Christmas Meeting 2008

Our Christmas meeting took place on Sunday December 21st ( as Christmas on the 25th is not celebrated here and many people were working on that day )

This photo was taken about 20 minutes before we started and around another 50 or so had come by the time the meeting began.

Usually we know exactly how many adults attended by how many cups were used for tea afterwards but this year someone forgot to boil the water and we had no tea and biscuits at the end but there were at least 250 non Christian adults + 200 kids at what was a really joyful occassion.

In this shot of part of the meeting there are only 3 members of our church so it gives you some idea of how many people came under the cound of the gospel this Christmas.

All the visitors get a visit in the next couple of weeks and receive a calendar and John's gospel + a few other goodies.

This is our Sunday school's youngest group - up to 6 years old.

They looked like and sang like angels .......

but we parents know better.

Little darlings!!!!

This is our Gotesti middle group ( any suggestions for a more fun sounding name for this Sunday school class?)

The elegant peach in the middle is Cornelia whose mother came to the meeting after me getting a chance to speak to her at the coffee shop a few days earlier ( see previous blog or news letter)

This is our "big group" ( 11-14) - I'd offer a prize for the best suggestions for a more fun name but all our Christmas gifts are gone.

Many of you are praying for Roma and his generation and the 200 or so kids of his age and younger we have in 6 different groups in the 3 villages we are working in so it is always good to feature him as still coming to the meetings in answer to your prayers.

In the afternoon we did a meeting in the kindergarten in Constantinovca where we always do a Christmas meeting.

This year almost every parent in the village was there ( there are about 100 houses in the village )

Undoubtedly part of the reason was that we were able to give every child a shoe box gift courtesy of Mustard Seed from the UK

But this year there was a different atmosphere - it was like family gathering together

Again part of the reason will have been that Mission Direct helped with much renovations for the kindergarten and Bayfarm are just in the process of buying the bedding for all 30 kids beds but I think it is more than just the help, I think these people know that somehow it is God who is reaching out to them with all this love.

As I preached the message I felt a strong sense in my heart of, I believe, how Jesus felt as He entered Jerusalem and said "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ....... how often I wanted to gather your children together as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing"

As I said the gist of this to them in paraphrase every face in the room was fixed intently upon me ( a rare thing as any preacher will tell you ) and I felt as I looked at the expressions on their faces that they knew I was speaking sincerely when I said I wanted to gather them up and usher them into His kingdom.

My prayer is that they understand that Jesus not I is wanting to gather them up into His family

It's my prayer for you also for this coming year

Pastor Mark

Coffee Shop opened.... at last!!

Here it is. The grand opening of Karis Pizza at high noon on 19th December.

This dear man centre of the picture waited about 40 mins to get a pizza to take home to his sick wife ( it wasn't the pizza it was the non pizza dish that delayed us )

Fortunately he is a believer ( and a very forgiving one at that )

Actually these were our first customers and they came at 11.40 am.

It threw us out of sync and since it was busy all day we never stopped chasing our tails.

Both Mari and I worked all day there as waiters and me also on the cash. Unfortunately I did not have time to show anyone else how to operate the machine it so I couldn't leave.

Fortunately we did get one or two minutes at various times to touch on the objectives of why we have built this coffee shop.

As a pastor I hardly ever get time to meet and befriend anyone other than our own "sheep" or ones that come to the church.

But here were two pensioners that have never been to our church that I was able to spend 5 minutes talking to and befriending. I would never have gotten to their home but God brought them to our "second home".

As ones become regulars our hope is that they will feel the love of Christ in us for them and eventually want to come and be part of our family the church.

One lady whom I got talking to yesterday said she would come to our Christmas meeting on Sunday 21st.

From the oldest to the youngest

Couldn't find out her name -when I came to ask she ran away back to her father

This is another objective of the coffee shop - a quiet place where families feel they can come to.

We had parents with kids all day probably because they know we don't serve alcohol and they believe it is going to be a family atmosphere.

