Igor Sin at Gotesti

We had the pleasure of having Igor Sin as our guest speaker on Sunday 12th December.

He is the pastor of the 1st Baptist Church of Cahul.

They have 120 members and a very active youth and children's minsitry.

Igor qualified from Bible school in Romania and has been pastoring the church in Cahul for 3 years now and has seen growth in all areas of the church during this time.

He spoke to us from Phil 2 on humility and left us all with some serious challenges about our own lives albeit expounded in a very gracious manner.

We had Slavic and his team leading the worship and one of our oldest members Liuba brought a poem to us in Russian.

We were able to go for a pizza after the meeting and Mari and I had a lovely time of fellowship with Igor talking about various aspects of the work and visions and plans.

Pray for them as a church and their various outreaches this Christmas time

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Religion in School

As you may remember we are now permitted to teach an optional religion class in schools throughout Moldova.

We have over 50 requests from parents for their kids to attend an optional religion class at the end of lectures on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The Orthdox church in our village also had over 200 requests.

I understand that nationally over 25% of pupils have chosen to take the optional religion classes, a figure that has surprised the education dept.

We have been able to form 4 classes - 2 for ages 11-16 and 2 for ages 7-11.

This is one of the older bracket age groups. In this case 11 and 12 yr olds and includes our daughter Rachael.

I attended the lesson this week and found every single child to be actively participating in the various activities and also in responding to questions etc.

Tanya, one of the many qualified teachers we have in our church, is in charge of this class.

We are very encouraged with the syllabus which clearly covers all the essential and basic teaching of the bible. It is the sort of course I would teach new believers that have had no experience of the basic doctrines of the bible.

Here Tanya is teaching on the fall of man and God's resolution of the problem of our sin. i,e how our sin has separated us from God and how God in human form ( Jesus ) came and died in our place taking our sin and thus bridged the gap, bringing into a personal relationship with God those who give their lives to Christ and trust in Him.

I hope shortly to attend at least one of Marina's classes and will post a blog when I've been. Marina teaches the 7-11 yr olds.

Do please keep Tanya, Marina and the childen in your prayers

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Moldovan Elections 28 Nov 2010

The general election for the parliament of Moldova took place last Sunday - 28th Nov 2010.

In the run up to the election day we were priviledged to have the OSCE team for the South West come to our pizzerie for their planning meetings and their feedback meeting.

OSCE is the international observers organisation and the team with us that was responsible for Cahul, Cantemir and Leova was made up of 24 members + drivers and translators.

Andy McEntee (left ) from the UK and Jan Holton( right ) from Norway, the older two in this picture were the leaders of the team and they have been here more than a month organising all things.

It was interesting hearing about their job and gaining fascinating insights into what's happening behind the scenes.

As a pizzerie it was a relatively new experience for us providing drinks and snacks in a kind of conference style but they seemed pleased with the service ( even thought there are things we have learned ) - certainly they were good guests to have and seemed to enjoy what we provided.

Now the elections. Our thanks to those of you who prayed diligently. They went trouble free.

The results were Communist party 42 seats down from 48 at the last election, PDLM (Stejarul which means oak tree ) 32 seats up from 18 at the last election This is the party that Valeriu Ghiletchii and Slavic Ionita are with - both Valeriu and Slavic are members of parliament again. PDM ( Marian Lupu's party ) 15 up from 13 This party is made up of mostly ex communists P.L. 12. down 3. Their leader Mr Ghimpru was the leader of the parliament in the last election.

This means that the A.I.E ( alliance for integration in Europe) made up of the 3 non communists parties can form a coalition again and would have 59 seats which will permit them to govern again but leaves them 2 seats short of the 61 out of 101 parliament seats needed to elect a president.

Without an elected president they are not able to rule for 4 years but new elections will have to be called within 1 year.

As I write these parties are in negotiations which are likely to be quite hard going.

Pray that they will be able to form a coalition and thence a government and that a miracle would happen and at least 2 of the communist members would vote with the A.I.E.'s proposal for a president.

Pastor Mark

Visit to Baimaclia

One of the joys of having this role of serving the churches in Cantemir is that I get to go to these different churches and meet the leaders and the people.

In the last weeks we have been involved with Porumbesti as they have gone onto a new phase, having opened their church building

This last Sunday I visited the church at Baimaclia where Valentin Sacali and his wife Zinaida lead the work.
The church was planted by Valentin in 1990 and quickly grew to nearly 40 but in these last years they are down to 26 members due to believers emigrating mostly to USA.

