Winter's not over yet

If you looked out my window now as I write you'd think Spring is here - blue sky some buds on the trees etc

But the Moldovans have a phrase for this kind of weather

"Sunshine with teeth"

It is still bitterly cold at night and even during the day at times

So it was good that with gifts from your good selves we were able to bring various needy ones at least some wood to do until the end of the winter we hope

This older lady is blind and has grandchildren and great grandchildren living with her

Some of you may recognise Marusia here for whom you have been praying for more than a year

She has not been coming to the church at all and a major reason is that she has been looking after husband who had a stroke.

As you can see he is walking with the aid of a stick ( things were much worse at one time )

However his disability has meant that he has been unable to work so the gift of this wood for them has come as a real blessing

Despina is one of our believers

Her husband is not a believer but has been working for the flour mill for about 8 months and has not been paid by them for the last 5 leaving them little or not funds for "luxuries" like wood

So again your gifts have helped enormously

Please keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

Conference in Sovata

Mari and I were blessed to be invited to a conference in Romania held at the lovely mountain resort of Sovata

Around 250 pastors and leaders of churches - Baptist, Pentecostal and Brethern - were in attendance for the 3 day conference

The speakers for the conference were Stuart and Jill Briscoe

Not long after I got born again in 1984 I read a book which was very encouraging by Jill Briscoe called "How to fail successfully"

Jill took the ladies while Stuart took the men

Mari mentioned to Jill about me being encouraged by her book all those years ago and she said interestingly enough someone had spoken to her the week before about how, many years ago, that book had been used to lead them to the Lord but Jill had said to the person that she never wrote such a book - she had forgotten she had written it and now here were two people in a week bringing it to her mind.

Stuart had pastored a church in USA from 400 to 4000 members and not surprisingly had much encouraging and relevant stuff to say those of us in

ministry.

When asked how he would summarise what a leader should concentrate on he said

Preach the Word

Love the People

Pray for the Holy Spirit to Move

Sovata was also a lovely place to be, to relax and although the weather was not great we still managed to go out an enjoy the local scenery

In fact many people come to the hotel for it's spa and swimming pools and fitness centre and saunas

Unfortunately we were foolish enough not to get round to using any of these until the last day and then greatly regretted that we hadn't used them more

This was my first time in a sauna for 20 years and Mari's first time ever

We were also able to go to this conference with our good friends Anatol and Nadia Dunas ( he is pastor at Emanuel church in Cahul

We are all under much pressure all the time and so it was good to get away for a few days

And much to the pleasure of both myself and the main speaker Mr Brisoce (a man of great wisdom and discernment) Man Utd beat Inter Milan 2-0 in the champions league on the Wednesday of the conference.

Enough Said?

Mark

8th March

In the west we celebrate mother's day albeit it a bit low key

However here in Moldova and indeed most of Eastern Europe 8th of March is a national celebration as woman's day

We had a meeting at the church and saw quite a few new ladies come to the meeting

One of the things our Sunday school teachers organised was for each of the children to find their mothers in the meeting and bring a 8th of March gift - some a flower some a bar of chocolate and so on

It was much appreciated.

Here is Angela, one of our alpha course receiving from her son Dima

The coffee shop was full - in fact we had our busiest day since we opened with sizeable parties coming from different churches to celebrate 8th March

Here we see half the group of the church from Crehana and we had a group from Chisilea

We also had some locals from Gotesti and also some from other nearby villages

So steadily people are coming to the coffee shop but the world financial crisis is as you can imagine not helping things much

Keep us in your prayers

Pastor Mark

The New Car

You'll remember that recently we were blessed by the Lord's answer to prayer in providing us the cash to buy a vehicle to transport the physically disabled to the meetings.

Here are two men that have been coming as a result of us being able to bring them by the car.

They have both been to the meetings before but only on special occassions when we have pulled out the stops to get them there.

Nicolai is the one on the right of the picture and the good news is that last week he asked Misa, our leader of the ministry to the physically disabled if someone could come to his hosue to do a bible study with him so he could discover what it means to "have a personal relationship with God"

This it seems to us is direct fruit from having this vehicle - thanks be to God and encouragement to those who prayed and gave.

Pray for brother Ion ( another member of the physically disabled team ) who will be doing the studies with Nicolai

Pastor Mark

Alpha away day

Well, what a wonderful time we had at the Alpha course "away day"

Our friend and fellow pastor Andrei Ciobanu allowed us to use the facilities at his church kindergarten and all 23 of us were able to meet together in this room and then eat together in the canteen upstairs

We arrived at 9.30 a.m. and left at 9.30 p.m having done 3 sessions of a "talk and discussion time" on the Holy Spirit and His ministry in our lives.

It also gave us much more time together than our usual 2 hours on a Sunday so that we were able to talk many more personal things and answer many questions on many themes - one discussion time after the talk lasted 3.5 hours

At the end of the day several gave their lives to the Lord and others dedicated themselves more fully.

