pastor Mark

Christmas in Chisinau

2009-12-16T03:53:00.001-08:00

We were invited down to Chisinau to preach in the Elim church on Dec 6 where Sasa, a young man who was born again at our church around 10 years ago, is now a deacon.

We came down for the weekend with the family as Mari had a course on Saturday and we thought it would be great for the kids to see the Christmas lights in the capital.

As I was taking these photos it made me realise how much Moldova has changed both physically and spiritually in the 15 years we have been here.

PHYSICALLY - LIGHTS EVERYWHERE

When we first came to Moldova we had 4 hours electricity per day between 7-9 am and 7-9 pm. Some friends of ours travelled from the UK and brought over a generator. When we opened our new church building in 1999 we were one of only 2 buildings in our village with light which meant our week mission was full each night.

PHYSICALLY - SAFE ENVIRONMENT

This is Abigail standing outside the mayor's office in Chisinau.

His name is Dorin Chirtoaca and he is a member of the Democratic Alliance, which is now ruling the country after years of communist rule.

We walked a few meters down from the mayor's office and saw the man himself in a barber's shop having a hair cut. I popped in and told him how we believed he is doing a great job.

"Bine" he said

He had no security with him (unless they were dressed up as lady hairdressers ). Just a simple man having a haircut in a nearby barbers after his working day.

The bible says that the wicked do their deed in the darkness. When we first came there were 2 street lights working nightly in the whole of Cahul ( a town of 40,000 residents ). You simply did not go out at night on the street. Now even small villages have street lights on the main streeet at least.

SPIRITUALLY - LIGHT SPREADING

The fact that the Christmas lights were on, on Dec 6 is a sign of the spiritual change going on in Moldova.

In Moldova the vast majority of orthodox Christians are Russian Orthodox and they celebrate Christmas on January 7. Whereas, Greek Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants ( inlcuding us Baptists, Pentecostals etc ) celebrate the Lord's birth on 25 December.

In the past only the Russian Orthodox Christmas was recognised by the communist government and so the lights wouldn't even be on, on 25 December but just recently the democratic alliance prime minister Vlad Filat announced that 25 Dec would now also be a national holiday along with January 7th.

Valeriu Ghiletchii, the former president of the Baptist Union who is now a member of parliament asked the prime to consider making this date a national holiday but when I spoke with him he takes no credit for the decision as, he tells me, Vlad Filat already had it in his mind to do this.

When we came there were 1000 towns or villages in Moldova with no evangelical church of any kind. Now there are less than 900.

Much still to do

Pastor Mark

Mari's Passion

2009-11-24T08:53:00.001-08:00

In October Mari was invited to Chisinau to speak to a ladies meeting that is run by Isus Salvatorul church and held in the Emanuel clinic chapel.

The meeting takes place every month

and draws ladies from dirrerent denominations with around 40 usually coming.

Eugenia, on the left in the grey jacket and white blouse runs the meetings.

She does ministries for the baptist churhces throughout Moldova.

She gave Mari the subject to share on - Passion in mariage -

Mari addressed the subject over 2 meetings; one in October and one in November.

At times you could hear a pin drop as

my wife touched on subjects that clearly all the ladies would like to hear more about

Afterwards I was asked what I thought about Mari's talks

"It's the longest I've ever listened to Mari without interupting her" I said

Mari says to know how the talks really went we would need to ask the husbands. As for me I've had a smle on my fce ever since

Pastor Mark

New liver new heart

2009-11-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

Thought I would share a story ( without pictures ).

About 9 months ago one of our members called on our church for prayer for her married daughter living in Serbia who was not a Christian.
Tanya, had contracted Hep B twenty years ago while living in Moldova and now, at 39, according to her doctors had just a short time to live.
Her only hope was to get a liver transplant.
As a church we began to pray and fast for her to receive a liver transplant.

Not long afterwards a liver became available, she had the operation and everything went so well that she was out of hospital care within 2 months.

At the end of October she was with us in the church and shared of her experiences - it was moving for all that were there.
We were away but the following Sunday Tanya came to speak to us after the meeting wanting to get right with God.

We came to meet her the following day at her mum's and explained the gospel in detail to her step by step.

When we came to talk about how Jesus had died on the cross to take our sins giving his life so that we could live she began to weep profusely.

Soon it became clear why. A young man of 20 years of age died in a car accident and because of his death and the heart breaking suffering and gracious gift of the boy's parents she received a new liver and thus a new life.
She saw the even greater sacrifices of Jesus and His Father, when He, a man without sin, willingly and consciously gave His life dying on the cross in her place for her sins to give her a new life.