Here Valentin is bringing a final word of encouragement after I had preached a little bit earlier, on Eph 2:8-10

How we are saved

How we are not saved

And why we are saved.

Valentin, Zinaida and their 4 children live in the building attached to this church building which really just has the meeting room and a pastor's office ( they could really do with some Sunday school rooms and a creche ).

Valentin supports himself by running a mill and bakery supplying fresh bread to Baimaclia and several nearby villages. Like many of the village churches they do not have a sound system or yamaha and here, again often the case, the pastor leads the worship, in this instance with an acordion.

Nonetheless there was great joy amongst us and it was a pleasure to be part of the fellowship of the Lord's people in this village of 3000.

Pray for me and them as we consider how we might work together in the future

Pastor Mark

General Election Moldova 28 Nov 2010

This Sunday sees a general election in Moldova just over a year after the last one.

The reason for this is that although the democratic alliance had enough seats in parliament to form a government they did not have the min 61 out of 101 to be able to elect a president.

Thus constitutionally they could only rule temporarily until this situation was resolved.

In the summer the government called a referendum to change the constitution so that the president would be elected by a vote of the electorate rather like the American way but the Communist party were very against this and campaigned not to turn out for the vote so that there would not be enough of a percentage of the electorate that voted to pass the result. They got their way and so now we are going to a general election.

Valeriu Ghiletchii, the former president of the Baptists Union, here speaking in our church last Saturday, is one of 2 evangelical Christians standing for re-election.

He and Slavic Ionita are standing with PLDM the Stejarul party. And although neither are members of the party Vlad Filat the acting prime minister regards then highly enough to have given them positions of 11 and 18 on the parliamentary list
Our parliament here is elected by proportional representation which means the

more votes for a party from the whole electorate the greater number of seats a party will have in the parliament. Each party therefore names a list of potential candidates up to 101. Obviously for number 101 on a party list to get elected then nearly 100% of the electorate would have to vote for that party.

For both Ghiletchii and Ionita to be elected Stejarul would need 18-20% of the vote.

Both Valeriu and Slavic are representing all evangelical Christians and the Adventists and have the support of these Unions so that most believers will vote for Stejarul so that Valeriu and Slavic can be elected. (Stejarul also has policies that are closest to conservative Christianity values )

Valeriu was sharing the many encouraging signs of God's hand working through he and Slavic in the last year in the parliament - their aim is to be salt and light in parliament.

And so we pray

Pastor Mark

new Believers Meeting at Porumbesti

Following the mission week celebrating the opening of the new building in Porumbesti Pastor Stefan and his wife Veta called us to assist in the first meeting of new believers.

There was an encouraging turn out with 10 of the 15 adults that responded during the week coming to the new believers meeting.

Of the 5 that didn't come one we knew is working in the flour mill ( he has already asked to be baptised wanting to demonstrate his total dedication to Christ publically thru' baptism )

Three others were older ladies and they live quite far away so that may have made it more difficult to come.

The other was a man who had a drinking problem. When I mentioned to Stefan my disappointment that he had not come Stefan told me that he had visited him earlier that day and when Stefan had discovered that he was separated from his wife Stefan exhorted him that this was not how a true believer should live and that he should go and get reconciled to his wife ( who lives in another village ). He wasn't at the meeting because he had gone to do what Stefan said he should.

During the mission week many of the kids that came to the children's outreach mission also responded to appeals. Stefan encouraged the kids not to come to this new believers meeting but rather to come to the new club which they plan to start this Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Veta, Stefan's wife will start English lessons using materials called "English for a New Life" which uses the gospel of John to teach English but also help students to come to know Christ

Igor from our church in Gotesti led the new believers study helping Stefan and Veta to see how the material works

Pray for Igor as he continues to help them in this work and for Stefan Veta and Elena ( a girl form the church as they start the new children's work this Saturday.

Pastor Mark

Opening Mission at Porumbesti

This is the church building of the Holy Trinity Baptist Church in Porumbesti, a village of 1700 people and that until now has had no building for Christians to meet in.

With the help of Greenway Community church from Bristol, UK and others from the West Pastor Stefan Hanganu pictured here and his team of workers have managed to construct this building from the foundations to it's present state in 10 months.

