Christmas 2009

Well what a Christmas celebration we had this year
This photograph does not include all our children or their teachers ( about 100 in all ) who were in another room preparing their programmes.

We reckon we had over 120 non Christian adults at the meeting - many for the first time as they were parents of children in our groups who were doing the programme.

Also for the first time we were doing the meeting on 25 December ( except when it fell on a Sunday ) The new democratic government has made 25 December a national holiday as well as January 7 ( the Russian Orthodox Christmas which was always recognised here in Moldova sicne the revolution.)

There was some concern that if we held the meeting on Friday 25th that there would be a smaller turn out than if on Sunday ( it's always our biggest turn out of the year ).

But we had our biggest turn out ever

Each of our children's groups in Gotesti did a programme. This year we have had to split our smallest group into 2 as we have no room big enough for the group.

The smallest kids did a nativity play and the older ones from the Grupa Mica dressed up as Santa Claus and angels of the Lord. Santa had a small poem exlpaining what benefits he brings to each of us while alternately an angel compared the benefit that Jesus brings. It was challenging to think how we in the West have somehow arrived at the state that Santa is exalted above Jesus

Here Grupa Mijlocie ( middle group ) is singing a song. The outfits were made by some of our Sunday school teachers.

There are over 30 in the group that come regularly to Sunday School and as you can see here only 3 boys. So this is a need for prayer but we thank God how blessed we are with the number of children that come to our meetings.

We are now having nearly 40 adolecents come to the Grupa Mare which meets on a Tuesday and here we are blessed with a good number of boys that come.

This age runs from 12-15 and here Igor is probably having most success in discipling boys in this age range with many of them taking up assisting in children's work and practical help.

Igor and Tanya went off with 15 of this group for a winter camp in Chisinau, the capital kindly part sponsored by a Eurovangelism supporter. Of this group only 3 could we say with some degree of confidence are Christians so please pray that a harvest is reaped amongst the rest before this year is done.

When we got home from the meeting we turned on the TV to the national television station of Romania -TV 1 - the equivalent of BBC1. The news reader began the main lunch time bulletin with these words " Merry Christmas. Two thousand years ago the virgin Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus who is our Lord and Saviour. All round the world millions of Christians, Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants are celebrating his birth to-day"
I sat and listened with rising joy to a national news reader on a secular TV station speak of the virgin birth as an historical fact.

It's been a great day to-day. May the Lord do more than we ask or think this coming year.

Pastor Mark

Shoe boxes

Once again this year we were able to give shoe box presents to all the kids in our villages from 3-15 for Christmas.

Mustard Seed managed to get 13,000 boxes to us from donors in the UK despite the financial crisis which meant that not only we but around 30 other churches in the South were able to bring this great blessing to the kids of their villages.

Because of the flu epidemic we were not able to present the kids with the presents in the school which meant they had to come to the church to receive them. Here we see the 12-15 yr olds getting their presents while we were also able to share with them the true meaning of Christmas.

I saw a TV programme recently say that the true meaning of Christmas was peace and loving one another. I suppose they were correcting the commercialism of the season with this idea.

This is good but the real true meaning of Christmas is that around 2000 years ago God became a man and came to earth living among us for around 33 years as a man. God the Father gave God the Son as a gift to us sinners ( hence the exchange of gifts to remember what He did ). Jesus went on to die on a cross so that if we turn from our sins and trust in him we can be forgiven and receive a new life of joy and purpose which starts on this earth and continues into heaven.

There is plenty of historical evidence outside the Bible to prove that Jesus was here, did miracles that proved He is God and then died on a cross and was raised again. If we just took stock for a few moments of the true significance of what we are celebrating at Christmas i.e God who made us has been to our planet then it would immediately begin to change our perspective on the the whole purpose of what we live our lives for.

If you're reading this blog and you don't have a personal relationship with God, knowing all your sins forgiven and the certainty of knowing you will be in heaven when you die ( as the New Testament promises to those who have repented and trusted in Christ ) then may I recommend that you find the nearest Christian church that runs an Alpha course or a Christianity Explored course and join up as soon as possible. These courses usually last around 10 weeks meeting together once per week. They give you opportunity not only to have a nice meal together and then hear about these truths through a message but also to ask questions in a smaller group format.

