Dedication of Alisa

A couple of Sundays ago we had the dedication of Alisa Lazar, first child of Aliona and Viorel.

It's our tradition to dedicate both the child, the parents and ourselves as church members to the Lord to serve in Alisa's spiritual growth before praying a blessing on her.

Here I am explaining that before we ask the Lord to grant his blessing upon Alisa, Viorel and Aliona as parents need to dedicate themselves to bring up Alisa in the fear and knowledge of God by teaching her His Word as she grows up and by be a living example to her.

Here I have just finished praying the words of the blessing from Num 6:23-26 upon here.

She was one dear little girl with not a cry or a whimper the whole time.

This must be one of my favourite photos ever taken at Gotesti church. In the centre is Alisa being held by our oldest member and her great grandfather Costea. Despina in the back is also one of our members and Alisa's grandmother and then Alisa is flanked by Aliona her mother one our members who grew up in the church

God is faithful

Pastor Mark

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

Children's Summer Camp

We ran a day camp at Gotesti 5-9th July for kids aged 7-11.

Around 90 kids came every day and here they are doing a programme for the parents on Friday the last day of the camp

The camp ran each day from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm and the kids would get games, teaching and a mid-day meal in that time as well as arts and crafts etc.

We had the Mission Direct team with us and they were fully involved in the week.

Here Greig is helping the kids with some crafts and the others were involved in outside activities like games etc.

The team were a particular blessing helping release our church team to do the ministry by doing all the practical things like preparing the food, cleaning the dishes etc

We were encouraged at the end of the week by how many of the parents or grandparents that came to the final day programme

Please pray for these parents that they may start coming to the church regularly

Pastor Mark

Baptism at Cahul

On the 18th July, we had the priviledge of being asked to come and preach at one of the oldest
Baptist churches in the South.

Spirina Baptist church.

They met as a church throughout the time of communism although the building was not constructed until after the revolution.

When we first came to Moldova and were working in the schools in Cahul this is the church

that we attended.

Of course there have been many changes since then ( that was 1994 ) not least in those leading the church.

Little or no financial support has meant that several pastors have left for USA during this time.

This is the current pastor Nicolai Tsin sitting down for a meal after the baptism meeting
with the youth from the church - most of whom have come into the church during his time of minsitry

Here are the 5 young people that were baptised during the meeting.

We heard short testimonies from them all and I was impressed with the clarity of their faith.

One girl had a a very difficult time with her parents being very against her faith but it seems the parents were at the baptism and thus heard the gospel being preached

Several of these ones are already in the worship group.

As you can see there was a good crowd at the meeting including many people who did not yet know the Lord.

Please pray for Igor who is in the same boat as the previous pastors who have left. The Lord has done so much during his time of leading and he is very popular with the church members. It would be a shame if he also had to leave.

Pastor Mark