The speed with which the church has been built has been a witness to those who live in the village.

Although the building is not completed ( they hope that God will provide and they will be able to finish it by this time next year ) the meeting room inside is finished and thus the church felt it was time to do a special week of meetings and invite all the village to come and join them. As you can see from this picture a good number turned out each evening.

A team from Greenway Community church who partner with Porumbesti church came out to be part of the opening mission. They were in the village every day from 10.00 am and were involved in visiting homes in the village and participating in the mission that Porumbesti ran for adolescents to which about 15-30 came each day.

Then in the evening meetings they sang songs, gave testimonies and Chris Poulson, the leader of the team, and myself shared in the preaching of a gospel message each evening. Here Chris is preaching on the lost son from Luke 15.

Many hearts were touched as he shared of the grace of God to the returning son and the joy that resulted and then of the hardness of heart of the older son and how by his choice he remained outside the house - many in the meeting realised that they were still outside God's house - not the building but outside a relationship with Him - and steadily throughout the week people began to reconcile themselves to God.

All of the team members gave their testimonies at some stage during the week. Here Mark is using a £5 note to illustrate that even after he crushed it, stamped on it and dirtied it, it is still worth £5 as indeed we are to God, a fact he personally realised after he had ruined his own life and then was found by God.

After the meeting each evening the team members grabbed a translator and went to talk to those who had remained behind for tea and biscuits ( almost everybody ). Here Keith (who was on the team that came out last year) is together with Liz ( also a veteran from last year ) sharing with someone who had come to the meeting as a result of their visit earlier in the day. Rachael, our 11 year old daughter, was translating for them.

In this picture Kerra on the right with hair tied back is working with Natasa, one of our translators, and sharing with two young women

The team were a blessing to the work and good company to be with.

May the Lord repay them for their sacrifice

Pastor Mark

Dedication of New Church Building at Baurci

This is Dorin Moga, leader of the church at Baurci, speaking at the opening ceremony of the dedication of their church building on 31 October 2010.

He and 2 other leaders in the church have been working night and day for months to complete all the work necessary for the building to be finished.

Various sponsors from the West have helped with the funding but no-one doubts that this House of Prayer was built by God and these faithful brothers.

Mari and I were invited to be one of the speakers alongside 3 other esteemd guests all of whom brought a greeting or message to what as you can see was a packed auditorium with many from the village and guests from other churches attending

On the left Andrei Ciobanu, pastor of Vad lui Isac and B.U superviser for the South of Moldova. In the centre Ion Miron, the current president of the Baptist Union who was the principle speaker along with on the right Ruslan Melestean, direction of the Bible Mission based in Chisinau.

Br Ion spoke on how we are here on earth to be lights while Br Ruslan shared on the word multumesc - thanks - and pointed out how we so often neglect to be thankful - quite a challenging word to us all.

We also had the extra blessing of participating in the dedication of the latest addition to the Moga family - 2 month old David. Here Br Andrei is praying for God's blessing on the child

The worship time in the service was richly blessed by guests - here in the centre of the picture are a husband and wife duet that are part of the Bible Mission's team and to the left of the picture is the choir from Vad lui Isac church.
There were many others that made a contribution to the worship

After the meeting was finished all present at the dedication were invited to pose for a picture outside the church building in, as you can see, bright sunshine.

Then when all the formalities of the service were over we all sat down to a nice meal prepared by the ladies in the church.

All in all it was a wonderful ocassion to be part of

Pastor Mark

Religion in School teachers conference

As you may know a law was passed here in Moldova during the summer that religion as an optional subject was now to be taught in schools in Moldova.

The Orthodox church produced a syllabus as did the evangelical churches and both were approved by the education department.

A couple of weeks ago all the qualified teachers in our area who were committing themselves to teach the Evangelical syllabus in schools were gathered together to get some training and received the teaching pack etc. We had 5 attend from Gotesti.

Mr Mihail Malancev, a very well known Moldovan theologian and director of the Baptist Bible Seminary in Chisinau was the main speaker.

He has much experience also in the field of education and speaks around the world on Christian education.

He helped us see the significance of an evangelical curriculum in a school education system and inspired all the teachers to their task

One of the ministers of education for the South also came to the conference and was very helpful and encouraging in his talk.

Our teachers were inspired by the day and made themselves available to serve wherever there may be a need.

