Easter Meeting

Easter time is the most significant time of the year in the Christian calendar and Moldova is no exception. All citizens greet one another for a period of 40 days with "Christ is Risen" and a reply of "He's risen indeed" - Tremendous testimony to the truth.

Here our kids are doing a sketch with 6 coloured flags as a means of presenting the gospel ( it's like the coloured beads of the wrist band ministry ). Black is sin, yellow is the grace of God ( the undeserved kindness of God that gave Jesus to die in our place to pay for and remove our sin which is a barrier to God so we can come into personal relationship with Him). Red is for His blood which he shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins etc

Unintentional comedy was provided as Jesus sitting on a donkey that was a little too big for his hooves almost fell off.

A goodly number of people came to honour God including the mayor of the village who brought an encouraging and interesting word - this reminds me to ask for prayer for the upcoming local elections June 5 for which the mayor is restanding along with several other candidates. Pray that honesty prevails.

I brought a message about Pilate. A man who had the authority to release Jesus and whose conscience clearly witnessed to him that Jesus was guiltless "I find no fault in this Man" and to whom God spoke - when his wife sent a message that she had a dream to have nothing to do with this righteous man. Pilate tried evey method to avoid having to make a decision about Jesus - trying to get the Jews to judge him and then Herod to judge him; trying to release Barabbas in His place. But in the end Pilate had to make a decision to stand with Jesus or against Him ( Jesus said in the Bible "If you are not for Me you are against me") Finally the people cried out to Pilate if you don't condemn Him you are "no friend of Caesar's" and when Pilate realised that to stand with Jesus would mean loosing his position, friends, influence, wealth etc he chose to stand against Him. At that moment Pilate lost his life for eternity. ( Math 25 tells us that Jesus is the judge on the final day and Jesus has already said he who is ashamed of me I also will be ashamed of him in the final day.) What a tragedy that a man that was not so blind that he did not see the truth still lost his life by the decision he made to choose position over Jesus. I tried to encourage all present not to make the same mistake.

We had some friends staying with us over the Easter period Neil and Joan Robinson. Neil gave his testimony during the meeting which helped many, I believe, to see the Father heart of God

May the risen Jesus reveal himself to you over this Easter period

Pastor Mark

Chircani adolescents at Table Tennis match

Jora, Sasa and Ruslan have started an adolescents group at Chircani which meets every week

They play games and have bible teaching and steadily a regular groups of kids has formed.

One of the games they play is table tennis using a table that was bought by funds provided by Eurovangelism.

Jora, Sasa and Ruslan decided to organise a table tennis match between the Chircani kids and a team from the Gotesti adolescents groups that Igor runs and here they are in the middle of the match.

Unfortunately, depending from whose perspective you look, Gotesti won the match but a great time was had by all.

Yours truly was asked to come and bring an evangelistic message to the group and encouragingly around 5/6 responded to an appeal whom Jora and Sasa are following up.

Keep these ones in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Baptism Meeting at Gotesti

On 10 April we had a baptism meeting in Gotesti church to which we invited churches that had partaken in the Alpha course that we ran over the winter. In fact the baptism was the last week of the Alpha course - a sort of pratical lecture.

As you can see we had a good turnout of people, not only from our villages of Gotesti and Chircani but also from the other villages participating in the course.

We had 10 people being baptised and 7 of them had come to faith in the Alpha course.

There are at least another 10-15 that are going through discpleship studies and we would hope to see many of them come through to baptism in the Autumn

Ruslan, our deacon, led the meeting and Aliona led the worship with Olesia and Nadina assisting.

The pastors of the churhces that brought baptism candidtaes to the meeting assisted me in the actual baptisms. Stefan from Porumbesti had 7 people from his church getting baptised. Here he is with Grisa who gave his life to the Lord towards the end of thr Alpha course and then Volodia ( in black ) from Cantemir together with me as we baptised Denis - the son of one of his members and a young man who seems quite on fire

Our trustees were out with us at the time of the baptism meeting and they took part in the celebration. Here Dave Lynn, our treasurer, is singing a duet with Julie Collier - a long time supporter of the work here both finacnially and in prayer. Her husband Geoff was out last year when the trustees came.