With tears she put her trust in what Jesus had done for her on the cross and asked the risen Jesus to come into her life as her Lord and Saviour.

Moments later we read John 6:47 together "Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me has etrenal life"

"Did you believe in Him just now?" I asked her"
"Yes" she said
"According to this verse what does the Bible say you have?" I asked?

She read the verse again
"Eternal life" she said, joy replacing the tears

"When do you have it?" I asked
She looked at the verse again
"Now!" she said with a mixture of incredulity and thankfulness on her face

It was a special moment for us too

Pastor Mark

Missions in the South 4-8 Nov

2009-11-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

A series of missions have been taking place right across the South of Moldova during 4-8 Novemeber.

We had one at Gotesti to which we called different preachers for each night while I went to other churhces to preach the gospel

This is one of the churches we went to - Antonesti - and here Maricica and 3 of the girls from our church at Gotesti are doing a programme of songs and a testimony before I came onto preach

I also had the priviledge of being invited to preach on Saturday night at the church in Vad lui Isaac where around 150 came.

This is Jonathan and Richard who are living and ministering in Bucuresti. They took part in the service sharing 2 songs

There were 5 people who gave their lives to the Lord in an appeal after the message including Cristina and Eugenia pictured here.

This was a particularly special moment for me to have participated in - the occassion when they both gave their whole lives to Christ. Both girls had gone to school in Gotesti for 3 years living with Iulian during that time and coming to the church at Gotesti. Despite many opportunities they had not given their lives to Christ but we always felt they were close.

Meanwhile, we also had John Dyson, my pastor and one of our trustees, over with us along with Geoff Collier a member in my home church.

They had come to preach and give testimony, respectively in various other venues in the mission week of the South.

Unfortunately since we were never in the same place I have no photos of Geoff giving testimony and only this one of John preaching at Gotesti with Igor translating at the baptism meeting on Sunday evening in Gotesti.

Natasa and Colia were the 2 that got baptised and both gave their testimony in the meeting

Igor assisted in the baptism as he is the youth leader and largely responsibile for the discipling of both Natasa and Colia

Colia could not get the smile off his face from start to finish

His brother Viorel was baptised last year and both are very active servants of the Lord already

Pastor Mark

Trip to Kinmel Bay

2009-11-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

In October, Mari and I were invited to come to Kinmel Bay Evangelical church in North Wales.

This is the Sunday morning meeting to which around 150 come regularly.

We were sharing about the work in Moldova and particularly about churhces in UK partnering with churches in Moldova which Kinmel Bay are interested in doing.

This is Gwyn Parry the pastor preaching and the lady in the background on the right is his wife Eunice.

We had a great time with them on the Saturday when we arrived each sharing about our experiences in the ministry.

Later in the evening we shared with the leadership team about 2 church plants in Moldova that they are considering partnering with - part supporting the pastor and partnering in the work of the church in various ways. They listened intently and put the kind of questions that encouraged us as to how serious thy were about their about their partnership plans

We stayed with Alan and Maureen Tuttle, a lovely and intersting couple

Before retiring he was a professional children's entertainer

And he still had the knack
On the way out we took the flight from Liverpool airport which is named John Lennon airport after the famous assasinated Beatle

His statute stands in the hall on the way to departures.

It was quite a moving moment to think of his life, times and death

Pastor Mark

Bayfarm Visit 2009

2009-10-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

It was great to have the team from Bayfarm with us again from 2-9 October. Their pastor Jim Meyer came with them this time. He hasn’t been since 2006 and we used every spare moment of his time.

He preached at a wedding we had on the Saturday when Viorel from Pascani and our own Aliona were married. Then he was the preacher at our Sunday morning service and here he is speaking at a conference we had for our pastors from the South – around 90 came the first day and some 50 on the second day. Jim taught and answered questions on “handling conflict in the church.”

There were quite a few who came for individual help after the meetings and we also went to visit some others

Jim was also our main speaker to 50 of our teachers from Gotesti on National Teacher’s day which we held in the pizza parlour and later that day he preached in our mid week meeting following on from Sunday’s topic of forgiving one another and why it is sometimes hard.

Teachers day is an opportunity for us to show our appreciation of our teachers who do a very difficult job for very little pay. A free meal once a year isn't exactly life changing for them but at least it gives us the opportunity to give something back to them. However much to our surprise the teachers felt they would like to bless us and here is Oleg the head teacher giving us a gift of a flower

We also took Jim with us on our trip to the church plant in Pelinei where Jim was the preacher in their meeting while his wife Kim took the other half of the team to Baurcii.

The team were of course as busy as ever they have been while in

Moldova

Here is Bob Wilbur giving out aid to one of many needy families that were helped with food while other homes received wood for the upcoming winter when it can get down to -15C.