We also discovered that one of the couples and a single mum from the group are being told to leave their homes by his mother and the single lady's sister respectively because they are attending these meetings

This single mum had sneaked out of the house leaving the child with her mum and not telling her sister where she was going to come to this day away. Somehow her sister who owns the house in which she is staying found out and even rang her at the course to give her a hard time

Yet the couple by the end of the weekend said they want to fully commit their lives to the Lord and the single mum wants to keep coming even more to the meetings.

Everyone was so blessed by the day that they insisted I get some song books from Andrei because they wanted to sing praise on the way home

Then on the following day the group got together to sing a programme in the Sudnay morning meeting

Keep praying for them as some are now wanting to get baptised and their unsaved husbands might be against this while others are wanting to make a commitment to Christ but he is still standing outside their door

Pastor Mark

The Story of the Mobile Phone Pouch

Many years ago I remember talking to a brother who had been to a meeting where the late Derek Prince was the main speaker.

Now I am telling this story secondhand and from distant memory so I trust I am not breaking any copyright laws or writing any misquotes but the brother in question told me that Derek Prince had said something like God had given him an annointing for a particulr gift of healing and that, the gift he had was for the healing of people who had one leg shorter than the other.

Now this brother had exactly that problem and went up to Derek to be prayed for and was healed.

I remember the brother saying to me that he went home and without saying anything to his unsaved parents his mother a couple of days later said "Son what has happened to your legs as I've noticed there isn't that kink in the back of your trousers any more."

I was very struck by this testimony at the time and noticed also that the list of gifts in 1 Cor 12 talks about "gifts ( PLURAL ) of healing" and so thought that biblically this was possible.

Now from the time I became a Christian, if I am being honest, I think the gift of the Spirit I most wanted was the gift of healing and yet as much as I asked for it and as much as I prayed for the sick no gift of healing manifested itself.

So now with renewed vigour I asked the Lord "well at least a gift of healing for a specific sickness Lord"

Sadly, although over the years I have seen one or two people healed and even dramatically when I have prayed, the gift or gifts of healing does not seem to be something the Spirit has chosen to give me ( I live in hope though )

Now what, I hear you say, has all this got to do with a mobile phone pouch.

Well as my wife will tell you ( if I let her which I won't ) I am always mislaying things around the house

I put keys, important documents, money etc etc down somewhere and then cannot find where I have put them.

This has been going on for some years now.

However, about a year ago, when I had yet again mislaid something and was getting frustrated because I could not find it I suddenly stopped my frantic search and turned to the Lord and prayed "Lord show me where it is - either open my eyes or lead me to it as I search"

And praise God He led me straight to it within a matter of seconds.

I was, as you can imagine, full of praise and thanksgiving and joy.

Since then I have done this on every occassion that I have mislaid something and without fail the Lord has led me to it within seconds.

( The single occassion when I didn't find my driving license and residency card the Lord that day led me to the policemen who had taken them and forgotten to give them back - that's another story )

I get such joy when this happens that I almost want to mislay something deliberately so the Lord can encourage me.

(Of course you can't do that since you know where you mislaid it and therefore it isn't mislaid)

Yes but what's that got to do with the mobile phone pouch I hear you impatiently asking.

I'm tempted to say look at next week's blog for the answer but I am guessing after reading this one you might not log in again.

About 3 weeks ago I lost my mobile phone pouch in the house. I looked for it and didn't find it but didn't have time to search diligently.

Again I looked in a rushed way unsuccessfully and so on until last Saturday.

When finally I stopped and said "What am I doing - Lord please lead me to it"

Well I looked in a place where I had searched about 100 times and didn't find it but I moved to the second place where I had already looked but not diligently and there it was.

This led me to praising and thanking him with joy.

Then the following day - Sunday. A sister came to me after the meeting and said "Brother Mark, I am so stressed; I have mislaid a large sum of money in the house and I cannot find it - I've been looking all week"

So I explained how the Lord answers my prayers and leads me to where the lost item is and suggested she pray the same but I could see she did not have the faith.

So I prayed for her that the Lord would open her eyes and lead her to where the money was.

Praise the Lord the next morning she rang me full of joy and thanksgiving to God to say the Lord had led her straight to it.

Praise HIm

So maybe I didn't get a gift of healing like Derek Prince but ...... have you mislaid anything in the house?

Oh that God would annoint your prayers and mine that lost souls ( those precious lost silver coins of God ) would be found.

Perhaps we need to pray He opens our eyes to see where they are and leads us to them?

Pastor Mark

Adolescents party at Karis Pizza

This is our adolescent group having an ice cream party at our Pizza restaurant.

There were 23 of them to-day but the group has as many as 30 attending on a Tuesday on a regular basis.

The large majority of them are from non churched families

We meet with these on a Tuesday because we do not have the room in our present building to meet on a Sunday.

Around 2 or 3 of them are now coming regularly to our ordinary Sunday morning meeting but it would be so much better if we had the facilities for them to meet on a Sunday morning.

Thus they would start off for the first few minutes in the church and thereby the link would be made with all with the church.

We're praying for new facilities to be able to accommodate the increasing numbers of kids of all ages wanting to come to the church

Pastor Mark