Bayfarm Visit 2009

It was great to have the team from Bayfarm with us again from 2-9 October. Their pastor Jim Meyer came with them this time. He hasn’t been since 2006 and we used every spare moment of his time.

He preached at a wedding we had on the Saturday when Viorel from Pascani and our own Aliona were married. Then he was the preacher at our Sunday morning service and here he is speaking at a conference we had for our pastors from the South – around 90 came the first day and some 50 on the second day. Jim taught and answered questions on “handling conflict in the church.”

There were quite a few who came for individual help after the meetings and we also went to visit some others

Jim was also our main speaker to 50 of our teachers from Gotesti on National Teacher’s day which we held in the pizza parlour and later that day he preached in our mid week meeting following on from Sunday’s topic of forgiving one another and why it is sometimes hard.

Teachers day is an opportunity for us to show our appreciation of our teachers who do a very difficult job for very little pay. A free meal once a year isn't exactly life changing for them but at least it gives us the opportunity to give something back to them. However much to our surprise the teachers felt they would like to bless us and here is Oleg the head teacher giving us a gift of a flower

We also took Jim with us on our trip to the church plant in Pelinei where Jim was the preacher in their meeting while his wife Kim took the other half of the team to Baurcii.

The team were of course as busy as ever they have been while in Moldova.

Here is Bob Wilbur giving out aid to one of many needy families that were helped with food while other homes received wood for the upcoming winter when it can get down to -15C.

Every winter hypothermia brings untimely deaths.

Christine and Bob Wilbur were the new recruits this year and here Christine is giving here testimony in a meeting. It was a very moving story of traumatic and abusive experiences in childhood and youth and how she found Christ to be her saviour and then friend and comforter in the midst.

Bob used his guitar playing gift in the visits to kindergartens and schools and also gave a powerful testimony in the meeting in Pelinei after recovering from two days of flu that left him confined to bed.

Kim, Jim's wife, was, as always, the
driving force behind the trip.

She had just recovered in time from a virus that looked stopping her being on the trip and here she is sharing at the teachers meeting with Mari translating.

Her fortitude in dealing with the main physical ailments that she has to contend with is an example and inspiration to all.

Chris Modic is the other veteran of the Bayfarm trips having been on all so far.

Here he is standing beside the Soba sponsored by Bayfarm that Ilusa built for the Constantinovca kindergarten.

Chris also led the men's meeting.

He is much loved by our men as he always shares honestly from the heart - warts and all.

He shocked us all by telling us his method of stopping a conflict with his wife getting out of hand

When the conflict is getting too hot Chris begins .................

If you're reading this Chris I felt this was just too hot to put on a public site but if anybody e mails me I'll be putting them in touch with you

Pastor Mark

Harvest Service at Gotesti

Any one who has been following this blog recently will think that the only thing we do in Moldova in our churches is have harvest celebrations
This is the cake that some of our youth made for our harvest meeting in Gotesti on Sunday 27th September.

We had around 200 in total come to the celebration and we used it as a time to not only thank the Lord for the material things he has blessed us with in the last year but also all the spiritual things He has done - answers to prayer etc

This is Liuba giving testimony. Her 40 yr old daughter had contracted a cirrhossis in her liver while getting a blood transfusion in Chisinau.

She was now living in Serbia and the specialist there told her the bad news that if she didn't get a liver transplant she would die. This was next to impossible as there are so few available and she wasn't even a Serbian citizen. Liuba brought it to the church for prayer and we all with one heart together with her prayed and fasted for a miracle - either God's miraculous healing or a liver to be provided for the transplant. As she drew close to dying our prayers became more desperate. Can you imagine the joy for us all and especially Liuba when God answered with the provision of a liver for transplant.

She's had the transplant and is going on well. Our thanks also go to the surgeons whom we never met that got the liver and did the operation.

So it was an occassion f0r joy and thanksgiving for us all to remember at the harvest ( thanksgiving ) service God's answer to our prayers with Liuba

Various ones from our church family took part in the service.

This is David, Ruslan's son, doing a poem about how God created the various fruits - looks like he might have eaten the fruit already and our Abigail is about to tell him off after he's finished the poem.

This is Cristina and Aliona singing a duet.

This was Cristina's last Sunday with us as she is going off to University in Romania to study for 3 years

She'll be coming home at end of term times but it did feel like a parting was taking place.

Panainte Chicicov, the mayor of our villages also took the trouble to come to our harvest service with his wife Valentina. He spoke a short word of encouragement and they both stayed and ate with us at the after service meal.

Around 130 stayed for the meal afterwards and we were overjoyed that our believers had brought so many chickens, ducks, veg etc that we had an abundance to feed all and had plenty to spare.

It was a joyous occassion and we pray God's blessing that we may have many more.

Pray for us and the arrival of a team from Bayfarm Church in California on Frid 2 Oct and the ministry that they will do in our villages and others while they are here.

Pastor Mark

Harvest at Slobozia Mare

We had the priviledge of being invited to speak at the harvest service of the Baptist church in Slobozia Mare

The village has approx. 8000 residents and around 300 of them including the lady mayoress came to

the service.