Once again our thanks to Lisa and Michael and the team at Mustard Seed who put in a lot of hard work to get these shoe boxes to us and also a special thanks to anyone who might be reading this blog who was a donor of one or more of these boxes.

May God bless you with a double portion of the joy that your gift brought to these kids this year

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Adolescents at Cantemir

As many of you may already know we have been asked by the Baptist Union here in the South to take an assistant role for the Cantermir region.

Part of our role is to help consolodate the exisiting churches.

Here we are trying to help Cantemir church with a new adolecent group they have started with Igor our youth leader bringing a team to develop the work.

Around 10-15 lads from 15-18 yrs old come to the group held in the Cantemir church building.

They are all in technical school and all doing the same course.

They are from different villages outside Cantemir and so are staying in the dorms in the college and have nothing to do during the week.

They're a good and attentive bunch and here is Igor sharing a message with them.

Other churches in the region are already coming to ask help for other aspects of their work.

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

The Visit of community church@ greenway, Bristol.

David Roderick is the director of Eurovangelism who have been great supporters of the work here in South Moldova ( as well as the rest of Europe)

Dave comes each year to report back on the progress of the various aspects of the work that Eurovangelism support.

This year we had the special blessing of him coming with a team from his home church - community church @ greenway from Bristol.

This is the meeting in Gotesti on Sunday 14th Dec when the CCG were leading our people in a worship song with actions

In fact the team were very involved in our meetings during the week with testimonies and preaches and worship leading and even sketches.

But in truth they got stuck into all the aspects of the work that Eurovangelism are part of.

Church planters, Aid, Physically Disabled Ministry, Children's work.

Eurovangelism have been connecting up churches in the UK to partner with church plants here in South Moldova with David being the UK link and me the Moldovan link. The church at Porumbesti is the latest church plant that Eurovangelism are helping find a partner for. More details of this exciting church plant with a vision for it's surrounding villages coming up in a later blog.

Support for producing aid packets for the poor is another annual help that Eurovangelism give us and in fact not just us but other churches that we are involved with here in the South.

Needy families like Catea here in this picture receive a 5 kg packet of rice, pasta, sugar 30kg flour and 5l oil. - about 30 pounds in value.

This family have already been helped by others fitting their home with electricity - He is a shepherd - an honest but very low paying occupation and now he has got seriously ill with a worms in his lungs caught from the sheep. They have eaten into both lungs. Without medical insurance ( at 100$ per year too expensive for this family ) they had to borrow a large amount to get an operation to cut out part of one of his lungs to remove the problem. He needs a similar operation on the other lung.

Thanks to the help from Eurovangelism 300 families in 15 different villages overseen by 8 different church plants will receive an aid packet of at least 30Kg of flour and 5l of oil.

Other supporters having seen the need of the poor in the winter gave some gifts last year which has enabled us to help at least a little with the cold by giving 2m3 of wood to each family which hopefully will mean that these families will have enough to avoid the risk of dying of hypothermia when it gets very cold ( -5C to -20C)

Margaret Lilley was also part of the team. She works for Scripture Union and is also responsible for 5-7 yrs at Spring Harvest each year.

O woman of much experience she came and shared in Kindergartens and on the Saturday did a conference for children's workers to which around 40 leaders from Cantemir came
They were very encouraged with the quality of the teaching.

Sadly as our time together with the team came to a close I started to come down with flu and some of the team began to join in.

Winter has now got a grip here with 1m deep snow in places.

I have quite a few speaking engagements over the Christmas period so pray for safe journeys for me.

Pastor Mark

Christmas in Chisinau

We were invited down to Chisinau to preach in the Elim church on Dec 6 where Sasa, a young man who was born again at our church around 10 years ago, is now a deacon.

We came down for the weekend with the family as Mari had a course on Saturday and we thought it would be great for the kids to see the Christmas lights in the capital.

As I was taking these photos it made me realise how much Moldova has changed both physically and spiritually in the 15 years we have been here.