Then there was John Dyson - our senior trustee and a veteran of visits to Moldova. (I think he said this was his 16 or 17th visit to Moldova)

John preached the gospel message at the meeting and one of those who responded was the wife of a young man who had come to faith in the Alpha course so all in all an encouraging time was had both in the time of the Alpha course and the baptism meeting as a result

Pray for more of the same

Pastor Mark

Surprise Visit from Colibasi team

We were surprised and blessed to have a group of youth from the church at Colibasi come and visit us.

Colibasi is the biggest Baptist church here in the South with around 500 members.

These youth under their own steam and self funded try to regularly visit other churches to support the church's ministry.

They brought a programme of songs and poems and were a refreshment to all.

Some of these ones were as young as 14 and following in the tradition of the Colibasi church that has always had a great reputation for worship having a large choir and also a large group that play mandolins



Our own Ruslan finished the meeting with a word from the scriptures and also a closing prayer


Pastor Mark

Badicu couples at Karis

One of the blessings of having our Karis pizzeria is that there is a function room and other churches are able to use it for special events

Here Lucian, from the church at Badicu, brought a group of couples from his village to have a meal together and enjoy an evening out in celebration of 8th of March - ladies day. It was a surpirse outing for the wives.

They have just finished and Alpha marriage course at his church and these ones were enthusiastic attenders.

It was a joy to be with them and you could feel the close relationship they already have even though only 2 couples were actually church members

Here they are playing a game. A couple stands back to back and each have a fork and a knife. The fork represents the wife and the knife the husband. They are then asked questions e.g "who takes the rubbish out each day" Then each has to raise either fork or knife or both fork & knife to say which is correct. There were some fun results.

We were asked to bring a word from the Bible to finish the evening and so Mari and I both shared a short word.

Lord more of these kind of evenings please!

Pastor Mark

8th of March meeting

Each year on the 8th of March Moldova honours all the ladies of the country. Girls and wives receive flowers and are pampered for the day ( the other 364 days are men's day )

We also do a programme for the mothers at the church.

Here the girls and boys are celebrating Spring - the day coincides with the Spring time of the year.






The umbrellas represent the flowers opening

All ages present their programme. Here the little ones are doing their spot with David temporarily forgetting his lines and Liviu beside him demonstrating what it means to be laid back ( or walking in rest to be more spiritual )

The leaves of the trees for the healing of the nations? LORD LET IT BE SO! - especially in these troubled times in which we live.

Then the older ones - and our Rachael is now being included in the older ones category!! - how time flies! She'll be 12 on 9th May!!!

Mum Jesus loves you the sign says - and so do we!

Finally all of the children brought a spring flower to their mums and then off we went to eat meals made and served by the mums - short lived day of rest and celebration for the ladies!!

Pastor Mark

Visit from Giugulesti Church

On Sunday 27th Feb we had the pastor and a group of youth come from Giurgulesti Baptist Church and participate in our Sunday morning meeting.

Giurgulesti is around 90Km further South from us and is right on the border with Romania and also Ukraine.

The church there has been established from just after the war while Pastor Fedea has been there as missionary and pastor since 1990.

After our own worship group began with a couple of worship songs the Giurgulesti youth group then did a programme of songs and Christian poems.

We had Misa Caraivan the leader of the youth at National level for the Baptist Union also with us and he brought a short message of encouragement towards the end of their programme.

Then Fedea Parparlov, the pastor of Giurgulesti Baptist Church brought the main message for the day. His theme was being led by God in His care.

We all felt encouraged and lifted up.

Their programme with us came to a close as Fedea's daugther Rebecca and their youth leader sang a duet.

It also gave us all an excuse to go and have a pizza together in Karis Pizza after the meeting.

Ah life is so hard here in Moldova!!!

Pastor Mark