Visit to Baimaclia

One of the joys of having this role of serving the churches in Cantemir is that I get to go to these different churches and meet the leaders and the people.

In the last weeks we have been involved with Porumbesti as they have gone onto a new phase, having opened their church building

This last Sunday I visited the church at Baimaclia where Valentin Sacali and his wife Zinaida lead the work.
The church was planted by Valentin in 1990 and quickly grew to nearly 40 but in these last years they are down to 26 members due to believers emigrating mostly to USA.

Here Valentin is bringing a final word of encouragement after I had preached a little bit earlier, on Eph 2:8-10

How we are saved

How we are not saved

And why we are saved.

Valentin, Zinaida and their 4 children live in the building attached to this church building which really just has the meeting room and a pastor's office ( they could really do with some Sunday school rooms and a creche ).

Valentin supports himself by running a mill and bakery supplying fresh bread to Baimaclia and several nearby villages. Like many of the village churches they do not have a sound system or yamaha and here, again often the case, the pastor leads the worship, in this instance with an acordion.

Nonetheless there was great joy amongst us and it was a pleasure to be part of the fellowship of the Lord's people in this village of 3000.

Pray for me and them as we consider how we might work together in the future

Pastor Mark

General Election Moldova 28 Nov 2010

This Sunday sees a general election in Moldova just over a year after the last one.

The reason for this is that although the democratic alliance had enough seats in parliament to form a government they did not have the min 61 out of 101 to be able to elect a president.

Thus constitutionally they could only rule temporarily until this situation was resolved.

In the summer the government called a referendum to change the constitution so that the president would be elected by a vote of the electorate rather like the American way but the Communist party were very against this and campaigned not to turn out for the vote so that there would not be enough of a percentage of the electorate that voted to pass the result. They got their way and so now we are going to a general election.

Valeriu Ghiletchii, the former president of the Baptists Union, here speaking in our church last Saturday, is one of 2 evangelical Christians standing for re-election.

He and Slavic Ionita are standing with PLDM the Stejarul party. And although neither are members of the party Vlad Filat the acting prime minister regards then highly enough to have given them positions of 11 and 18 on the parliamentary list
Our parliament here is elected by proportional representation which means the

more votes for a party from the whole electorate the greater number of seats a party will have in the parliament. Each party therefore names a list of potential candidates up to 101. Obviously for number 101 on a party list to get elected then nearly 100% of the electorate would have to vote for that party.

For both Ghiletchii and Ionita to be elected Stejarul would need 18-20% of the vote.

Both Valeriu and Slavic are representing all evangelical Christians and the Adventists and have the support of these Unions so that most believers will vote for Stejarul so that Valeriu and Slavic can be elected. (Stejarul also has policies that are closest to conservative Christianity values )

Valeriu was sharing the many encouraging signs of God's hand working through he and Slavic in the last year in the parliament - their aim is to be salt and light in parliament.

And so we pray

Pastor Mark

new Believers Meeting at Porumbesti

Following the mission week celebrating the opening of the new building in Porumbesti Pastor Stefan and his wife Veta called us to assist in the first meeting of new believers.

There was an encouraging turn out with 10 of the 15 adults that responded during the week coming to the new believers meeting.

Of the 5 that didn't come one we knew is working in the flour mill ( he has already asked to be baptised wanting to demonstrate his total dedication to Christ publically thru' baptism )

Three others were older ladies and they live quite far away so that may have made it more difficult to come.

The other was a man who had a drinking problem. When I mentioned to Stefan my disappointment that he had not come Stefan told me that he had visited him earlier that day and when Stefan had discovered that he was separated from his wife Stefan exhorted him that this was not how a true believer should live and that he should go and get reconciled to his wife ( who lives in another village ). He wasn't at the meeting because he had gone to do what Stefan said he should.

During the mission week many of the kids that came to the children's outreach mission also responded to appeals. Stefan encouraged the kids not to come to this new believers meeting but rather to come to the new club which they plan to start this Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Veta, Stefan's wife will start English lessons using materials called "English for a New Life" which uses the gospel of John to teach English but also help students to come to know Christ

Igor from our church in Gotesti led the new believers study helping Stefan and Veta to see how the material works

Pray for Igor as he continues to help them in this work and for Stefan Veta and Elena ( a girl form the church as they start the new children's work this Saturday.