PHYSICALLY - LIGHTS EVERYWHERE

When we first came to Moldova we had 4 hours electricity per day between 7-9 am and 7-9 pm. Some friends of ours travelled from the UK and brought over a generator. When we opened our new church building in 1999 we were one of only 2 buildings in our village with light which meant our week mission was full each night.

PHYSICALLY - SAFE ENVIRONMENT

This is Abigail standing outside the mayor's office in Chisinau.

His name is Dorin Chirtoaca and he is a member of the Democratic Alliance, which is now ruling the country after years of communist rule.

We walked a few meters down from the mayor's office and saw the man himself in a barber's shop having a hair cut. I popped in and told him how we believed he is doing a great job.

"Bine" he said

He had no security with him (unless they were dressed up as lady hairdressers ). Just a simple man having a haircut in a nearby barbers after his working day.

The bible says that the wicked do their deed in the darkness. When we first came there were 2 street lights working nightly in the whole of Cahul ( a town of 40,000 residents ). You simply did not go out at night on the street. Now even small villages have street lights on the main streeet at least.

SPIRITUALLY - LIGHT SPREADING

The fact that the Christmas lights were on, on Dec 6 is a sign of the spiritual change going on in Moldova.

In Moldova the vast majority of orthodox Christians are Russian Orthodox and they celebrate Christmas on January 7. Whereas, Greek Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants ( inlcuding us Baptists, Pentecostals etc ) celebrate the Lord's birth on 25 December.

In the past only the Russian Orthodox Christmas was recognised by the communist government and so the lights wouldn't even be on, on 25 December but just recently the democratic alliance prime minister Vlad Filat announced that 25 Dec would now also be a national holiday along with January 7th.

Valeriu Ghiletchii, the former president of the Baptist Union who is now a member of parliament asked the prime to consider making this date a national holiday but when I spoke with him he takes no credit for the decision as, he tells me, Vlad Filat already had it in his mind to do this.

When we came there were 1000 towns or villages in Moldova with no evangelical church of any kind. Now there are less than 900.

Much still to do

Pastor Mark

Mari's Passion

In October Mari was invited to Chisinau to speak to a ladies meeting that is run by Isus Salvatorul church and held in the Emanuel clinic chapel.

The meeting takes place every month

and draws ladies from dirrerent denominations with around 40 usually coming.

Eugenia, on the left in the grey jacket and white blouse runs the meetings.

She does ministries for the baptist churhces throughout Moldova.

She gave Mari the subject to share on - Passion in mariage -

Mari addressed the subject over 2 meetings; one in October and one in November.

At times you could hear a pin drop as

my wife touched on subjects that clearly all the ladies would like to hear more about

Afterwards I was asked what I thought about Mari's talks

"It's the longest I've ever listened to Mari without interupting her" I said

Mari says to know how the talks really went we would need to ask the husbands. As for me I've had a smle on my fce ever since

Pastor Mark

New liver new heart

Thought I would share a story ( without pictures ).

About 9 months ago one of our members called on our church for prayer for her married daughter living in Serbia who was not a Christian.
Tanya, had contracted Hep B twenty years ago while living in Moldova and now, at 39, according to her doctors had just a short time to live.
Her only hope was to get a liver transplant.
As a church we began to pray and fast for her to receive a liver transplant.

Not long afterwards a liver became available, she had the operation and everything went so well that she was out of hospital care within 2 months.

At the end of October she was with us in the church and shared of her experiences - it was moving for all that were there.
We were away but the following Sunday Tanya came to speak to us after the meeting wanting to get right with God.

We came to meet her the following day at her mum's and explained the gospel in detail to her step by step.

When we came to talk about how Jesus had died on the cross to take our sins giving his life so that we could live she began to weep profusely.

Soon it became clear why. A young man of 20 years of age died in a car accident and because of his death and the heart breaking suffering and gracious gift of the boy's parents she received a new liver and thus a new life.
She saw the even greater sacrifices of Jesus and His Father, when He, a man without sin, willingly and consciously gave His life dying on the cross in her place for her sins to give her a new life.

