Harvest at Slobozia Mare

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