Earlier in the week someone had taken our meniu because they wanted to order ahead of time for a party of 20 but later when they discovered we are not serving alcohol they decided not to come.

I know the family and they would not have been rowdy etc but their friends all wanted to have a drink with their pizzas so this was disappointing for us but when we saw all the families that came on our opening day we knew this was why we were paying the cost of loosing the other customers.

On the Tuesday we gave the teachers in our two schools in Gotesti a complimentary pizza meal

They work hard and get paid little - they deserved it

On opening night one of the ladies came with her husband and two kids for a meal

Close friends Anatol and Nadea, who is pastor of Emanuel church in Cahul came to encourage us along with the leaders from their church singing carols and bearing gifts.

Gelu their youth leader who is at the back of the group made this Karis sign by hand.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Shoe box joy

It's the start of a very busy and wonderful week for us.

It's our Christmas week and every day we are meeting with some group of kids to share with them about the true meaning of Christmas and also give them a Christmas gift.

It is an interesting comparasson that here in Moldova Christmas is hardly celebrated because Moldova is Europe's poorest country and being a former soviet republic the tradition of Christmas has never been developed.

Thus few gifts are given. Indeed we are the only Christmas event going on in our 3 villages really.

Thus when we have given these shoe box gifts (courtesy of Mustard Seed from the UK) to these kids it has been a surprise for them and so they have been ready and willing to listen to why they are getting a gift. i.e that God gave the world a special gift 2000 yrs ago - his Son Jesus to die on a cross for our sins so that we could be saved.

Whereas in the West the abundance of gifts being given and the expectation, in fact the sense of entitlement that almost all have that they should get a gift ( or many gifts ) takes away the whole ground on which one might share the message of the undeserved gift of God given in Christ.

A further interesting comparasson was the total difference in the appreciation shown by these kids as they opened up their gifts.

The box included perhaps. hat and gloves, toothpaste, a soft toy, a game.

Sadly the sort of things most kids in the West would discard from the box while hunting under them looking for the "serious" gift they expected to be there.

I remember years ago seeing a "You've been framed " clip where a 10 yr old boy is video-ed by his parents as he opens his Christmas gift to find a 100 pound computer game.

His reaction?

To fly into a rage and smash it with his fist because it was not what he was wanting. (If I'd been his parents I'd have been too ashamed to send something like to a show where the public could view the incredible ingratitude of my child.)

So what was the reaction of these kids getting their soft toys and toothpaste.

An absolute explosion of joy and excited yelps throughout our church building.

One child when she opened hers began to squeal out

" Whoop! whoop! woop! woop! - she couldn't stop she was so overcome with emotion ( and we were not a little overcome ourselves.)

It was one of those special moments in life that you get the priviledge not only to witness but be part of.

My first thought, was one of a kind of sadness that those in the UK that gave the money or filled and wrapped the boxes where not here to see the precious fruit of their giving.

I send my heartfelt thanks on behalf of all the kids of Gotesti, Chircani and Constantinovca to you that have given these boxes and indeed to all of you in all the world that do such things but aren't able to see the recipient receive it as we did.

Perhaps you'll get to see the "You've been framed" video of these kids receiving your gifts ....... one day ........

in heaven.

Pastor Mark

Adolescents outreach

This is a picture of the adolescents group that a team of our believers led by Igor and Tanya are working with.

About 30 come each Tuesday to the group and share friendship in games, etc but also split into groups for a bible study designed to show them the way to a relationship with Christ

Only 4 of these kids have families that come to the church.

The series of studies are designed to reach a climax at around the new year in a 4 day winter camp we hope to be able to do again this year as we did for the last two years in Chisinau using the premises of O.M.

Two years ago saw Doina and Aliona commit their lives fully to Christ during this time and they were amongst those who were baptised this October

We ask you to pray with us that we are able to do this 4 day event again this year and that similar responses occur that lead to changed hearts.

