A double harvest at Giurgulesti

This is Fedea Parpalov with his wife Valea and 4 lovely daugthers.

They are friends of ours and he pastors the Baptist church in Giurgulesti.

He invited me over to preach yesterday at a special service for both material and spiritual harvest - i.e. harvest Sunday and they also had 4 people getting baptised.
The lady in white is 80 years old - never too late to get saved and baptised.

Here we see the church's youth group who for the most part led the worship during the meeting.

But we also had groups from different churches taking part.

Pictured here is a group from a Pentecostal church in a nearby village preparing to bring a programme - and powerful it was too.

In this shot are the children from the church who each did a part of a poem about how God made all the fruits and how each speaks into our lives

The quality of the poem, written by their Sunday school teacher in the picture, made this part of the programme one of the highlights

The baptisms took place outside as is the case for most churches.

We are among the few churches that have an indoor baptistry which gives us the option of holding baptisms at any time in the year

Although I did not get a chance to talk to them I was encouraged to see 3 young men getting baptised and as we pastors prayed for them afterwards we called on the Lord to equip them for the plans he has for their lives to "..serve the purposes of God in this generation.."

There was a good sized crowd that turned up for this double celebration including many people who openly admitted to not having a personal relationship with God ( John 17:3 )

We preached on the story of Felix - Acts 24 - and how he knew the gospel well but when the moment came for him to give his whole life to Christ he said "Go away - when I have a more convenient time I will call you again" Of course it's a deception. There never is a convenient time and the Bible says "today when you hear the voice of the Lord do not harden your heart"

At the end of the message there were several who chose to give their whole lives to Christ including Lydia, a teacher in the school and who was one of the groom's relatives at a recent wedding we attended where we had an opportunity to witness to her.

After the meeting I got to talk to several others including Sasa ( sitting at the front in a red tee shirt with glasses in the above picture). All with whom I spoke said that they felt God was calling them but they had questions and doubts.

Pray for Fedea as he organises a seekers meeting next Sunday after the meeting and that Sasa and the many other interested people sitting at this harvest meal after the baptisms will come to it and find God

Pray also for me as I preach the gospel at harvest meetings and evangelistic meetings on Sunday 20th and 27th Sep and then October 10 and 4-8th November.

pray for Mari as she speaks at a women's meeting in Chisinau on 1 October

Pray also for the Bayfarm team as they come out to us 2-9 October

Watch this space for other prayer needs soon

Pastor Mark