Mari's Graduation

Here's my darling wife getting her BEE bible school graduation certificate.

I couldn't be prouder.

This is the same course that we run in Gotesti for pastors, leaders, church planters etc in the South except that the course was for women.

Pastor Lucian the director of the BEE course in Romania is presenting the certificate to Mari as he did for the other 29 students that were part of the course.

Most of the ladies were either leaders of the women's ministry amongst Baptists or Pentecostals in Moldova or wives of leaders or pastors.

We husbands were invited for the final subject in the course - "A healthy marriage" which included teaching and one to one discussion in couples of various questionaires.

Lidia Schiopu who is at the microphone in the picture was their teacher throughout the course and shared the teaching with Pastor Lucian during these 3 days of the marriage course also.

It was an emotional fairwell for all the ladies and Lidia as the Moldovan ladies now pick up the baton for continuing to minister as ladies in Moldova and mentoring other ladies to spread the work.

A big task indeed as one of the husbands who spoke reminded us since 70% of membership of churches are women.

Always in need of your prayers

Pastor Mark

Tolica

This is the village of Tolica ( or at least one half of it ).

It is a village of around 1000 residents in the North East part of the county of Cantemir and one of the villages that comes under the brief the B.U gave me for the county.

I have not be able to visit it until now as it's a bit in the countryside and when the winter weather is upon is the roads become difficult to travel on.

However I went this last Sunday with one of our worship teams from Gotesti and had a lovely time.

Stefan Rosca ( pictured in the middle ) is the pastor of the baptist church that has been planted in the village.

He's an old friend having come to the very first in house BEE bible school that we ran in Gotesti around 10 years ago.

He is a history teacher in the school and has been pastoring the church since before that time.

They managed to build a church building some time ago although as you can see like most church buildings in our patch it is not entirely finished.

They have around 15 members although most are old.

Nonetheless there were 2 adult non Christians at the meeting on Sunday who were both clearly challenged by the whole programme and message.

They stayed afterwards to ask more questions and were in agreement to meet again and talk more.

We're planning to go on another day soon and do a day long mission - to include street evangelism, door to door, and an outreach mission.

Always in need of your prayers.

Pastor Mark

End of year for our girls

In Moldova the first 4 years of school life from age 7-11 see the students remain in the same class with the same teacher. Only after this year do they separate into different classes.

Thus graduation this year was quite an emotional time for both Rachael, her class, her teacher (Miss Natalia to the right of the picture ) and us as a family since all the students would be no longer together.

Rachael is holding a "graduation" certificate that recorded her results for the year - she had an average of 9.36 ( out of 10 ) for all the subjects and was thrilled to have come first in the class.

The teacher then had the class go through various resumes of what they had learned in the last 4 years.

Of course it was the last day of school for both our daugthers and here they are posing in our garden before going to school.

It's been lovely weather over the last days and our cherries have come out and our strawberries.There's also been a healthy amount of rain during May so we might get a decent potato harvest.

In our church we pray for rain and rejoice, praising God when it comes - a little different one imagines from the UK.

Abigail also had her end of year pageant. Their teacher had them dress up in traditional Moldovan outfits and sing Moldovan songs and poems.

Do pray for their teacher who has been coming to the church quite regularly recently

Mari also invited Rachael's graduating class over to Karis for a free pizza.

They are the group in the background behind Larisa and family

Always in need of your prayers

Pastor Mark

Ambassadors in Sport come to Moldova

I came to the Lord in April 1984 after a life lived very much in the world with all it's trappings.

I got born again and joined the Wharf Rd Baptist church but I was 28 and had no friends in the church of my age and background so the transforming process in the first 2 years of my Christian life was very hard.

However. Ray and Crista Tucker, mature Christians of many years standing, answered my advert in the local paper "Christian man seeks Christian home" and I moved in to live with them.

They mentored me for the first 2 years of my Christian life.

Ray is now European director of A.I.S and they came out this year to do a TREC course here in Moldova. Ray is the man in the middle of the picture - he is actually only 25 years old so you can see what 2 years of living with me in 1984 did to him. (Only joking Ray)

TREC is a training course that equips Christians to coach football to an UEFA standard as well as sharing the gospel and starting a ministry with the young people who come to the course.

Ray and the team did the course in Chisinau at O.M head quarters to which around 40 pastors and leaders came to be trained over the 4 day course including many from Cantemir where we have a responsiblity.

After the course in Chisinau, Ray came down to us in Gotesti with his team -

Graham from Spain and Fabrizio and his wife Rebeca from Italy. Igor had already started a group last year in Gotesti and has now started another in Chircani with Ray and the team's help.

On Sunday the team ministered in the church in Gotesti with Ray preaching the message

We trust they will come back next year and do the next level of the coaching training

Pray for all the groups that are being set up in Cantemir, Porumbesti and other villages in our county

Pastor Mark