Every winter hypothermia brings untimely deaths.

Christine and Bob Wilbur were the new recruits this year and here Christine is giving here testimony in a meeting. It was a very moving story of traumatic and abusive experiences in childhood and youth and how she found Christ to be her saviour and then friend and comforter in the midst.

Bob used his guitar playing gift in the visits to kindergartens and schools and also gave a powerful testimony in the meeting in Pelinei after recovering from two days of flu that left him confined to bed.

Kim, Jim's wife, was, as always, the
driving force behind the trip.

She had just recovered in time from a virus that looked stopping her being on the trip and here she is sharing at the teachers meeting with Mari translating.

Her fortitude in dealing with the main physical ailments that she has to contend with is an example and inspiration to all.

Chris Modic is the other veteran of the Bayfarm trips having been on all so far.

Here he is standing beside the Soba sponsored by Bayfarm that Ilusa built for the Constantinovca kindergarten.

Chris also led the men's meeting.

He is much loved by our men as he always shares honestly from the heart - warts and all.

He shocked us all by telling us his method of stopping a conflict with his wife getting out of hand

When the conflict is getting too hot Chris begins .................

If you're reading this Chris I felt this was just too hot to put on a public site but if anybody e mails me I'll be putting them in touch with you

Pastor Mark

Harvest Service at Gotesti

2009-09-29T12:19:00.001-07:00

Any one who has been following this blog recently will think that the only thing we do in Moldova in our churches is have harvest celebrations
This is the cake that some of our youth made for our harvest meeting in Gotesti on Sunday 27th September.

We had around 200 in total come to the celebration and we used it as a time to not only thank the Lord for the material things he has blessed us with in the last year but also all the spiritual things He has done - answers to prayer etc

This is Liuba giving testimony. Her 40 yr old daughter had contracted a cirrhossis in her liver while getting a blood transfusion in Chisinau.

She was now living in Serbia and the specialist there told her the bad news that if she didn't get a liver transplant she would die. This was next to impossible as there are so few available and she wasn't even a Serbian citizen. Liuba brought it to the church for prayer and we all with one heart together with her prayed and fasted for a miracle - either God's miraculous healing or a liver to be provided for the transplant. As she drew close to dying our prayers became more desperate. Can you imagine the joy for us all and especially Liuba when God answered with the provision of a liver for transplant.

She's had the transplant and is going on well. Our thanks also go to the surgeons whom we never met that got the liver and did the operation.

So it was an occassion f0r joy and thanksgiving for us all to remember at the harvest ( thanksgiving ) service God's answer to our prayers with Liuba

Various ones from our church family took part in the service.

This is David, Ruslan's son, doing a poem about how God created the various fruits - looks like he might have eaten the fruit already and our Abigail is about to tell him off after he's finished the poem.

This is Cristina and Aliona singing a duet.

This was Cristina's last Sunday with us as she is going off to University in Romania to study for 3 years

She'll be coming home at end of term times but it did feel like a parting was taking place.

Panainte Chicicov, the mayor of our villages also took the trouble to come to our harvest service with his wife Valentina. He spoke a short word of encouragement and they both stayed and ate with us at the after service meal.

Around 130 stayed for the meal afterwards and we were overjoyed that our believers had brought so many chickens, ducks, veg etc that we had an abundance to feed all and had plenty to spare.

It was a joyous occassion and we pray God's blessing that we may have many more.

Pray for us and the arrival of a team from Bayfarm Church in California on Frid 2 Oct and the ministry that they will do in our villages and others while they are here.

Pastor Mark

Harvest at Slobozia Mare

2009-09-21T09:27:00.001-07:00

We had the priviledge of being invited to speak at the harvest service of the Baptist church in Slobozia Mare

The village has approx. 8000 residents and around 300 of them including the lady mayoress came to

the service.

Again as in Giurgulesti the Pentecostal church's youth came to take part in the worship

As well as the harvest service they had a dedication and here we see Nicolai, the pastor of the church, explaining it's significance.

He is standing under the word seceris which means harvest and is made from corn seeds

Vasile, the pastor of Cuslita Prut, a neaby village is here pictured bringing a word of encouragement.

They cancelled their Sunday meeting and the whole church came to this harvest service

Later I brought an evangelistic message taking as my text Jer 8:20. "The harvest has passed, the summer is ended and we are not saved"

I explained that biblically being saved means having an assurance that you will be in heaven when you die, having a personal relationship with God now on earth that also brings you a purpose to life until you get to heaven as well as knowing all your sins forgiven among other things.

