Baptism at Cantemir

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