We hope to run the camp Dec 25-30

Pastor Mark

Tony Anthony

We were priviledge to have former 3 times world champion in Kung Fu and now international evangelist Tony Anthony with us in the South of Moldova from Nov 7-16.

Here is one of the outreach meetings he did in Vad lui Isaac.

In total around 5000 came under the sound of the word of God through his ministry during the 9 days here in 22 different locations.

Tony also did 2 Release conferences with over 500 believers in total getting teaching and training in evangelism that leads to them being better equippped to share the gospel themselves.

Although Tony spoke to bigger crowds (over 1200 in Colibasi)

I found this event in Pelinei particulraly encouraging.

Pelinei is one of the church plants we are working with and they have just 22 members but here around 250 people attended the cultural house and heard the gospel clearly preached.

These ones came not only from Pelinei but also 3 other nearby villages where the church in Pelinei is working.

Speaking to Misa, the pastor afterwards we both felt that a week long mission in the cultural house surely must be done to follow up on what is a notable interest among these villagers.

Please pray for this.

Please also pray for Tony who left immediately from us to the Ukraine for another 10 days of mission and has his calendar booked for speaking engagements of all kinds until 2010

Pastor Mark

Eurovangelism Conference

Thank you all for your prayers for our trip to England to attend and speak at the annual conference of Eurovangelism.

Eurovangelism has been working in Eastern Euopre since the 1960's and has thousands of supportes in prayer and finance throughout the world as well as 100's of churches.

They work at encouraging, resourcing and equipping churches throughout Europe ( primarily in Eastern Europe ) in whatever way the church partner wants.

We've been working with them for around 3 years now receiving aid, support for pastors and training courses that we wanted which has assisted not only the work in Gotesti, Chircani and Constantinovca but also in 7 other church plants that we are also involved with.

We had a lovely relaxing 3 days before the conference staying in the missionary flat above the offices of Eurovangelism in Bristol and then a thoroughly encouraging time at the weekend conference.

We met so many people of the same mind and heart regarding the work in Eastern Europe and heard of much that was encouraging.

We also had many encourage us before and after our presentation of the work in Moldova.

Our final engagement before returning to Moldova was to speak in St Botolph's C of E near Kettering where again we had a lovely encouraging time and made new friends who want to link with us.

I am sorry to say that I was so intensely involved in the events in UK that I did not take one decent photo of any of the above but if you want to see more or find our more about Eurovangelism as an organisation please check out their web site

www.eurovangelism.org.uk

I thoroughly recommend them

Pastor Mark

Mission and Baptisms

Thanks to you all for your prayers for the mission that we ran from Thursday - Sunday 23- 26 Oct

Here we see Viorel giving his testimony during one of the meetings

Each of the 6 from our villages being baptised gave their testimony during the week.

We had a good numer of people respond to gospel appeals during the week and we have many people to follow up in these coming weeks

This for example is Stefan, the husband of one of our members.

He is 55 and has made various responses before but he came this time wanting his whole to belong to God.

Pray for him - he is working in Russia and just back for 15 days before returning. Thus there is little chance for him to get follow up.

This is Costa ( on the right ) with our youth leader Igor after responding in the mission on Friday night night

Pray for him as he begins studies to help him better understand the decision he has made.

And this is 12 year old Vitali who responded on Friday also.

He is the son of Lilia, who you may remember as the mother of Tolia with the deformed hand.

Pray for him and his mother that we will be able to give them the follow up they need to grow.

We were very encoruaged once again by the turn out at our baptism meeting with over 200 adults attending

Some also joined us from Baurcii as Br Vasile Culin ( seen here on the right behind the baptism candidates ) had brought one of his people ( Vasile, extreme right ) to receive baptism also

Four from Gotesti, one from Chircani, one from Constantinovca and one from Baurcii made up the 7 people who were baptised.

