Two are better than one....

.... and a three standed chord is not easily broken..

Saturday week ago we had our first wedding for 4 years in our church.

Colia Regus married Ina David

Both are committed Christians and so very much wanted to make their vows consciously before the Lord and are looking to Him to be very much the third strand in their relationship.( indeed the principal strand )

A couple of weeks before the wedding we met with both sets of parents, who are not Christians, at the engagement and shared the spiritual significance of Colia and Ina leaving their mothers and fathers and being joined onto each other We particularly emphasized to Valentin how, biblically, the father has spiritual responsibility and authority in his daugher's life and we asked him if he felt that Colia was worthy to take this mantle and was Valentin willing to give his daughter into Colia's hands. He was quite emotional about the significance of it all and it was a precious time. As you can see in the photo here he is giving her over to Colia who then went on to remove her veil and lead her to the ceremony stage.

After some praise and worship, brother Andrei the B.U. superviser for the South and pastor of Vad lui Isac Baptist Church brought the message

then they came to making their vows

Here Colia is vowing to Ina in the presence of God

"With the help of the Holy Spirit I will love you as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. I will comfort you, I will respect you, I will care for you in good times and bad. I will be faithful to you until death do us part. All that I am and all that I have I give to you also

Ina's vows were similar except that she vowed "... with the help of the Holy Spirit I will submit to you (Colia) as the church must to Christ..."

They chose to mark their committment to one another by the giving and receiving of rings.

Iulian who had Colia as his best man at his wedding took care of the rings and here is he and Vasia who had a similar role to best man pictured together .

Colia and Ina began their courtship over 2 years ago but soon afterwrds he went to France to work for 2 years to earn the money to make a start in their married life - their mobile phones in Moldova and France never cooled down and despite this separation neither did they.

Everyone noticed that Ina had the most wonderful smile on her face from start to finish.

Indeed several asked the Lord to bless them such that this smile would never have cause to disappear.

The reception was also a wonderful occassion with more non Christians there than Christians.

Although these guests would traditionally expect a wedding reception in Moldova to be full of drinking and dancing they nonetheless accepted our style graciously and nearly all remained to the end and indeed seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly with the various entertainment items that Ruslan and our youth had prepared for the 4 hours of the reception. Certainly many of them said exactly that to me and others in the church. afterwards

It was in fact a lovely time of fellowship and our heart and prayer is that many that were there will come and be part of our family in the church in due season.

Will you pray this also

Pastor Mark