Monday, November 28, 2011

Funeral at Moscovei





I was recently invited to preach at a funeral in the town of Moscovei.


The man who had died was a member in the church there but many years before his repentance he was a much respected brigade leader when the coountry was communist.


Thus the church were expecting many people to turn out for his funeral and indeed they did.


In Moldovan evangelical funerals the body is kept in an open casket and the procession starts from the house. This is where I had the privilidege of speaking. I shared how the body dies but not the soul, the person we are inside. We spoke of the Bible's teaching that there are 2 places after death and we will spend eternity either in heaven or in hell. I shared that both Vanya ( the dead man ) and his wife Ania knew before he died that they both will be in heaven and so they will one day meet again with joy. I explained that in 1 John5:13 we are told we also can know this for certain before we die if we put our trust in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

Under communism evangelical churches were not permitted to preach the gospel publically except at funerals and weddings which is probably why they use the opportunity to preach several times throughout the funeral service to the many unsaved that come.

We walked from the house to the graveyard and stopped at various points to share the gospel. Here Sergiu the pastor of Moscovei Baptist church is speaking to the crowd as they stopped outside the church building. I cannot tell you what he was preaching as he spoke in Russian ( indeed my message was translated into Russian also, as, for most people in the village Russian is their first language). ( Moscovei is often called little Moscow by locals)

Mari was very poorly at home so I did not go all the way with them to the graveyard but they insisted that they feed me before I went so I sat down in the newly built canteen that they have for the vulnerable children's ministry and ate a lovely bors.

While I was eating the lady in this picture approached me - her name is Masa. She asked me if I remembered a mission that we did in 1996 in the cultural house in Moscovei. I said I remembered it well ( we had to get a translator to come from Chisinau, the capital, as Russian translators in the South were hard to find) I also said that we had done the mission at the cultural house in the centre of Moscovei and that a lot of people came every night of the mission but during the whole week only one person came out to the front in response to daily appeals to repentance. She said "Yes that is true - I am at that person" Despite a very hard life both before and after her commitment to Christ she is a member in the church and has been going on with God and serving Him ever since.

Go knows how to encourage us

Pastor Mark

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Alpha Course




Our winter Alpha course began on 30th October and we are now into the 5th week. The numbers have again been good this year with 50-70 coming each week.

We have had groups from Cantemir, Porumbesti, Badicu, Chircani and Gotesti as before and this year Dorin Moga who is responsible for the church at Baurcii has been bringing seekers each week.





As in all Alpha courses there is a meal to start with and we serve pizzas in our course which seems to go down well with everybody. There has been so many questions over the weeks that we decided to add an extra topic for this week - Repent and Believe. In the message we spoke of how we can never make ourselves good enough for God by good works on our part because He is perfect and our sins will not permit us to come into His presence but that He has resolved this Himself by putting all our sins and their judgment on Jesus His Son on the cross. We then explained how we need to put our trust in this work that Jesus did on the cross and thereby be counted righteous by God ( or counted as if we had never sinned ). Then we looked at how the Bible says we also need to repent and what that means i.e giving our whole lives over to Christ and committing ourselves with the Holy Spirit's help to obey Him in everything.

The message was followed by splitting into groups to discuss what we had heard.

Here Ruslan is with the group from Baurcii - some were hearing this message for the first time.


I helped lead Lucian's group from Badicu and was very encouraged about how open and honest they were about the state of their souls.

They all seemed to have grasped about repentance meaning making Jesus Lord of your life and were honest about the reasons they had not made the committment yet.

We'd value your prayers for these ones and the others as they consider these big decisions for their lives



Pastor Mark

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Progress with Chircani Building






We thank God, that with His enabling, and your support we are making progress with the Chircani building.

This is phase 1 we are working on which is replacing the roof.

As you can see the facia has been stripped to the brick and the roof top removed.

The double glazed windows have been fitted for quite a while.