We looked at the fact that Eph 2:8,9 tells us that "it is by grace we are saved through faith... not by works ..." and explained that grace is God giving us the opposite of what we deserve going on to point out that although what we deserve for our sins and selfish life is judgment that Jesus ( God become man ) died in our place on the cross taking the judgment that we should have had and now God offers us forgiveness, heaven, abundant life etc something that we plainly do not deserve.

We explained that this salvation is obtained by coming back to God from our own selfish ways, giving the rest of our lives to him and trusting in Jesus to save us.

We ended by saying "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended and I AM SAVED .... WHAT ABOUT YOU!!

Those in attendance were then given the opportunity to make that decision for themselves and come to Christ - around 20 came forward.

It was also our joy to meet Tudor, on the left of the picture.

What a testimony he is to the grace of God.

He was saved in 1949 and is 87 years old and could hardly contain the joy of his salvation as he gave testimony in the meeting even though it is 60 years since his relationship with Jesus began

As per last week in Giurgulesti we were all able to share a fellowship meal together afterwards, celebrating the Lord's provision of a good harvest.

This celebration of God's goodness in an abundant harvest such as this is something that would not be taken for granted by ones like Tudor who lived through the famine in Moldova in the years after the war when many died of starvation.

Next Sunday is our harvest service at Gotesti - please pray for a harvest of souls

Pastor Mark

A double harvest at Giurgulesti

2009-09-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

This is Fedea Parpalov with his wife Valea and 4 lovely daugthers.

They are friends of ours and he pastors the Baptist church in Giurgulesti.

He invited me over to preach yesterday at a special service for both material and spiritual harvest - i.e. harvest Sunday and they also had 4 people getting baptised.
The lady in white is 80 years old - never too late to get saved and baptised.

Here we see the church's youth group who for the most part led the worship during the meeting.

But we also had groups from different churches taking part.

Pictured here is a group from a Pentecostal church in a nearby village preparing to bring a programme - and powerful it was too.

In this shot are the children from the church who each did a part of a poem about how God made all the fruits and how each speaks into our lives

The quality of the poem, written by their Sunday school teacher in the picture, made this part of the programme one of the highlights

The baptisms took place outside as is the case for most churches.

We are among the few churches that have an indoor baptistry which gives us the option of holding baptisms at any time in the year

Although I did not get a chance to talk to them I was encouraged to see 3 young men getting baptised and as we pastors prayed for them afterwards we called on the Lord to equip them for the plans he has for their lives to "..serve the purposes of God in this generation.."

There was a good sized crowd that turned up for this double celebration including many people who openly admitted to not having a personal relationship with God ( John 17:3 )

We preached on the story of Felix - Acts 24 - and how he knew the gospel well but when the moment came for him to give his whole life to Christ he said "Go away - when I have a more convenient time I will call you again" Of course it's a deception. There never is a convenient time and the Bible says "today when you hear the voice of the Lord do not harden your heart"

At the end of the message there were several who chose to give their whole lives to Christ including Lydia, a teacher in the school and who was one of the groom's relatives at a recent wedding we attended where we had an opportunity to witness to her.

After the meeting I got to talk to several others including Sasa ( sitting at the front in a red tee shirt with glasses in the above picture). All with whom I spoke said that they felt God was calling them but they had questions and doubts.

Pray for Fedea as he organises a seekers meeting next Sunday after the meeting and that Sasa and the many other interested people sitting at this harvest meal after the baptisms will come to it and find God

Pray also for me as I preach the gospel at harvest meetings and evangelistic meetings on Sunday 20th and 27th Sep and then October 10 and 4-8th November.

pray for Mari as she speaks at a women's meeting in Chisinau on 1 October

Pray also for the Bayfarm team as they come out to us 2-9 October

Watch this space for other prayer needs soon

Pastor Mark

Costa gets a birthday treat at Karis

2009-09-14T03:58:00.000-07:00

One of the blessings of having Karis Pizza is that we are able to give our members little treats from time to time.

This is 74 year old Costa on his birthday whom we were able to invite for a pizza with us We were also to invite Despina his daughter.

Costa is the oldest believer we have in the church and he was baptised and became a member around 7 years ago.

He walks the 3 Km to the church and back again for every meeting rarely missing a meeting. He is uncomplaining, faithful and a lovely uncomplicated witness to all.

Despina his daughter was one of our first members and she also is very faithful and a hard working servant of the Lord.

Her daughter Aliona will be getting married on 3 Oct - the first of her children to leave home.

Not long after Costa got saved, his wife of many years took sick with cancer from which she shortly afterwards died

We had the priviledge of leading her to the Lord in the last week of her life and Costa has the certain hope of meeting again with the love of his life.

It is a priviledge to have ones like these in the flock.

Pastor Mark