Religion in School teachers conference

As you may know a law was passed here in Moldova during the summer that religion as an optional subject was now to be taught in schools in Moldova.

The Orthodox church produced a syllabus as did the evangelical churches and both were approved by the education department.

A couple of weeks ago all the qualified teachers in our area who were committing themselves to teach the Evangelical syllabus in schools were gathered together to get some training and received the teaching pack etc. We had 5 attend from Gotesti.

Mr Mihail Malancev, a very well known Moldovan theologian and director of the Baptist Bible Seminary in Chisinau was the main speaker.

He has much experience also in the field of education and speaks around the world on Christian education.

He helped us see the significance of an evangelical curriculum in a school education system and inspired all the teachers to their task

One of the ministers of education for the South also came to the conference and was very helpful and encouraging in his talk.

Our teachers were inspired by the day and made themselves available to serve wherever there may be a need.

In our school in Gotesti there were 65 children from the age of 7 to 16 whose parents signed a request form for their kids to get the evangelical religious education lecture in the school.

Last week after some initial teething problems we started all the groups in the school.

Marina ( on the right of this picture ) takes 2 classes on Wednesdays for 7&8 yr olds and 9&10 yr olds with around 15-20 in each class.

Tanya, on Thursdays, takes 2 classes for 11&12 yr olds and 13-16 yr olds. around 10-15 are signed up for each class.

These classes have started late into the year and so they have had to tie together some of the subjects to try to make up the lost lecture time but their first lessons were about the Bible as the word of God and the creation and the fall.

Keep these two dedicated girls in your prayers especially since they are both young mothers

Pastor Mark

School Teachers Day

Every year in Moldova teachers in school are recognised for their hard work on teachers day.

The children usually produce a special programme and pupils usually also bring gifts to their teachers as they are able.

Since Karis Pizza opened we have been able to honour our teachers also by providing a pizza meal at Karis Pizza for all the teachers that want to come.

This year we had around 45 attend.

Here in the centre of this picture is Mr Bibic who is the senior IT teacher in the school and also takes dance lessons after school and alongside him is his wife also a teacher ( of mathmatics ) in the school.

Here are some of the main leaders in the school including Ms Olga Sinegur in the centre of the picture who is the head teacher.

This year we were also pleased to have some former teachers now retired with us.

To the left of the picture is Mr Alister Boghean who is not only a retired teacher but was a mayor of the village for a while some years ago.

Pray for these dedicated teachers who do a faithful job year in year out for little pay

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Repairing the Church

We have begun the expensive, time consuming but absolutely necessary repairs to our church building and the building beside.

During the winter the roof of this building was covered in snow and it finally gave way.

Thus we have been removing the destroyed sections of roof, clearing up the debris etc inside and then we sealed up the part of the building where the roof hadn't fallen down.

This means we are still able to use half the building for storing aid etc.

The roof of our church building was in desperate need of repair.

The apex had been leaking for some years now and we have always had flooding when there was a heavy rain.

Many of the roof panels were cracked and needed replaced

The rest of the roof needed power hose cleaning and then all needed painted. We found that many of the roof trusses were also in poor state

Then the toilets need totally overhauled.

Inside we replaced the worn DVP flooring with tiles

Here are Sergiu and Ilusa laying the tiles but various brothers from the church in Gotesti and in Chircani were involved throughout

In the Spring we will need to paint the outisde of the church and replace the tiling at the front of the church grounds etc etc.

We are not yet finished and it is just as well that our planned baptism in October has been delayed until the new year as we would have had a job to get all finished in time.

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

Here are some of the team that have been doing the work although Ilusa one of our key workers was not here on this particaulr occassion as he was organising the harvesting of our sun flower seeds for oil for the aid packets.

In fact the brothers have all been mixing the work at the church with time out for their own needful things.

There is a great deal of work that needs done inside the church also as well as these things outside.

Pray the Lord provides and enables

Pastor Mark

Gotesti City Does it Again

We're delighted to report that our 12-15 yr olds football team won the O.M. cup again this year.

Here are some of the team members posing for a team photo with the cup in our church.

We presented them the cup at the end of the service.

Unfortunately not all the boys where able to attend the presentation ceremony as many had to help their folks harvesting the corn from their fields. (None of these lads on £300,000 per week)

Here is our vice captain holding up the cup ( our captain was harvesting ).

It was a very close tournament this year. Our team drew their first 2 matches with teams B & C who both beat the weakest team in the tournament by 4-1 and 5-0.

Team B&C then played each other and a win for either team would have meant that Gotesti could not win the tournament.

With 5 mins to go B&C were drawing 1-1 when team B was awarded a penalty.

They missed it and went on to draw meaning that Gotesti had to beat the weakest team in the tournament by 6 goals or more to win the cup.

With just a few minutes remaining Gotesti were leading 5-0 and then scored a sixth.

And just to seal it they added a seventh in the dying seconds.

This is the second year in a row that the team has won this tournament and it is a testament to the hard work of Igor and Viorel training them both for football and also from the Bible.

What particularly encouraged me was how the boys conducted themselves both on and off the pitch.

O.M have said any team winning the cup 3 years will get to keep it - just like the world cup

Pray we don't get too proud

Pastor Mark

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