In our school in Gotesti there were 65 children from the age of 7 to 16 whose parents signed a request form for their kids to get the evangelical religious education lecture in the school.

Last week after some initial teething problems we started all the groups in the school.

Marina ( on the right of this picture ) takes 2 classes on Wednesdays for 7&8 yr olds and 9&10 yr olds with around 15-20 in each class.

Tanya, on Thursdays, takes 2 classes for 11&12 yr olds and 13-16 yr olds. around 10-15 are signed up for each class.

These classes have started late into the year and so they have had to tie together some of the subjects to try to make up the lost lecture time but their first lessons were about the Bible as the word of God and the creation and the fall.

Keep these two dedicated girls in your prayers especially since they are both young mothers

Pastor Mark

School Teachers Day

Every year in Moldova teachers in school are recognised for their hard work on teachers day.

The children usually produce a special programme and pupils usually also bring gifts to their teachers as they are able.

Since Karis Pizza opened we have been able to honour our teachers also by providing a pizza meal at Karis Pizza for all the teachers that want to come.

This year we had around 45 attend.

Here in the centre of this picture is Mr Bibic who is the senior IT teacher in the school and also takes dance lessons after school and alongside him is his wife also a teacher ( of mathmatics ) in the school.

Here are some of the main leaders in the school including Ms Olga Sinegur in the centre of the picture who is the head teacher.

This year we were also pleased to have some former teachers now retired with us.

To the left of the picture is Mr Alister Boghean who is not only a retired teacher but was a mayor of the village for a while some years ago.

Pray for these dedicated teachers who do a faithful job year in year out for little pay

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Repairing the Church

We have begun the expensive, time consuming but absolutely necessary repairs to our church building and the building beside.

During the winter the roof of this building was covered in snow and it finally gave way.

Thus we have been removing the destroyed sections of roof, clearing up the debris etc inside and then we sealed up the part of the building where the roof hadn't fallen down.

This means we are still able to use half the building for storing aid etc.

The roof of our church building was in desperate need of repair.

The apex had been leaking for some years now and we have always had flooding when there was a heavy rain.

Many of the roof panels were cracked and needed replaced

The rest of the roof needed power hose cleaning and then all needed painted. We found that many of the roof trusses were also in poor state

Then the toilets need totally overhauled.

Inside we replaced the worn DVP flooring with tiles

Here are Sergiu and Ilusa laying the tiles but various brothers from the church in Gotesti and in Chircani were involved throughout

In the Spring we will need to paint the outisde of the church and replace the tiling at the front of the church grounds etc etc.

We are not yet finished and it is just as well that our planned baptism in October has been delayed until the new year as we would have had a job to get all finished in time.

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Here are some of the team that have been doing the work although Ilusa one of our key workers was not here on this particaulr occassion as he was organising the harvesting of our sun flower seeds for oil for the aid packets.

In fact the brothers have all been mixing the work at the church with time out for their own needful things.

There is a great deal of work that needs done inside the church also as well as these things outside.

Pray the Lord provides and enables

Pastor Mark

Gotesti City Does it Again

We're delighted to report that our 12-15 yr olds football team won the O.M. cup again this year.

Here are some of the team members posing for a team photo with the cup in our church.

We presented them the cup at the end of the service.

Unfortunately not all the boys where able to attend the presentation ceremony as many had to help their folks harvesting the corn from their fields. (None of these lads on £300,000 per week)

Here is our vice captain holding up the cup ( our captain was harvesting ).

It was a very close tournament this year. Our team drew their first 2 matches with teams B & C who both beat the weakest team in the tournament by 4-1 and 5-0.

Team B&C then played each other and a win for either team would have meant that Gotesti could not win the tournament.

With 5 mins to go B&C were drawing 1-1 when team B was awarded a penalty.

They missed it and went on to draw meaning that Gotesti had to beat the weakest team in the tournament by 6 goals or more to win the cup.

With just a few minutes remaining Gotesti were leading 5-0 and then scored a sixth.

And just to seal it they added a seventh in the dying seconds.

This is the second year in a row that the team has won this tournament and it is a testament to the hard work of Igor and Viorel training them both for football and also from the Bible.

What particularly encouraged me was how the boys conducted themselves both on and off the pitch.

O.M have said any team winning the cup 3 years will get to keep it - just like the world cup

Pray we don't get too proud

Pastor Mark