Again as in Giurgulesti the Pentecostal church's youth came to take part in the worship

As well as the harvest service they had a dedication and here we see Nicolai, the pastor of the church, explaining it's significance.

He is standing under the word seceris which means harvest and is made from corn seeds

Vasile, the pastor of Cuslita Prut, a neaby village is here pictured bringing a word of encouragement.

They cancelled their Sunday meeting and the whole church came to this harvest service

Later I brought an evangelistic message taking as my text Jer 8:20. "The harvest has passed, the summer is ended and we are not saved"

I explained that biblically being saved means having an assurance that you will be in heaven when you die, having a personal relationship with God now on earth that also brings you a purpose to life until you get to heaven as well as knowing all your sins forgiven among other things.

We looked at the fact that Eph 2:8,9 tells us that "it is by grace we are saved through faith... not by works ..." and explained that grace is God giving us the opposite of what we deserve going on to point out that although what we deserve for our sins and selfish life is judgment that Jesus ( God become man ) died in our place on the cross taking the judgment that we should have had and now God offers us forgiveness, heaven, abundant life etc something that we plainly do not deserve.

We explained that this salvation is obtained by coming back to God from our own selfish ways, giving the rest of our lives to him and trusting in Jesus to save us.

We ended by saying "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended and I AM SAVED .... WHAT ABOUT YOU!!

Those in attendance were then given the opportunity to make that decision for themselves and come to Christ - around 20 came forward.

It was also our joy to meet Tudor, on the left of the picture.

What a testimony he is to the grace of God.

He was saved in 1949 and is 87 years old and could hardly contain the joy of his salvation as he gave testimony in the meeting even though it is 60 years since his relationship with Jesus began

As per last week in Giurgulesti we were all able to share a fellowship meal together afterwards, celebrating the Lord's provision of a good harvest.

This celebration of God's goodness in an abundant harvest such as this is something that would not be taken for granted by ones like Tudor who lived through the famine in Moldova in the years after the war when many died of starvation.

Next Sunday is our harvest service at Gotesti - please pray for a harvest of souls

Pastor Mark

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

Costa gets a birthday treat at Karis

One of the blessings of having Karis Pizza is that we are able to give our members little treats from time to time.

This is 74 year old Costa on his birthday whom we were able to invite for a pizza with us We were also to invite Despina his daughter.

Costa is the oldest believer we have in the church and he was baptised and became a member around 7 years ago.

He walks the 3 Km to the church and back again for every meeting rarely missing a meeting. He is uncomplaining, faithful and a lovely uncomplicated witness to all.

Despina his daughter was one of our first members and she also is very faithful and a hard working servant of the Lord.

Her daughter Aliona will be getting married on 3 Oct - the first of her children to leave home.

Not long after Costa got saved, his wife of many years took sick with cancer from which she shortly afterwards died

We had the priviledge of leading her to the Lord in the last week of her life and Costa has the certain hope of meeting again with the love of his life.

It is a priviledge to have ones like these in the flock.

Pastor Mark

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

Our team wins the cup

Our team won the cup!!!

Here is our adolescents team - "Gotesti City" parading the cup.

This is an anual competition run by O.M for all of Moldova.

Churches invite adolecents from 12-15 to join this church based football team which is then entered in this competition in Chisinau. This year our team won.

It was a close competition run on a league basis and we won on goal difference ( note the referrence "we" and you'll also see me in all the pictures - it's good copy for me as a pastor to be seen with winners! )

This is Vasile Popovici who also won the equivalent of the golden boot for scoring the most goals in the competition - 9 in all. Igor tells me he is quie a talent and has possibilities for a future in the game

And speaking of Igor, here he is with Viorel (on the right) getting some deserved credit as both have worked hard with the team throughout the whole summer.

They've been coaching them 4 mornings 8.30 -10.30 every week all summer.

In the middle, holding the cup, is the captain of the team Andrei Moldovanu. Many of you may remember me doing a blog on Vova Moldovanu, his father, the former mafia man of the village, who got saved. Well Andrei is his 15 year old son - going on with God and developing into a leader already under the mentoring of Igor and Viorel.

Here is Roma, whom many of you are praying for. He is also part of the team and going on with God

He's photographed outside proudly wearing his medal

Both his parents are away working in Italy so he has no-one to esteem him like a parent would normally do so moments like this where he feels particularly valued are significant in his life.

During his work with the team all summer Igor prepared a bible study for every time the group met.

This is the major part of the ethic of this O.M. run project - to reach young adolescents with the gospel.

In the picture of the team above, only 3 of the adolescents are saved and of the rest for most this was their first time at the church but Igor reports that they have all been attentive and active in the bible studies each day at the football training.

Could you pray, now that the football summer season is over, that they still keep coming to the church and also pray that we are able to start a new group - maybe table tennis or something else in October that will be of enough interest to them that they will continue to come to the church.

It would be a shame to loose what has already been built up among them.

Pastor Mark