With tears she put her trust in what Jesus had done for her on the cross and asked the risen Jesus to come into her life as her Lord and Saviour.

Moments later we read John 6:47 together "Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me has etrenal life"

"Did you believe in Him just now?" I asked her"
"Yes" she said
"According to this verse what does the Bible say you have?" I asked?

She read the verse again
"Eternal life" she said, joy replacing the tears

"When do you have it?" I asked
She looked at the verse again
"Now!" she said with a mixture of incredulity and thankfulness on her face

It was a special moment for us too

Pastor Mark

Missions in the South 4-8 Nov

A series of missions have been taking place right across the South of Moldova during 4-8 Novemeber.

We had one at Gotesti to which we called different preachers for each night while I went to other churhces to preach the gospel

This is one of the churches we went to - Antonesti - and here Maricica and 3 of the girls from our church at Gotesti are doing a programme of songs and a testimony before I came onto preach

I also had the priviledge of being invited to preach on Saturday night at the church in Vad lui Isaac where around 150 came.

This is Jonathan and Richard who are living and ministering in Bucuresti. They took part in the service sharing 2 songs

There were 5 people who gave their lives to the Lord in an appeal after the message including Cristina and Eugenia pictured here.

This was a particularly special moment for me to have participated in - the occassion when they both gave their whole lives to Christ. Both girls had gone to school in Gotesti for 3 years living with Iulian during that time and coming to the church at Gotesti. Despite many opportunities they had not given their lives to Christ but we always felt they were close.

Meanwhile, we also had John Dyson, my pastor and one of our trustees, over with us along with Geoff Collier a member in my home church.

They had come to preach and give testimony, respectively in various other venues in the mission week of the South.

Unfortunately since we were never in the same place I have no photos of Geoff giving testimony and only this one of John preaching at Gotesti with Igor translating at the baptism meeting on Sunday evening in Gotesti.

Natasa and Colia were the 2 that got baptised and both gave their testimony in the meeting

Igor assisted in the baptism as he is the youth leader and largely responsibile for the discipling of both Natasa and Colia

Colia could not get the smile off his face from start to finish

His brother Viorel was baptised last year and both are very active servants of the Lord already

Pastor Mark

Trip to Kinmel Bay

In October, Mari and I were invited to come to Kinmel Bay Evangelical church in North Wales.

This is the Sunday morning meeting to which around 150 come regularly.

We were sharing about the work in Moldova and particularly about churhces in UK partnering with churches in Moldova which Kinmel Bay are interested in doing.

This is Gwyn Parry the pastor preaching and the lady in the background on the right is his wife Eunice.

We had a great time with them on the Saturday when we arrived each sharing about our experiences in the ministry.

Later in the evening we shared with the leadership team about 2 church plants in Moldova that they are considering partnering with - part supporting the pastor and partnering in the work of the church in various ways. They listened intently and put the kind of questions that encouraged us as to how serious thy were about their about their partnership plans

We stayed with Alan and Maureen Tuttle, a lovely and intersting couple

Before retiring he was a professional children's entertainer

And he still had the knack
On the way out we took the flight from Liverpool airport which is named John Lennon airport after the famous assasinated Beatle

His statute stands in the hall on the way to departures.

It was quite a moving moment to think of his life, times and death

Pastor Mark

Bayfarm Visit 2009

It was great to have the team from Bayfarm with us again from 2-9 October. Their pastor Jim Meyer came with them this time. He hasn’t been since 2006 and we used every spare moment of his time.

He preached at a wedding we had on the Saturday when Viorel from Pascani and our own Aliona were married. Then he was the preacher at our Sunday morning service and here he is speaking at a conference we had for our pastors from the South – around 90 came the first day and some 50 on the second day. Jim taught and answered questions on “handling conflict in the church.”

There were quite a few who came for individual help after the meetings and we also went to visit some others

Jim was also our main speaker to 50 of our teachers from Gotesti on National Teacher’s day which we held in the pizza parlour and later that day he preached in our mid week meeting following on from Sunday’s topic of forgiving one another and why it is sometimes hard.

