The Tamed Tiger was in Town

Tony Antony evangelist and author of the autobiography “Taming the Tiger” came to Moldova April 25-29.

For those who do not know him, his biography tells of how as a young boy he was taken from his home in England to his grandfather in China and forcibly and brutally trained up to be a Kung Fu master. In 1987-89 he was world champion 3 yrs in a row but shortly after this his life turned into a downward spiral when he became a body guard and then into crimes which landed him into the notorious Nicosia prison in Cyprus for 3 years.

It was while there in the pit of existence he got wonderfully born again and he now has a worldwide evangelistic ministry through the Avanti mission.

He is working in 40 countries and his book is translated into 27 languages.

We were blessed to have him in Moldova for these 5 days when he gave his testimony and preached a gospel presentation to nearly 5000 people in 13 different venues, including schools, universities, a prison and evening outreach events.

We are now planning a nationwide event in November 2008 to including his evangelism training seminars for all our pastors in the Baptist Union as well as a series of major outreach venues throughout the land.

Pray with us for these things

Baptism Meeting

On Aprl 22 we had the joy of celebrating a baptism meeting.

One of those who was baptised was Nicu who is 24 and blind from birth.

He was one of those who responded to the gospel message in December of last year and has now publically proclamed his faith in Jesus through the waters of baptism.

His parents and many of his relatives and neighbours were at the meeting to celebrate with him.

In our village of Gotesti there are many others who are blind or partially sighted and we discovered like Nicu they have little help with their diability so we are trying to do what we can to help Nicu and these others.

Indeed there are many others who have various other disablities which we are trying to help as there is also little help for them.

Keep us in your prayers

Christ is Risen

Firstly my apologies to all who have contacted this site in the last few months and found nothing new. We've been incredibly busy with many things ( some shared below ) and we've been away in USA for some weeks also.

We had a wonderful time linking up with Bayfarm community church in California and a team from there will come out to us in October\November.

Also I was able to link up with Saddleback's missions director on behalf of the Baptist Union of Moldova to set up some of their teachers coming out to Moldova to teach the Purpose Driven Church and Life principles possibly in the Spring of 2008

The Baptist Union has also asked me to get involved with 30 or so of their church plants ( from
2 -30 members ) in Moldova.

I am preparing teaching for these pastors but am much more interested in getting involved with them in practical ways like doing missions or helping set up children's works or bringing teams to their villages to help in other ways.

We like you have just celebrated Easter here and this is a photo of the meeting. We had various inputs from the children and from the youth with a play and from individuals with songs or poems.

The message was "Christ is Risen.... but what does that mean for us "and we went on to explain how we can be also resurrected as a result, physically after death but spiritually now in this life and that this resurrection will enable us to be in a personal relationship with God.

We are doing a series now until Pentecost about the experiences of Knowing God personally.

We had a number of unbelievers at the meeting and several completed response forms asking for further discussion or bible study on the subject and one young man gave his life to the Lord.

Please pray also for one of the ones who wanted to talk.

He is a very well known man in the village with a past and he came to talk to me on Monday. We had around 2 hours together and he is very close to committing his life to the Lord. His salvation would likely shake the village and further abroad.

We have 2 of our trustees and a team coming to visit us here in Gotesti this week and have a baptism meeting on Sunday while they are here when Nicu the blind young man who committed his life ot the Lord in December will be baptised.

Please pray for many to come to this event and to hear the gospel and respond

Following this on April 25-29 three times former world champion in Kung Fu Tony Anthony will be with us for missions in Cahul and then in Chisinau the capital. He was wonderfully saved while in a Cyprus prison and has a powerful testimony.

Pray also for us as we did not get our residency permits completed in time for the expiry date and so had to leave at midnight on April 13. We returned at 12.30 and now have another 90 days to get them done.

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Christmas Meeting

Well Christmas is past and we like all other celebraters of this Christian festival are recovering form the business of it all.

We had many meetings including 2 children's specials to which around 200 and 300 respectively attended.

Then there was a Christmas day event ( actually held on December 24 - see photo ). We had 363 people attending all of whom got a small gift.

This included around 150 adults many of whom were for the first time in the church.

We had a wonderful time of celebration together and several made commitments to Christ.

Just after Christmas we took a group of young people from our Tuesday night Karis club away on a winter "camp" - we actually stayed at the O.M. building in Chisinau.

We had studies and celebration meetings together and also went out to Ice Skating, Ten Pin Bowling and the Theatre, a first for all of them.

One young man gave his life to Christ during the week and many other responded at various levels.

It was such a lovely time that even we leaders did not want to go to bed ont he last night.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Baptism Week

We had an encouraging week of meetings Dec 6-10 finishing with a baptism meeting when 6 people were baptized including ones from other churches here in the South.
Throughout the 5 days there were over 70 people who came to the church who are not members, many of whom were here for the first time.

Around 30 people responded to the call of the gospel over the week including Nicu a 25 yr old young man who is blind, several other young people and some older ones.

We are currently running new believers courses for those that responded or indeed for ones who didn't but want to know more.

Everyone is welcome!!! Contact Markmold7@hotmail.com for details

We also had a Christmass celebration programme for school children when around 200 were present with Christmass gifts supplied by Patmis Foundation a Christian organisation from Finland.

We also plan to hold another Christmas celebration meeting for all ages on Dec 24 at 10.00 at the church when again all are invited.

Peace to you all

Special week of meetings

Everyone is invited to a special week of meetings at our church - Gotesti Baptist Church.

From Dec 6-9 Wednesday to Saturday each evening at 17.00
- In the programme will be songs from the group FILAEL as well as testimonies and a bible message on Knowing God.

On Sunday 10 December at 15.00 we have a special baptism meeting.
- Come and join us for this celebration

Pastor Mark

Welcome to the Gotesti Baptist Church