Unfortunately as we began the work of roof replacement we discovered that there was more needing done than the original drawings required in terms of underpinning and raising coulmns which has added to the expense substiantially but the weather has remained kind and it has meant that if we do not run out of money we may indeed get phase 1 completed before the winter sets in which was our objective.


This is Avram whom many of you know. He is a member at Gotesti church and a very experienced and wise master builder - like Bezalel Ex 35:30,31- Avram is our foreman on the site at Chircani . He has been a real provision of the Lord as there has been a lot of specialist work needed regarding underpinning and columns etc and he has been that man.

We have had between 5 and 7 people working on site including a watchman.




If we finish this phase before winter then we hope to start phase 2 in the Spring which would be outside plastering and inside meeting room and hopefully 2 Sunday school rooms .

This architect's picture is the goal we are all working towards

Thanks for all your support


Pastor Mark

P.S Latest - we have started on the roof itself see photo











Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Wedding of Sergiu and Liuba



Just one week after Sergiu and Liuba were baptised ( see a previous blog ) here thay are getting married also at the church in Gotesti.



The church was full with a large number of mostly Liuba's relatives attending along with members of our church.



We were able to share a message on "Your Maker is your Husband" and speak of how He wants a personal relationship with us like a husband to a wife.



Liuba's father who is in very poor health made the effort to come and give Liuba away while Sergiu's mum was responsible for all the catering making most of it herself ( she has been a cook in kindergarten's and schools for all her working life catering for big numbers - this wedding was a stroll in the park for her). The food was delicious.


Slavic was M.C and he did very well. Most of those attending had never been to our church or any evangelical church so I guess they did not know what to expect when it came to the reception afterwards. Often, of course, they hear all sorts of incorrect rumours about what we are like but you could see them all starting to steadily relax as Slavic began to lead in games and funny stories etc


As the reception went on they were paticipating quicker in the games than our own members.


We had the priviledge of being at the top table as well as having performed the ceremony and preached. To the right of Sergiu as you look at this picture is Vasia Rascovschii. He was also baptised with Sergiu the week before and he was his best man. To the left of Liuba is her, as yet unmarried, sister Marina who interestingly was the one who caught the bouquet tossed by the bride. So watch this space



Pastor Mark



































Tuesday, November 8, 2011

KIng's Together with Us in Outreach Mission



Every year around the end of October we have our annual outreach mission in our villages of Gotesti and Chircani. This year we had the joy of a team from my mum's church in N.I. - Kings Fellowship come out to share in the work of ministry for the mission and baptism. Also in the team was our good friend Mary Cottrell from St Michael's in Bristol.









Here they are singing a song in one of the evening evangelistic meetings.

The locals loved how they sang which was with such joy and power and the visitors from our villages burst out in loud applause every time they sang.

We had 9 in the team and split them up into 3 sometimes 4 smaller teams for the purpose of visiting various homes. They worked hard all week at this bringing love, sometimes aid into homes and sharing the gospel where the opportunity was afforded ( which was in most homes ). In one or two cases the hosts prayed for Christ to become their Saviour.

We visited together homes in Gotesti and Chircani and invited the hosts to come to the mission that we were holding in Gotesti each evening ( many came ) We also went to Hirtop and Plopi were we made various visits.

While in that part of the county we were invited to come into one of the schools and address the teachers - Phil shared a gospel message using the coloured wrist band and then Anne pictured here shared her experiences of the education system in UK ( she is a school inspector ). She was able to relate how her faith is worked out in the experiecnes of her job. The teachers really appreciated her and asked her to stay and talk with them more which she gladly did.




Our outreach mission week was in 2 parts - Mon-Wed was a youth mission. Here we see part of the evening involved playing various games. The youth also did a sketch each evening many of which had us in tears because of the power of them.

Then the gospel was preached by Phil Craig or John Shannon or myself. Around 20 young people made a response during the 3 days.

