Rachael and Abigail at Summer Camp

Both Rachael and Abigail went to a summer camp for 5 days this year - it's the first time they have been away to such a thing as we usually have day camps in Gotesti.

The camp was run by Anatol and Nadia Dunas the pastor of the church in Cahul - he is pictured in the background in the red shirt.

Both our girls had a wondeful time of fun and also learning of the the Lord

Rachael came back changed and Nadia rang me from the bus on the way home to say what a helpful blessing Rachael had been - she's at that age now where her faith is maturing.

Abigail had a lovely time also and here they are pictured with David one of Anatol's sons and Andrea, the daughter of Mariana our manageress of the coffee shop and one of Abigail's best friends

We thank the team of Americans who came and participated in the summer camp and also carried the bulk of the expenses for the camp.

Pastor Mark

Water Melon fellowship

As the summer began to draw to a close we organsied a time of fellowship with the believers

from Gotesti.

We shared water melon together and had a time to chat and relax

The big man in the photo is Sergiu a new believer who had lived a prodigal life until he recently repented in the Alpha course along with his wife Liuba.

They are planning to get baptised in the autumn when we have our next baptism meeting.

To his right is Georghe one of a pair of twins who are our members and who both have a muscle wasting disease - both walk to every meeting at the church although it takes them over an hoour to get to the church for what would be a 10 min walk for the rest of us. Courtesy of King's Fellowship in NI we have a car to transport the physically disabled which means we can take them home after the meetings. It will probably only be a year or so ( unless the Lord does a miracle ) before neither will be able to walk to church

Behind Sergiu is Tanya Rascovschii whom many of you know as she is Igor's wife ( our youth leader ) and is also one of our main translators.

Contrary to how it may seem she is not hiding a water melon under her shirt. They are expecting their second child some time around September.

After bloating ourselves with water melon we all went to play a game of volley.

Only the wise ones like the pastor didn't play

Yours and His

Pastor Mark

A Summer of Weddings

We have had a rich summer of weddings this year with 3 taking place and another due in late october.

The first was between Claudia Caraivan and Roma Cheptene. Claudia is one of the 4 daugthers of Avraam and Veta whom many of you know. I have done the cunonia ( marriage ceremony ) for the 3 daugthers that have now been married ( Nadina the remaining one is just turning 18 so watch this space )

Claudia and Roma were married in Vad lui Isac church were Andrei Ciobanu ( whom many of you know) is the pastor. Andrei afforded me the priviledge of doing the cunonia while Misa Caraivan, Claudia's brother preached the message which meant the many non Christians had a chance to understand something of God's love for us.

Claudia and Roma have decided to live in Vad lui Isac which is his home village

As the summer progressed we had our second wedding this time in Gotesti between Viorel Regus and Olesia Vladimirov. Viorel assists Igor in the running of our youth group so all the youth took part in his wedding.

Slavic Bufenco was M.C for the celebrations afterwards and led us all in many interesting and original games - he's becoming quite proficient in this role

Finally at the end of the summer Mariana Cara married Andrei Taranenco the assistant leader of the sports ministry at O.M Moldova.

Mathew Skirton, the leader of the O.M work in Moldova and an old close friend, ( that is to say the friendship has been for a while not that either of us are old ) came to bring the message in the wedding along with many amusing anecdotes. Thus the whole wedding was conducted in Romanian by 2 English missionaries ( although I for one have spent more time living in Moldova than I did in England - having left NI in 1982 to live in England and then come to Moldova in 1994 )

Again there were fun celebrations afterwards.
In one case Mari and I were called out to participate in one of the games - something I hate doing after I was called on a previous occassion to participate in a game where I was blindfolded and needed to pick out Mari from 5 other women by feeling her hands - I chose the wrong wife's hands!!!

However in this case it was a game of Charades and Mari and I won easily - no pictures of this historic moment I am afraid ( and no prize either !!!)

Pastor Mark

Mariana has gone with her husband Andrei to live in Chisinau and the are serving together on the staff of O.M.

Pastor Mark

Summer Ministries

We had 3 teams from Mission Direct come out to us this summer and as always they were involved in many and varied things in our minsitries in both Gotesti and Chircani.

Their building project was helping us with our church community centre in Chircani. This is the trench they dug by hand at the back. Unfortunately because of all the hassle we've been getting regarding the documents we were unable to start construction on the main body of the project so the team helped renovate the house of a needy believer.

We had 3 summer camps for children - 2 in Gotesti and 1 in Chircani. Around 80 came to the first camp in Gotesti of which quite a number responded to the gospel while around 30 came to Chircani. Our final camp was for a group from our Sunday school.

The MD teams got involved with crafts and games and also helped much with cleaning and dishes and other such things

Each year the teams also participate in our meetings at the churches in Gotesti and Chircani

This year we were very pleased to have some old friends on one of the teams. John and Marian Shaw in the centre of the picture.

We first met them when they came out to Moldova around 1995 to visit their daughter Julia who was on our team at the time.

John preached in all the meetings while he was here.

The teams also went out on visits to various needy homes in both villages taking aid packets to them.

We'd value your prayers for these things especially for the Chircani Community Centre which we have now been released into working on

Pastor Mark