Monday, August 30, 2010

New Church Plant at Ursoaia




Ursoaia is a village of around 1700 people just a couple kms from Pelinei where Misa Hiorescu ( pictured here sharing from the word in Ursoaia meeting) is the pastor.



Misa was born and raised in this village and so for years it has been on his heart to see a church started in the village.

There is not now, nor ever has been, a Christian church of any kind in this village so what a priviledge it was for us ( I and one of our worship teams ) to be called to assist Misa in a week long mission to launch the church.



Around 20 people came each evening and on Saturday evening we did the meeting outside.


The actual meeting place is half of this shop lengthwise that you can see in the background.






Sunday saw the most number of villagers come and during the week Misa's mother gave her life to the Lord and a few others also made responses to gospel appeals

















Vova and Tanya believers from our church in Gotesti gave a testimony and poem respectively

Vova's mother is originally from this village and she came with us from Gotesti and encouraged her sister and husband who still live in the village to come to the meeting on Sunday


Each evening after the meeting everyody stayed to talk more and we saw that all these were seeking at one level or another.


This is just the beginning of the work in this village. I, the worship team and Vova and Tanya plan to go there next Sunday when the ordinary Sunday meeting will take place at 4.00 pm but we realise what is needed is meeting and talking with people one to one for them to understand that we are not some cult that has strange ideas.


Pray for Misa and his team as he does this week in week out and for the youth and children's works he wants to start soon.


Pastor Mark




Baptisms at Pelinei Lake




I and one of our worship groups from Gotesti were invited by pastor Misa to come and take the baptism meeting at the lake just outside Pelinei on Sunday 22 August.


Seven people were baptised including 4 from Pelinei and 2 from Ursoaia.


It's a beautiful setting and although the water was not as warm as it looks from these pictures it was a joyous occasion.



Misa Hiorescu, in the foreground here, is the pastor of Pelinei church and also of the newly forming church in Ursoaia, the next village to Pelinei.








There were a good number of people who came including many were not Christians and later after a gospel message and appeal there were some that responded.



After the programme and message came the baptisms.



The man in the picture being baptised is a believer from Colibasi church - the biggest church in the South ( he'd missed the recent baptism meeting they had had earlier) and the young woman being baptised is Antonia, Misa's 16 yr old daughter.















May the Lord continue to bless the work Misa is doing in both Pelinei and Ursoaia


Pastor Mark

Progress at Chircani Church Community Centre


We have at last started to do some work on the church community centre in Chircani.

Here a team from mission direct are helping fit doube glazed windows to the existing building.

As you can see they are also working on painting the fence that they were involved in building.

Sadly you may also observe that the fence is close beside the church rather than near the road.

We had hoped to be able to purchase the land in front of the church so we could have a kids playground and nice grass and flowers but the local council refused us permission to buy it.

We have been running into many problems with our documents ( what else is new!) which has meant that we were not able to start the main construction changes this summer but we are trusting that this will give us time to raise more of the 48K needed for this project so we can start with full power in the Spring of 2011.
As you can see from this picture we have finished the windows ( and will soon also have the doors done ) and we have done a temporary paint job on the outside. We will do some painting etc in the inside and thus have a meeting room ready to have our Sunday meetings and children's meetings throughout this winter.
Pray with us that the various bodies do the documents as they should do and we are able to start
Pray also that all the funds come in for us to be able to finish this project by the end of next summer.

Pastor Mark

Floods in Gotesti




In the light of what's been happening in Pakistan to say we have had floods in Gotesti seems almost a condradiction in terms.

This is the village cementry and for those who have been to our village they know that where you see a lake in the background was, up until July of this year, arable and planted land.

The river Prut burst it's banks and there are hundreds of hectares of land now under 4m of water.

Fortunately, no-one was killed or seriosuly injured

What did happen however was that many lost their land and some their homes.

This is the homestead of a friend (in fact one of our best customers at Karis Pizza ). The water entered into the first floor level of his house aparently

The trees at the very back of the picture is where the river Prut actually is so you can see how far the water has come in land.



The main road to Chisinau from the South which runs through Gotesti has also been cut off since the floods in July.

The water has been gradually receeding but the road is still cut off.

The interesting thing about all this problem with flooding that we have had is that the end result is a very picturesque Gotesti as you can see.


So much so that the government is considering proposals, of rather than draining the water leaving it to remain as a reservoir.


Seems like it would make a nice tourist spot to me.


Pastor Mark