Those that responded from Gotesti and Chircani are being followed up with discipling by Igor.


Then from Thurs to Sunday we had the mission for all ages and again saw around 10 people make repsonses over the days of the mission.

Our good friends Volodia and Virginia Boncev (on left of picture) who pastor the church in Cantemir and Stefan and Veta Hanganu who pastor the church in Porumbesti ( front right) brought non Christians from their respective villages and are here pictured with Phil Craig (back left in white) and John Shannon (back right in white)



Sunday saw us end the week of evangelism with a baptism and dedication meeting.


The first part of the meeting was given over to Igor and Tanya who brought their second daughter Felicia for dedication. They committed themselves to bring her up in the fear and knowledge God and then we prayed the blessing that the Lord granted to be prayed over children as in Num 6:23-26.


Both of Igor and Tanya's mums were at the meeting which was great to see.

Then we had a programme of songs and testimonies where Vasia and Sergiu both gave their testimonies and Aliona and Anisoara sang. This was followed by a message from the Bible which spoke about how it is God's plan for us to each experience him personally - as the Bible says in Is 54;4 "Your maker is your husband"

The building was full with visitors from our villages but also from Porumbesti Cantemir,Plopi, and Hirtop.
Here Steopa from Chircani is being baptised by me with Ruslan assisting. The Lord has done a marvelous work in him as only this time last year he was a total captive of alcohol. However he came to the Lord received grace and forgiveness and has had his life completly changed. Interestingly I have known him for years as his wife is a memebr in Chircani church and I was talking to him a few weeks before his baptism. After speaking for a few minutes with him I said "Do you know Steopa I have known you for 10 years and spoke 100's of times with you but in all those years this is the first time I have had a converstaion with you when you have been sober. I never knew what an intelligent man you are." He replied with tears in his eyes that the drink has stolen many precious years off him. I told him that the Lord has spoken in His word that "H will restore the years that the locust has eaten." Pray for him as he has liver disease now.


Here is Sergiu being baptised. We are all having a chuckle as some wag nearby suggested we might need a step ladder to baptise him - he is around 6'6".

He had been a very wild living man before we first came into contact with him - he came to Karis Pizza one night very drunk and insisted that Mari stay and eat pizza with him - meanwhile Ruslan Larisa and I were in a another room having a very important meeting ( Mari insists were hiding from the drunken 6'6"Sergiu )

Anyway she talked much to him and he finally left but she shot up a prayer to the Lord saying well Lord even him you can save. "Is the arm of the Lord too short to save anyone" It isn't and in the Alpha course that followed Sergiu and Liuba his girlfriend were saved.

This was Sunday 23 Oct and Sunday 30 Oct he and Liuba were due to get married - watch this space

Pastor Mark

Monday, November 7, 2011

Andy Jo and Su in Moldova





We had a wondeful albeit short time in September when Andy Drake the new director of Eurovangelism and Jo Vickery the Minister at Downend Church of England in Bristol and Sue an experienced member of their church came out to us in Moldova to meet with the partners and also take a conference with men.

Downend partner with the church in Pelinei and thus they came to see all the different aspects of the work that Misa Hiorescu and Ina are involved in at the church in Pelinei and Usoaia where they have recently planted a new church.

The church runs a centre for vulnerable kids. Around 25 come 3 days a week to the church and have a meal and then play games and study the bible.

Jo and Sue were able to participate in the programme when Sue told a story to illustrate the gospel message.







On Sunday the team came to be with the church in Pelinei for the morning meeting when Joe preached and then later we all went to the church plant at Usoaia where Joe was able to bring the word again



On Saturday Andy spoke at a conference held in Gotesti church and attended by around 70 pastors and workers from the South.



His subject was how to reach men with the gospel and we learned many important principles and ideas.


Afterwards we took a photo of Andy and all who attended outside the church.

A hectic but great time together

Pastor Mark