The atmosphere was especially joyous as we were celebrating the opening of our new indoor baptistery

( Just finished on Thursday and built with the financial support of some brothers from the UK )

Nearly all who were baptised left with shrieks of joy as they departed through the back gangway

And I truly felt like baptising all 200 people in the building. May the Lord make it happen in reality

Pastor Mark

Bayfarm With us Again

It was great to have the team from Bayfarm Community church with us again this year.

Here Michelle from Texas is giving her testimony in the Harvest service on Sunday morning in Gotesti church.

They were fully involved in an intense programme that was prepared for them including 9 kindergarden visits 3 schools a medical centre and two centres for children

Here Tim is giving his testimony in the harvest service on Sunday morning.

It was very powerful and also fitted very well into the gospel message that was later preached

Kim, the leader of the team and with her back to the camera is doing a story with the kids in the Kindergarten in Baurcii, one of the church plant villages we are involved with and trying to help.

They were very warm as was the school in the same village and the kindergarten in Ursoia where the other half of the team went to for similar kinds of meetings

All of these kindergartens are very short of materials especially sheets, pillow cases, duvets and mattresses and the team have gone home seeking to find support to equip as many as possible of these kindergartens with these essentials to enable them to function.

Chris, now an old hand having been on the team last year, preached on two occassions, here in Baurcii church plant and also at our Thursday night meeting in Gotesti

His message from Mark 4 was on how we, like the disciples of Jesus keep on rowing hopelessly in the midst of an unassailable storm in our lives instead of waking up Jesus who is nearby asleep to take over and calm the storm.

There were many in the meeting touched and also with us for the evening

were our esteemed head teachers from the Chircani and Gotesti schools.

Eugenia ( left ) and Olga (right ).

Pray for them. It is a difficult job with much responsibility and little pay

What a Harvest!

We were very encouraged with the turn out for our harvest service on Oct 5.

Especially so since many were still working in their fields.

The mayor and his wife were there as well as the head teacher of the kindergarten in Constntinovca

In total around 150 non Christians were there from our 3 villages including many new faces and around 30-40 made a response to the gospel.

Pray for us as we try to get to all of them and help them in their first steps with the Lord

Farewell Chris

Well, Chris Elston of England and Slovakia has now left us and returned to his work in the latter country.

We had a wonderful month with him as he taught our members English in groups like this picture and with personal lessons

We saw noticeable improvements in all our English speakers

He also took private lessons with several pastors and leaders twice per week

Here he is with Gelu, the leader of the youth work in Emanal church Cahul

Chris also assisted our ministry here in Gotesti, Chircani and Constantinovca by visiting and encouraging believers as here with Vasile from Chircani and he also went to visit those who don't yet know Christ as their personal savour taking the opportunity to share the gospel message with them

He and we are praying to see if he will return in January. The Lord's will be done

Where's Gheorghe?

This is Gheorghe from our church plant village of Chircani at last year's Christmas meeting in Gotesti.

The Sunday after the Christmas meeting he came to our meeting and did do for a few weeks.

However after a month or so we noticed he wasn't there and I asked "Where's Gheorghe?"

"Oh" said someone "he's fallen back into the drink"

We went to visit him the following week and managed to catch him sober and got to share some of the gospel with him but he chose not to come to the meeting the following Sunday nor since.

I remember thinking at the time He is a widower and lonely and if we were to visit him regularly and build a loving relationship with him there would be a good possibility that he might come through to salvation.

Sadly we only have enough workers in our church to spend the time with ones that show clear signs that they want to know more of God.

You'll remember that I sent out prayer cards of around 20 people that were at that Christmas meeting asking for your committed regular prayers for them to come through to salvation.

Gheorghe wasn't one of the 20. I had to be selective as to who to ask committed intercession for and he hadn't shown enough interest.

I remember at one stage I added 4 new people to the list and mentioned several others that you could remove from the list as they weren't showing signs of response and one of our praying friends wrote back to say that she wasn't going to stop praying for them.

I remember rejoicing at her committment and also feeling challenged by the Lord. However in truth it is quite impossible to visit everyone and take Gheorghe and ones like him into the centre of our prayers.

