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