Kids enjoyed time together

At the end of the year 2007, Vasile Vaganov, University student from our Balti City Church of Hope, heard God’s call in his heart to start visiting people door to door in the village of Hasnasenii Mari where a new church plant was started. He began visiting local people and telling them the Word of God.

As he was going house to house, he observed that many children in this village do not express any love or openness. The cause was that many parents left their homes and village and moved to other countries looking for jobs that would pay their bills and provide food and clothes for their families.

At the same time, Pastor Vasile Sanduleac invited Vasile Vaganov to help organize a summer Vacation Bible School for children in the same village. It was already on his heart, so they prayed and decided to start setting all the details for the camp with much joy and expectation in their hearts.

Our trained youth teams from Cupcini and Balti churches joined efforts in this project in order to invest themselves into the young lives of Hasnasenii Mari village and to teach them heavenly treasures and to help them to know Lord Jesus Christ, the only Way to heaven.

The program would start at 10 a.m. every morning and went until 1 p.m. During these hours, children learned God’s Word and many worship songs and games. Everyday, children learned a Bible story, like about David, Daniel, Jesus and other stories. We could see how children’s hearts were changed every day, and they were more and more open to the Word of God. This gave us new strength and a new blessing for every day.

We are so thankful to Pastor Vasile Sanduleac and his wife Vera for organizing this camp and to the leaders that accepted God’s invitation to work with us in this village. We pray God will repay everyone according to His surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7). We praise God for His work in our hearts through the work in Hasnasenii Mari!

Hasnasenii Mari is a village with 1,600 of people, but almost half of the people have left the country to work abroad in order to help their families in the village survive. No evangelical presence was in this village.

A few years ago, my father, Pastor Vasile Sanduleac, was invited by a local mayor to plant an evangelical church in the village. A home Bible study was started and people began to come one by one. It was a joy to see their curiosity and hunger for God’s Word. The only one who was not happy was the local Russian Orthodox priest, who began visiting door to door trying to stop the people from attending our Bible study. The priest even told them that when they die, he will not do the funeral for them.

In spite of the threats, people continued to come every week. And as a result several people were saved! Six of them were baptized in churches in Chisinau and Balti. But this year we had our first baptismal service in the history of Hasnasenii Mari village, which was a great testimony for the village people. Each of the new church members invited his relatives and friends to attend their baptism and to celebrate with them. The Vintu family from Balti church had worship program and led everyone in worship.

Now, all new church members are growing in the Lord and continuing in the study of the God’s word weekly. You should hear their prayers for the rest of the village to get to know the Lord and be saved.

Now, we praise God for the youth and students from our Balti City Church of Hope that are helping us in this church plant. They work with children, teaching them God’s Word and doing door to door visits every week, presenting the Gospel and proposing a free Bible study in homes.

We praise the Lord for the work He is doing in this village, and we know He will accomplish it! We know that we have to stay faithful to His call. Please continue to pray for this village and for His light to shine brighter in the dark though all of us.

For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. –  Psalm 36:9

God’s power is best displayed when we admit our human strength is insufficient to His sovereign strength and ask Him to show up and move in our midst. The children’s English camp just outside the city of Chisinau, Moldova is a perfect example of how God can work through ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

God works. A camp originally intended for 80 children from a local area brought 330 children and youth, ages 6 to 18, from all over Moldova as well as Romania, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Poland and Siberia. Three American teams from different states and church backgrounds met each other just one day before camp began. More than 30 Moldovan young people with basic English skills arrived to translate for the American teams and work with all the children. God truly brought all things and people together to achieve His purposes.

In big and small ways, God showed up. He provided big blessings like great weather, health and safety for the children and volunteers. He also provided small blessings, like a warm shower or piece of fruit for an afternoon snack. And He moved in a huge way across the expanse of the camp. More than a third of the children made decisions of faith in Christ. The “12 and Under” group were taught Old Testament stories about men appointed for God’s work before God sent His Son Jesus to earth. The “Over 12” group studied scripture from John 17-21, which covers Christ’s last days of ministry, his death and resurrection. Songs like “One Way, Jesus”, “Forever”, “Praise Adonai”, “You are Holy”, “Crucified”, and “Your Love is Deep” rang out as themes of praise throughout the week.

O Nations of the world recognize the Lord; recognize that the Lord is glorious and strong.   –   I Chronicles 16:28

The Glory of God is man fully alive (Waking the Dead, John Eldridge). Our team discovered the meaning of being truly alive as we used the gifts and abilities God enabled us to give during camp. Anna (Fiser) ministered by teaching and playing soccer and baseball; Shara (Reed) shared her talents of craft-making and story-telling, and Mitzi (Quarterman) witnessed through teaching dance and song. Everyone also shared in small and large group settings. By week’s end, my team truly understood the meaning of Jesus’ words: It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). The day we returned home, I read an excerpt from a daily devotional that spoke to me and seemed to capture our mission experience:

Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ (My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers).

Camp is now over but God’s work is just beginning in the lives of many of the children from camp. These children heard the gospel and witnessed the hands and feet of Christ serving them all week. Christians from all over Moldova are following up with our new brothers and sisters, inviting them to church and Bible study. Just days after camp ended, 15 children attended First Christian Church in the village of Cupcini for the first time. Currently, several teenagers from camp are going through an in-depth Bible study on godly marriage with Pastor Alexandru (Sanduleac).

God saves. The book of Acts gives an account of how the early Christian church was formed and how the message of Christ’s salvation was spread to other nations. Whole nations were reached by a mere handful of zealous followers of Christ. Peter introduced the gospel to one Gentile in Caesarea, Phillip took the message of Christ to Samaria and to one Ethiopian man, and Barnabas influenced the ministry of Paul who spread the gospel to many non-Jews for the first time.

God prevails. God does not waste anything we are willing to give, whether it is time, money or other resources. Pray for these children, the Moldova for Christ ministry, the next mission teams and our home church—that we would not waste one bit of who God made us to be. By God’s grace, may we remain faithful to His calling (Acts 13:43).

His purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. –  Acts 17:27