The main road from the South to the capital runs right through the cenre of our church plant village of Chircani the home village of Gheorghe.

On Tuesday, a sober Gheorghe stepped out onto the road and was knocked down and killed by a speeding car.

So to-day as I write I ask myself

"Where's Gheorghe now?"

Pastor Mark

Whoever believes in Him

I was visiting Alistair to-day after the death of his brother last week.

Alistair is 75 and his brother that died was 74. He was weepy with me to-day because he has another 6 brothers and sisters still living and not one of them is in peace with God.

Alistair used to be mayor of Gotesti, his brother who died was the former headmaster of the school and there were 60 wreaths at the grave as well as hundreds of people, pupils from the school teachers etc.

Alistair had talked to his brother only last week about getting right with God.

"Come to the church this Sunday - talk to brother Mark - he'll tell you the way of salvation"

His brother said this "I'd like to, but I was an atheist all this time how can I go to the church now"

"But said Alistair "prostitutes, drunkards mafia men go there and have been forgiven and changed - of course you can go"

But because he was an atheist he thought it to much of a hipocracy or who knows what his reasons were to come to the church

We both became emotional - what a tragedy

Jesus said "For God so loved the world ( this includes prostitutes and drunkards AND atheists ) that He gave His only begotten Son that WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish but have everasting life"
John 3:16

What a tragedy that Alistrair's brother could not believe that WHOEVER inlcuded him.

Pastor Mark

Chris Elston

We have been very blessed to have an old friend with us for the month of September - Chris Elston

He is a missionary from UK serving in Slovakia but has come to us for this time to help out with the work

He has been visiting many of the citizens of Gotesti that have been open to the gospel but that we have not been able to do a follow up visit with.

He has also been preaching and teaching in the church and indeed other churches. The photo above is Chris giving his testimony at an outreach that Emanuel church organised for the opening of the new building.

Another great service he has been doing for the work of God here is teaching pastors and key workers English - all have been students of intermediate level and all have been very helped.

Pray Chris gets the Lord's guidance as to whether to come back in January to carry on with his help for us.

He depends on the money he earns in teaching English in Slovakia to be able to support himself and so cannot afford to be away too long

Thanks to the kind gift of some brothers in the UK we have been able to start work on building an indoor baptistery - a great desire of mine for many years

We expect to be finished by October 1 and have a baptism meeting planned for Oct 26

Please pray that we finish on target as we have a team coming from Bayfarm church in California and a harvest celebration planned with them and needing the whole hall for October 5.

Great news

We have finally got the permission to function from the mayor's office for the coffee shop which means once we get the health and safety certificate we will be able to start the pizzerie business.

Watch this space!!!

Iosif Tson at Emanuel opening

I had the wonderful priviledge to-day of sharing a platform with the world renowed bible teacher, evangelist and author Iosif Tson ( centre of picture )

Actually when I say sharing a platform he was at the centre and I was at the edge

Iosif Tson was and still is the foremost and best respected bible teacher to all Romanian speaking Christians. But he is also very well known amonst Western Christians for many years.

In fact we have staying with us in Gotesti, Chris Elston, a missionary from UK to Slovakia, who shared of a time over 20 years ago when he was a missionary in Tanzania, at the end of himself and ready to give up because of the many hardships he was going through. On the very day he was at his lowest he received a tape from a friend by the bible teacher Iosif Tson entitled "suffering".

"God used it to lift me from the pit and put my feet on the Rock" says Chris

Br Iosif was a contemporary of Richard Wurmbrand. Both were pastors in Romania under communism and both opposed it.

In 1981 Tson was forced to leave while Wurmbrand was inprisoned and tortured. You may remember his book

"Tortured for Christ"

While in exile in USA Br Tson wrote many books in English and also was the Sunday afternoon preacher on Radio Free Europe which nearly all Romanians with a radio illegally listened to under communism.

