Graduation Day

As many of you probably already know we run a church based Bible School at Gotesti as a service for not only ourselves but also the work of God here in the South.

This is a Bible School course done part time over 3 years.

Students study such subjects as Galatians and Romans, the Christian life, How to Study the Bible, How to prepare a message, Church Dynamics etc.

There are 4 one week courses in each of 3 years making 12 in total.

The advantage of it is that the students get the standard of both teachers and teaching of a full time Bible School while not having to come out of the work of God that they are in, in their villages and towns.
The course has been produced and sponsored by Entrust4 an international organisation that runs these kinds of courses throughout the world.

On the left of this picture is Harvey Newton, the Entrust4 director for Moldova.

Harvey was a pastor for many years in the USA and is a graduate of Dallas Seminary.

He has been serving in Moldova for around 15yrs.

In the centre of the picture with his graduation certificate is Pastor Ion from Valeni. His church has over 70 members and he is typical of the students that come

to the course, i.e. a pastor who is faithfully and sucessfully pastoring a church but has never had the opportunity to get any training.

Beside Harvey in this picture is Tudor, the youth leader in a church called Hirtop.

Others coming to the school are missionaries working in new villages trying to plant the village with a church.

Of the 5 that finished the course and graduated 3 are pastors and 2 youth leaders in their churhces.

We held the ceremony at Karis Pizza and finshed with a nice meal together.

The next post you will see here is about the new Bible school that has just started 22 March in which we will be sharing the teaching with Harvey and the costs of running the school.

Pastor Mark

Baptism Meeting

On Sunday 14th of March we had a baptism meeting.

These meetings always attract a good turn-out and Sunday was no exception - we estimated there to be 100+ adults in the congregation of 250 that were not yet commited Christians.

There were a large number of people not from our villages but from Badicu, Romanscova, Porumbesti whose churches had brought various ones to baptised as well as guests from Cahul, Cantemir, Chisilea and many other villages and towns who have been bringing people to the Alpha course.

The man being baptised here is called Misa and beside him on the right is Stefan Hanganu, the pastor of Porumbesti.

Misa is in his 60's and has been a Christian for quite a while but had not quite come into the fullness of relationship with God.

After the special day in the course when we meet for a whole day and do studies on the Holy Spirit, Misa said at the end of the day to Stefan.

"It's time I got baptised because I want to be filled with the Spirit"

Don't rush to write to me. He hadn't misunderstood the teaching and wrongly concluded that we were saying that he had to be baptised to received the Spirit. We had been speaking about one of the reasons why we are not filled with the Spirit as we should be is that it's like we have a whole lot of rooms in the house of our souls and although we have invited Jesus into our house\hearts there are maybe some rooms that have remained locked which we don't give Him access to and so we are not filled with the H.S. in these parts of our lives.

He thus understood that he had been holding back from following Jesus's example of getting baptised and on Sunday put that to rights.

We as always preached an evangelistic message - on this occassion taking the life and response of Zacchaeus - Luke 19:1-10.

We gave the opportunity to those present to invite Jesus to come and stay in their houses ( hearts ) as their Lord and saviour as Zacchaeus did and 13 answered the call.

Ten of these 13 were ones that had been coming to the Alpha course and that meant that overall in this course 20+ people have prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and saviour.

We were also delighted that one of those who came out to the front was Vitali ( right of picture).

You may remember him and his situation being in a previous post.

He needed a serious operation on both lungs.

Many of you prayed, God provided and he had a successful operation.

Many of you continued to pray for his salvation and here is taking what we hope is at least a first step to entering into a full relationship with God.

We plan to start some studies with him and his wife Catea next week - she is also seeking. Please pray for them to come fully through.

Thank you for your continued support in so many ways

Yours and HIs

Pastor Mark

Mothering Sunday

Every year in Moldova we have the equivalent of mothering Sunday.

It is actually a day for all ladies, mothers or not and it is celebrated on 8th of March.

We had a special church service on 7th March in recognition of the day and invited families.

There was a good turnout with many new people coming as their children were in the programme

The children also did a lovely programme as always

Here our 7-11 age group did songs and poems and were dressed in red and white which are the significant colours for the 8th March celebration

Meanwhile the youngest group appeared in angels costumes to remind their mothers of exactly what they are not.

Only kidding - they're little darlings really

A lovely touch thought up by the Sunday school teachers was that each child take a flower and find their mother in the congregation and give it to her

Here Rachael is passing her flower onto Mari

Later in the day was the latest installment in our Alpha course.

We are still getting around 60 come each week from all the churches in the region.

There were 12 that gave their lives to Christ the week before and all were at the meeting on 7th March

The subject was "The Church" - we spoke of how new birth brings us into the family of God, the church, and also of the priviledges and responsibilities of being part of the church.

We also looked at baptism and invited them to come the following Sunday at the same time when we were planning to replace the Alpha study with a baptism meeting with 8 candidates due to get baptised from 3 different villages.

Pastor Mark