Week 4 Alpha

We've been encouraged to see increasing numbers come each week to the Alpha course we are currently running in Gotesti.

This week 70 sat down to eat with people coming from 7 different villages.

We added an extra study this week preaching from Luke 19 on Zacheus as it speaks so much of the personal relationship that Christ wants to have with us. Just as he said to Zacheus that He must stay in his house so he knocks on the door of our lives and says "... if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and eat with him.." Rev 3:20
This gave the groups a further oppotunity to talk about issues like repentance and receivng Christ and when I travelled round the various groups exactly these subjects were being discussed.

One group was asking how we hear His voice speaking to us and Sergiu who has recently given his life to the Lord answered very clearly much to our encouragement.

Ruslan had 18 in his group this week from Cantemir, Cania, Porumbesti; not generally a very manageable number but we were very encouraged when 5 of them said they wanted to give their lives to Christ.

We prayed with them after the group

One of the girls from this group got saved in the second week of Alpha and is absoltuely on fire.

In fact the whole group caught some of her flame in the discussions.

We'd very much value your prayers for these and more to keep coming and to be drawn closer to Christ

Pastor Mark

New Alpha Course

We have started a new Alpha course in the church at Gotesti and are into our second week

Around 50 are coming so far from 5 different villages in our region.

For those of you that do not know the format of the Alpha course. We have one meeting per week for around 10 weeks and on each occassion we start with a meal together where we can chat and enjoy one another's company and then from the front a message is given on a theme

The first week's message was Who is Jesus and this week we looked at Why did Jesus die.

Then we split into groups and discuss questions or thoughts arising from the theme of the message or any other taxing questions.

This is the group from Badicu village with Lucian the pastor right of picture. A very intelligent and active group.

One lady in one of the other groups felt she wanted to give her life to the Lord after the meeting and with joy and tears received Him.

The man on the left looking into the camera in this picture is Volodia, the pastor of the church in Cantemir.

This group included some of the oldest ones attending but one of our other groups included some youth as young as 16 so we are blessed to have a great mix of ages and backgrounds finding the Alpha course of use

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Christmas Meeting 2011

We had an encouraging turn out once again at our Christmas celebration meeting which we held on Dec 26 this year as it was a Sunday.

There were a good number of unsaved who attended many coming to us for the first time.

We had a children's programme as always and Ruslan brought the word this year.

Here the youngest are ones acting as angels ( happens just once a year in my experience )

Then the older ones did a nativity play

Here all the players are gathered for the final bow as it were

All the costumes were made by ladies from our church and several of these kids are not regulars ( yet ) in our Sunday school

Then our adolescents also did a play and our youth did a song.

Just looking at our youth group here - the front row of girls includes 2 who have their weddings already planned this year Claudia and Cristina and another who's planning for next year. ( still a secret - watch this space )

Please pray that many who came to the Christmas meeting will continue to come to the church and even join the Alpha course we are starting 30 Jan 2011

Pastor Mark

Love in a Box comes to Moldova again

We have been very blessed to, once again, have received shoe box presents for the kids in our schools here in the South of Moldova for Christmas.

Mustard Seed is the organisation from England that has sent us these boxes.

In fact this year they were able to send us 2 lorry loads - 15,000 boxes in all which meant that over 40 villages here in the South had the blessing of some, if not all, of the children in their village getting a Christmas present of a shoe box full of gifts.

Here is one of the schools in our village in the Flaminda area getting their presents.

Boxes are sent to us for girls and boys ages 3-5; 6-11 and 12-15. It is largely children in the UK that fill the boxes with different gifts and the quality of the gifts are so good that it makes me proud to be British -indeed they are love in a box.

A.M.E.C, an international children's organisation gave us children's tracts that tell the Biblical story of Christ's birth and why God became a man and came to earth. We were able to give each child that received a box one of these tracts.

The main school in Gotesti is in the centre and we invited the teachers to bring the kids from their classes to our church to receive their gift.

Here classes 1-4, ages 7-11 are receiving their gifts.

In our church we were able to do a bit of a Christmas programme and short message to the kids about the meaning of Christmas.

Marina and Tanya, here pictured, are the two girls that are teaching the religion lectures in the school. They opened up a shoe box gift that in fact contained a story about the best Christmas gift "ISUS" - Jesus who died to pay for and remove our sins so that we could come into a personal relationshsip with Him - which is the true meaning of Christmas.

I also finished with a short message explaining that we have a personal relationship with God and know all our sins forgiven not because we are good and deserve this but because we have turned to Jesus to save us.

We finished by saying at this Christmas season it is a time for reflecting

"Do you have this personal relationship with God that Jesus came to give us?"

Pastor Marj=k

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