Br Iosif was the main speaker at the occassion of the opening of the new building in Cahul for Emanuel church.

There was a great turn out of believers and many non Christians including the council leader and council members for the county of Cahul. Please pray for those that responded to gospel appeal of Br Tson - around 20.

Please pray for the next week as they have evangelistic events every evening. ( A team from Gotesti including me as preacher will be featuring on Friday night )

Among the other speakers were Andrei Ciobanu BU supervsor for the South and Valeriu Ghilecthii president of the Baptist Union seated beside each other in the photo above.

Br Anatol, the pastor of Emanual church also received from Br Valeriu the official certificate of opening the church building.

All in all a wonderful occassion to be part of.

Busy Summer

We have been away in the UK from early June until late July which is why this site has been largely unblogged but it does not mean that nothing has been happening

On the contrary

We ran 3 children's missions in Gotesti, Chircani and Constantinovca with around 300 kids coming throughout the week

We were also involved with other children's works. Here the picture is of the children's outreach in Baurci
Then Mission Direct an organisation from the UK have had teams with us throughout the summer.

Their vision is to send teams from the UK of 5-20 people to help the local church with their spiritual work and also to do community service projects

One such project was assisting the kindergarten wirh repairs, decorations ( like these murals ) and also building a new set of hygenic toilets see photo below.

The toilets work by the upstanding pipes getting heated in the sun and thus sucking out the gases in the toilets so that there remains no foul smell

The mayor came and loved what he saw asking that they come again and do the same for the toilets in the main school in Gotesti

There were many other things they did and they were also heavily involved with a

an outreach we did to the physically disabled in Gotesti

Over 50 people attended the meeting in our church building in and around 20 responded to a gospel appeal

Pray for us as we seek to follow them up .

Pray for the various visiting and outreaches we are doing this September in preparation for our Harvest service evangelistic event when a team from Bayfarm church in California will be with us

National Children's Day in Moldova

June 1 is National Children's day in Moldova and we marked the occassion by having a special children's meeting in the afternoon with 3 of our children's groups taking part.

Each group took on the identity of a country and produced food, dance, dress etc accordingly
Here is our youngest group doing a traditional Moldovan dance.

All 3 of their Sunday school teachers taking part in the dance have actually been trained by Larisa, our children's ministry superviser just this year so wwe were especially impressed by the programme they produced.

One of the ladies in the picture has also gone from being on the edge of mental breakdown because of her very difficult relationship with her non Christian husband to being a healthy enough Christian to take on this role of Sunday school teacheer. This has been due, of course, to God's great grace but His instrument has been Ruslan taking her patiently week after week through counseling that has enabled her self esteem to be rebuilt.

The Grupa Mica as they are called adopted Moldova as their country and the 3 rookie teachers produced the table display seen here in the photo.

These are all traditional Moldovan foods and drink including Mamaliga ( corn flour bread), goat's cheese and samali which is a mince meat mix with rice inside a vine leaf.

The Grupa Mijlocie adopted India and here Cristina, one of their leaders, is preparing the India tea set to go with the curry and rice that they had cooked.

And a deliciously authentic taste it had too!! ( sorry I can't transmit taste by internet yet but pop over to see us in Moldova and Mari or I will make you an Indian curry)

There are around 3o kids that come to this Sunday school group every week and here are some of them taking part in an Indian dance

It was the highlight of the show and the whole dance came out of the imagination of Cristina the leader you saw earlier. It is quite a talent she has.

The other group was from Constantinovca, a village around 4 km from us where we have a children's work and are also evangelising the adults.

We have one baptised member from there and several others saved or having made responses.

One of those recently saved is Viorel who is featured here in the middle of the photo. He has been going on well and is already actively involved in this children's work there

Their country was Egypt and Viorel was Pharoah, he brought a message of greeting to us in Arabic while Aliona one of the other team members translated it to us into Romanian ( all acting of course )

It was a real fun time for all.

Keep in touch with us

Pastor Mark