Teachers day is an opportunity for us to show our appreciation of our teachers who do a very difficult job for very little pay. A free meal once a year isn't exactly life changing for them but at least it gives us the opportunity to give something back to them. However much to our surprise the teachers felt they would like to bless us and here is Oleg the head teacher giving us a gift of a flower

We also took Jim with us on our trip to the church plant in Pelinei where Jim was the preacher in their meeting while his wife Kim took the other half of the team to Baurcii.

The team were of course as busy as ever they have been while in Moldova.

Here is Bob Wilbur giving out aid to one of many needy families that were helped with food while other homes received wood for the upcoming winter when it can get down to -15C.

Every winter hypothermia brings untimely deaths.

Christine and Bob Wilbur were the new recruits this year and here Christine is giving here testimony in a meeting. It was a very moving story of traumatic and abusive experiences in childhood and youth and how she found Christ to be her saviour and then friend and comforter in the midst.

Bob used his guitar playing gift in the visits to kindergartens and schools and also gave a powerful testimony in the meeting in Pelinei after recovering from two days of flu that left him confined to bed.

Kim, Jim's wife, was, as always, the
driving force behind the trip.

She had just recovered in time from a virus that looked stopping her being on the trip and here she is sharing at the teachers meeting with Mari translating.

Her fortitude in dealing with the main physical ailments that she has to contend with is an example and inspiration to all.

Chris Modic is the other veteran of the Bayfarm trips having been on all so far.

Here he is standing beside the Soba sponsored by Bayfarm that Ilusa built for the Constantinovca kindergarten.

Chris also led the men's meeting.

He is much loved by our men as he always shares honestly from the heart - warts and all.

He shocked us all by telling us his method of stopping a conflict with his wife getting out of hand

When the conflict is getting too hot Chris begins .................

If you're reading this Chris I felt this was just too hot to put on a public site but if anybody e mails me I'll be putting them in touch with you

Pastor Mark

Harvest Service at Gotesti

Any one who has been following this blog recently will think that the only thing we do in Moldova in our churches is have harvest celebrations
This is the cake that some of our youth made for our harvest meeting in Gotesti on Sunday 27th September.

We had around 200 in total come to the celebration and we used it as a time to not only thank the Lord for the material things he has blessed us with in the last year but also all the spiritual things He has done - answers to prayer etc

This is Liuba giving testimony. Her 40 yr old daughter had contracted a cirrhossis in her liver while getting a blood transfusion in Chisinau.

She was now living in Serbia and the specialist there told her the bad news that if she didn't get a liver transplant she would die. This was next to impossible as there are so few available and she wasn't even a Serbian citizen. Liuba brought it to the church for prayer and we all with one heart together with her prayed and fasted for a miracle - either God's miraculous healing or a liver to be provided for the transplant. As she drew close to dying our prayers became more desperate. Can you imagine the joy for us all and especially Liuba when God answered with the provision of a liver for transplant.

She's had the transplant and is going on well. Our thanks also go to the surgeons whom we never met that got the liver and did the operation.

So it was an occassion f0r joy and thanksgiving for us all to remember at the harvest ( thanksgiving ) service God's answer to our prayers with Liuba

Various ones from our church family took part in the service.

This is David, Ruslan's son, doing a poem about how God created the various fruits - looks like he might have eaten the fruit already and our Abigail is about to tell him off after he's finished the poem.

This is Cristina and Aliona singing a duet.

This was Cristina's last Sunday with us as she is going off to University in Romania to study for 3 years

She'll be coming home at end of term times but it did feel like a parting was taking place.

Panainte Chicicov, the mayor of our villages also took the trouble to come to our harvest service with his wife Valentina. He spoke a short word of encouragement and they both stayed and ate with us at the after service meal.

Around 130 stayed for the meal afterwards and we were overjoyed that our believers had brought so many chickens, ducks, veg etc that we had an abundance to feed all and had plenty to spare.

It was a joyous occassion and we pray God's blessing that we may have many more.

Pray for us and the arrival of a team from Bayfarm Church in California on Frid 2 Oct and the ministry that they will do in our villages and others while they are here.

Pastor Mark