Take up your cross

This is Catea with her mentally disabled son Iurie and pastor Volodia of the Baptist church in Cantemir

Courtesy of the supporters of Eurovangelism we were able to bring an aid packet of 30Kg of flour, 5 Kg rice, 5Kg spaghetti 2 Kg of sugar etc to this needy family.

They were wonderfully grateful but we were more so as God priviledged us to see what it truly means to take up your cross and follow Me.

Catea is a believer in Volodia's church and Iurie is 25 and has been mentally disabled from birth - the fault of the doctors who delivered him roughly and broke his back. ( they neither took responsibility nor were held in any way accountable.)

He has very limited sight and hearing and can only be appeased from spending his day shouting and banging by pouring water from one container to another as he is doing here.

Thus he needs 24 hour attention - which Catea does almost exclusively with only a pension of about 30 pounds per month.

She gets no help from her husband who is an alcoholic and sometimes his frustation spills over to beating the boy and even her.

Just recently someone from the village who has a relative in Moscow who is dying of heart disease came to Catea and offered to buy Iurie's heart and lungs.

He seriously expected Catea to somehow humanely put Iurie to death - as he is just a vegeatable and then enable them to remove his heart in good condition for the translplant - "at least you'll get some good money for him"

I cannot imagine how she would have coped with the hurt of this.

Slightly out of picture above is Marcella - their 10 year old daughter

Catea found her lying on a nearby hill when she was 2 days old. She had been abondoned to die

She rescued her and adopted her into their family

As I say we were priviledged to meet this woman.

Pastor Mark

Physically disabled minsitry

This is Misa Tatarli, the brother responsible for the ministry to the physically disabled in our church standing beside an answer to prayer

Those of you that already know and pray for the work here in Gotesti know of our ministry to the physically disabled.

I trust when you use our prayer pneumonic of R.I.N.O you remember to pray for "N" for Nicu who is the blind young man that is a member of our church and symbolises the ministry we have to the physically disabled and this also prompts you to pray for the ministry to the physcially disabled in general.

There is such a big need in this area of ministry in all of Moldova ( read the harrowing story of Maria and Iurie in the next blog ) not just in Gotesti.

As we have develeoped this ministry in Gotesti we have found that there are a large number of disabled ( even severely disabled ) that would love to come to our meetings but are not able to get to us because of their disabilities and we simply do not have the man power to wheel people to church nor do road conditions even permit this.

So we have been looking to the Lord for him to provide a vehicle especailly suitable for transporting the physically disabled.

Just before Christmas a brother in Chisinau told of us of an organisation in the capitol that had such a vehicle that it was looking to sell ( for around 2500 pounds with taxes etc )

I shared the opportunity with our trustees who all felt as we did that this would enhance the minsitry but we all knew the problem was that we as a mission neither had the money to buy the vehicle or sponsor the running of it for the minsitry.

We all felt however that if it was of God that he would provide and so we contacted the owners and said that we wanted to buy it but did not have any money at present.

They gave us 4 weeks to find the money and we sent out an e mail a couple of days before Christmas to all our friends and supporters sharing the need.

One brother who was due to come out on a visit to us this Spring moved our hearts by responding immediately and offering the 1000 pounds that he would have used to come out to visit towards the cost of purchasing the vehicle.

Others also responded

But as the deadline approached we were still 1300 poounds short. The onwers gave us another 2 weeks but still the money had not arrived and by Jan 15 the onwers told us that they were going to put the vehicle into the car market on Saturday Jan 17th.

On Thur I got an e mail from the pastor of a church in NI who asked if the money had been raised for the vehicle.

I told him the shortfall but said nothing of the fact that it was going into the car market on the Saturday

On the Friday he e mailed me to say that their church were commiting to giving us the rest of the money - 1300 pounds.

Praise God

We quickly rang the owners and told them not to put the car into the market the next day as we would come on Monday with the money.





And here it is parked beside the church with Misa ( who'll be the driver ) and Iulian (the maintainance man) standing beside it.




We as a church will be able to fund some of the running of the vehicle from our tithing - but it is pretty limited what we can do so we are looking to the Lord for this financial need.

If you are interested in helping we estimate that it will take about 1-2 pounds per month to bring one physically disabled person to and from church every Sunday in the month

We have at least 40 that have expressed a desire to come to church.

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Aid for the poor

This year courtesy of the supporters of Eurovangelism, and others we have been able to bring aid packets of flour, rice, spaghetti, sugar etc to 300 families in over 15 villages served by 5 churches.







This is Axenia photographed with one of her 5 children ( Sabrina - what a beautiful name.)

She spent 10 years in prison for murdering her husband who was furiously beating one of the children in a drunken rage.


One of the members of the Cantemir church who is a policeman witnessed to her in prison and to cut a long and tragic stort short she eventually ended up in the church in Cantemir and has given her life to the Lord.

She cannot afford to have the other 4 children live with her so they are staying at an orphanage.

Her living conditions are very poor - just the one room in an apartment block that has no door and all the residents on her floor share an open toilet which has no working seweage outlet.

All the flats have no running water so she and all the residents go to the nearest well with a bucket in each hand and fetch the water.

Unbelievably the nearest well is about 400m away.

Some wag with a questionable sense of humour has written this on the wall of the apartment block

This is Natasa, whose has a small child called Volodia whose father left them before he was born.

She then met and lived with another man who is an alcoholic and is now in prison for stealing

She cannot read and has little prospect of any work living off about 200 lei she gets each month for the child

We were able to help her with an aid packet and we also come every few weeks and bring wood ( so she is not vulnerable to thieves )

Coming in this regular way also means that we are able to help her hear more about the Lord

This is Nastia from Constantinovca. She has 5 kids of which 3 are in orphanages

Her husband is alcoholic

This is the house they live in

Her husband sold their other house bit by bit to buy alcohol

Here are other shots of needy people that got aid

This lady with kids is living on her own in this broken down house.

This is pastor Andrei Ghedeon of Burlacu standing with a family of 7 all of whom live in the living room of the house behind them

This family of 7 kids and grandkids from Baurcii live in 2 rooms of this house

Divorce has left them with no bread winner for the family

There are hundreds of these needy people in our villages all with moving stories to tell

As we said earlier with the support given from Eurovangelism and others we were able to help 300 families in 15 different villages overseen by 5 churches with an aid packet of flour, oil, rice, sugar, pasta etc

Our thanks to all of you who have enabled us to help in at least a small way

Yours and His

Pastor Mark