Mission at Hirtop

This is a view of the village of Hirtop from the grounds of the Baptist church plant in the village.

Around 800 people live in Hirtop and it is one of the villages in the county of Cantemir that we are seeking to help and encourage in my new role.

This is Misa with his wife Aliona and their two children Liviu and Catusa. He is leading the work in the village.

They have only 6 members and the work is hard because it's a relatively new thing in the village and so people are generally suspicious.

Life is hard for them. He has a bedridden father at home that they look after and because they have no financial support to pastor the church he has to go abroad frequently to work for 3-6 months at a time. It affects the family. It affects the work.

We brought a team a few Sundays ago and did a mission with them in the village.

You can see in the background (in the forecourt of the church building that they built with their own hands and money) Slavic and Aliona who were leading the worship team for the mission.

Aliona gave her testimony and I later preached out of Acts 17 on how the resurrection of Jesus is the assurance that one day God will judge the world by Him and thus we need to get right with Him now when we hear Him speaking to our hearts.

There were several unbelievers there who had come for the first time. Misa said afterwards that he was encouraged that "in his words" they were having the gospel clearly presented to them in song, testimony and message for the first time.

Our prayer is that, if it's the Lord's will, an evangelical church with a similar gospel outlook will decide to partner with Hirtop.

Keep us all in your prayers

Pastor Mark