Pastor Mark

Opening Mission at Porumbesti

This is the church building of the Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Porumbesti, a village of 1700 people and that until now has had no building for Christians to meet in.

With the help of Greenway Community church from Bristol, UK and others from the West Pastor Stefan Hanganu pictured here and his team of workers have managed to construct this building from the foundations to it's present state in 10 months.

The speed with which the church has been built has been a witness to those who live in the village.

Although the building is not completed ( they hope that God will provide and they will be able to finish it by this time next year ) the meeting room inside is finished and thus the church felt it was time to do a special week of meetings and invite all the village to come and join them. As you can see from this picture a good number turned out each evening.

A team from Greenway Community church who partner with Porumbesti church came out to be part of the opening mission. They were in the village every day from 10.00 am and were involved in visiting homes in the village and participating in the mission that Porumbesti ran for adolescents to which about 15-30 came each day.

Then in the evening meetings they sang songs, gave testimonies and Chris Poulson, the leader of the team, and myself shared in the preaching of a gospel message each evening. Here Chris is preaching on the lost son from Luke 15.

Many hearts were touched as he shared of the grace of God to the returning son and the joy that resulted and then of the hardness of heart of the older son and how by his choice he remained outside the house - many in the meeting realised that they were still outside God's house - not the building but outside a relationship with Him - and steadily throughout the week people began to reconcile themselves to God.

All of the team members gave their testimonies at some stage during the week. Here Mark is using a £5 note to illustrate that even after he crushed it, stamped on it and dirtied it, it is still worth £5 as indeed we are to God, a fact he personally realised after he had ruined his own life and then was found by God.

After the meeting each evening the team members grabbed a translator and went to talk to those who had remained behind for tea and biscuits ( almost everybody ). Here Keith (who was on the team that came out last year) is together with Liz ( also a veteran from last year ) sharing with someone who had come to the meeting as a result of their visit earlier in the day. Rachael, our 11 year old daughter, was translating for them.

In this picture Kerra on the right with hair tied back is working with Natasa, one of our translators, and sharing with two young women

The team were a blessing to the work and good company to be with.

May the Lord repay them for their sacrifice

Pastor Mark

Dedication of New Church Building at Baurci

This is Dorin Moga, leader of the church at Baurci, speaking at the opening ceremony of the dedication of their church building on 31 October 2010.

He and 2 other leaders in the church have been working night and day for months to complete all the work necessary for the building to be finished.

Various sponsors from the West have helped with the funding but no-one doubts that this House of Prayer was built by God and these faithful brothers.

Mari and I were invited to be one of the speakers alongside 3 other esteemd guests all of whom brought a greeting or message to what as you can see was a packed auditorium with many from the village and guests from other churches attending

On the left Andrei Ciobanu, pastor of Vad lui Isac and B.U superviser for the South of Moldova. In the centre Ion Miron, the current president of the Baptist Union who was the principle speaker along with on the right Ruslan Melestean, direction of the Bible Mission based in Chisinau.

Br Ion spoke on how we are here on earth to be lights while Br Ruslan shared on the word multumesc - thanks - and pointed out how we so often neglect to be thankful - quite a challenging word to us all.

We also had the extra blessing of participating in the dedication of the latest addition to the Moga family - 2 month old David. Here Br Andrei is praying for God's blessing on the child

The worship time in the service was richly blessed by guests - here in the centre of the picture are a husband and wife duet that are part of the Bible Mission's team and to the left of the picture is the choir from Vad lui Isac church.
There were many others that made a contribution to the worship

After the meeting was finished all present at the dedication were invited to pose for a picture outside the church building in, as you can see, bright sunshine.

Then when all the formalities of the service were over we all sat down to a nice meal prepared by the ladies in the church.

All in all it was a wonderful ocassion to be part of

Pastor Mark