Sunday, March 29, 2009

Winter's not over yet


If you looked out my window now as I write you'd think Spring is here - blue sky some buds on the trees etc
But the Moldovans have a phrase for this kind of weather
"Sunshine with teeth"
It is still bitterly cold at night and even during the day at times
So it was good that with gifts from your good selves we were able to bring various needy ones at least some wood to do until the end of the winter we hope
This older lady is blind and has grandchildren and great grandchildren living with her




Some of you may recognise Marusia here for whom you have been praying for more than a year

She has not been coming to the church at all and a major reason is that she has been looking after husband who had a stroke.
As you can see he is walking with the aid of a stick ( things were much worse at one time )
However his disability has meant that he has been unable to work so the gift of this wood for them has come as a real blessing

Despina is one of our believers
Her husband is not a believer but has been working for the flour mill for about 8 months and has not been paid by them for the last 5 leaving them little or not funds for "luxuries" like wood
So again your gifts have helped enormously
Please keep us in your prayers
Pastor Mark

Conference in Sovata










Mari and I were blessed to be invited to a conference in Romania held at the lovely mountain resort of Sovata






Around 250 pastors and leaders of churches - Baptist, Pentecostal and Brethern - were in attendance for the 3 day conference






The speakers for the conference were Stuart and Jill Briscoe




Not long after I got born again in 1984 I read a book which was very encouraging by Jill Briscoe called "How to fail successfully"


Jill took the ladies while Stuart took the men


Mari mentioned to Jill about me being encouraged by her book all those years ago and she said interestingly enough someone had spoken to her the week before about how, many years ago, that book had been used to lead them to the Lord but Jill had said to the person that she never wrote such a book - she had forgotten she had written it and now here were two people in a week bringing it to her mind.

Stuart had pastored a church in USA from 400 to 4000 members and not surprisingly had much encouraging and relevant stuff to say those of us in
ministry.


When asked how he would summarise what a leader should concentrate on he said


Preach the Word


Love the People


Pray for the Holy Spirit to Move





Sovata was also a lovely place to be, to relax and although the weather was not great we still managed to go out an enjoy the local scenery


In fact many people come to the hotel for it's spa and swimming pools and fitness centre and saunas


Unfortunately we were foolish enough not to get round to using any of these until the last day and then greatly regretted that we hadn't used them more

This was my first time in a sauna for 20 years and Mari's first time ever


We were also able to go to this conference with our good friends Anatol and Nadia Dunas ( he is pastor at Emanuel church in Cahul
We are all under much pressure all the time and so it was good to get away for a few days
And much to the pleasure of both myself and the main speaker Mr Brisoce (a man of great wisdom and discernment) Man Utd beat Inter Milan 2-0 in the champions league on the Wednesday of the conference.
Enough Said?
Mark

8th March



In the west we celebrate mother's day albeit it a bit low key


However here in Moldova and indeed most of Eastern Europe 8th of March is a national celebration as woman's day


We had a meeting at the church and saw quite a few new ladies come to the meeting




One of the things our Sunday school teachers organised was for each of the children to find their mothers in the meeting and bring a 8th of March gift - some a flower some a bar of chocolate and so on

It was much appreciated.

Here is Angela, one of our alpha course receiving from her son Dima


The coffee shop was full - in fact we had our busiest day since we opened with sizeable parties coming from different churches to celebrate 8th March


Here we see half the group of the church from Crehana and we had a group from Chisilea


We also had some locals from Gotesti and also some from other nearby villages
So steadily people are coming to the coffee shop but the world financial crisis is as you can imagine not helping things much
Keep us in your prayers
Pastor Mark

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The New Car


You'll remember that recently we were blessed by the Lord's answer to prayer in providing us the cash to buy a vehicle to transport the physically disabled to the meetings.
Here are two men that have been coming as a result of us being able to bring them by the car.
They have both been to the meetings before but only on special occassions when we have pulled out the stops to get them there.
Nicolai is the one on the right of the picture and the good news is that last week he asked Misa, our leader of the ministry to the physically disabled if someone could come to his hosue to do a bible study with him so he could discover what it means to "have a personal relationship with God"
This it seems to us is direct fruit from having this vehicle - thanks be to God and encouragement to those who prayed and gave.
Pray for brother Ion ( another member of the physically disabled team ) who will be doing the studies with Nicolai
Pastor Mark

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Alpha away day



Well, what a wonderful time we had at the Alpha course "away day"


Our friend and fellow pastor Andrei Ciobanu allowed us to use the facilities at his church kindergarten and all 23 of us were able to meet together in this room and then eat together in the canteen upstairs


We arrived at 9.30 a.m. and left at 9.30 p.m having done 3 sessions of a "talk and discussion time" on the Holy Spirit and His ministry in our lives.


It also gave us much more time together than our usual 2 hours on a Sunday so that we were able to talk many more personal things and answer many questions on many themes - one discussion time after the talk lasted 3.5 hours


At the end of the day several gave their lives to the Lord and others dedicated themselves more fully.


We also discovered that one of the couples and a single mum from the group are being told to leave their homes by his mother and the single lady's sister respectively because they are attending these meetings


This single mum had sneaked out of the house leaving the child with her mum and not telling her sister where she was going to come to this day away. Somehow her sister who owns the house in which she is staying found out and even rang her at the course to give her a hard time


Yet the couple by the end of the weekend said they want to fully commit their lives to the Lord and the single mum wants to keep coming even more to the meetings.
Everyone was so blessed by the day that they insisted I get some song books from Andrei because they wanted to sing praise on the way home
Then on the following day the group got together to sing a programme in the Sudnay morning meeting
Keep praying for them as some are now wanting to get baptised and their unsaved husbands might be against this while others are wanting to make a commitment to Christ but he is still standing outside their door
Pastor Mark