The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. – 2 Timothy 2:2

From January 4-15, 2010 one of our pastors from Balti City Church of Hope, Vasile Sanduleac, visited Kharkiv, Ukraine to take a leaders training institute on evangelism and discipleship. More than two million people live in this city, with less than one percent of evangelical believers.

Kharkiv Students 2010

The Precept book of the Gospel of John study was used as curricula for the training. Brothers and sisters from many churches came for the training, and a number of them are serving the Lord as pastors and deacons in local churches. There were 24 students total. Everybody was on fire for the Lord, ready to start their home Bible study groups and teach the Word of God.

The study of the Gospel of John discussed evangelism approaches our Lord Jesus used in different situations with different people, with many times through fulfilling their physical needs first. He moved the discussion to the spiritual condition of sin, showing his listeners the solution. Students were trained to use these same approaches in bringing people to Christ, when they will understand their need of salvation and forgiveness that only our Lord Jesus can give.

It was very encouraging to see Brother Alexandr Lah who attended our training in 2007 when a Church Planting course was taught. That training had such an impact on Alexandr that during the training he asked everybody to pray for the calling he received from the Lord – to move with his wife to the Chernigov region and plant a new church in a city where not even one believer was. Now Alexandr has a church of 15 believers who study the Bible using Inductive study materials. This time he came for the next training to study the Gospel of John and to be prepared to teach it to his new brothers and sisters at home.

Vasile Sanduleac teaching

During this training, the Russian Orthodox Christmas was celebrated on January 7, but our classes were not cancelled even for Christmas day. Everybody was present at the training with all their homework done.

We thank God for a special couple, Victor and Zinaida who coordinate the work in this city and have sacrificed so much to keep this Institute going. They organize the training for us every time we come, and the training becomes a successful effort that brings good results in people’s hearts through the Word of God that is planted.

Please pray for the students as they start 14 home Bible study groups where they will teach 97 students in four cities.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.   –  Matthew 28:19

Russian Orthodox Church building in the center of Comrat

We praise our Lord Jesus Christ for the opportunity He gave us to organize a mission trip in November 2009 to Comrat, South Moldova! It was an effort of several churches combined: a team of five went to Comrat from Northern Moldova churches and another team of five went from Chisinau, the capital of the country. They met with Ecaterina, our first convert from Comrat, that leads our visitation ministry in the area. The goal of the mission effort was to visit people that had previously visited our evangelistic meetings, those who had expressed the desire to learn more about God and start a home Bible study.

It was interesting to see how differently we were received from home to home. Some people were ready to start a Bible study right away, and others told us they did not have time. We were glad to see new converts from our churches joining the team with a great determination to tell others about Jesus Christ.

Lenin monument in the center of Comrat

Our teams, organized by two people, taught from the Gospel of John 3:1-21. People listened with great attention, and agreed with what they read, even forgetting that they had a limited time to spend with us. As a result, two ladies trusted Jesus and gave their lives to Him! Praise the Lord!

“One time, by mistake, we rang the bell at the wrong door. When the people answered we found that it was a family that also attended our programs in the past, but did not fill out the registration form at the end of the service. We began our discussion on the porch, but ended teaching an inductive Bible study in the kitchen. This lady graciously invited us into her home for a cup of tea. Her grandchildren also heard the Gospel. This lady had many questions from her previous contacts with different cults. She had many religious books on her shelf, but when I asked her to bring her Bible it took her a while to find it. When we were leaving, the lady invited us to come back and continue to study the Bible.” says Lidia, a missionary from Cupcini.

For Valentina, a new convert from Cupcini, it was her first mission trip. She worked many hours visiting families in Comrat. When someone would say that they do not have time for the Word of God, she mentioned that our team traveled 350 kilometers to tell them about Jesus! It usually changed people’s attitude and they agreed to do a Bible study lesson or listen to the Gospel presentation.

Vasile, our missionary and pastor in Chisinau went to the village of Feropontievka to do Church service with a Gypsy family.  He said, “When I arrived, seven adults and two children gathered to hear the Word of God. The words that I heard upon arrival were, “We were waiting for you!” We studied Ephesians 4 and as we were studying they were repeatedly saying, “It is exactly about us!”

Russian Orthodox Church Bell Tower

Rustam, our missionary from Briceni, shared with us about his experiences in Comrat as well. After looking for the address for several hours, he finally found right house. “After some time spent in a spiritual discussion, we learned that the lady we were talking to lost all of her family members in a short period of time. Our visit to this devastated soul was so important and timely, that only Our God could have orchestrated it all.”

As result of this mission effort, God blessed us with twenty meetings where the Gospel was presented and the Gospel of John was taught.  Two people were saved. Once again we saw how large a need there is for the Word of God to be taught and the Gospel to be presented to these people that are in great need of salvation. Please continue to pray for all of the people that received us into their homes so they will continue reading and studying the Bible, the true Word of God. Pray that they will come to a personal knowledge of the truth and be born again into God’s family.

Special Teacher’s Day is celebrated every year in Moldova on the first Sunday of October. It is the day when many students and even grownups thank their present or even former teachers.

Usually, people give a nice bucket of flowers and a small present, like a small box of candy or chocolate. Many people in churches thank their Bible teachers and pastors for the effort and sacrifice of teaching and training others.

Another tradition on this holiday in public high schools is to ask 12th graders to teach the whole day to smaller kids in school, and teachers get a day off to rest or just assist the lesson, but they do not have to teach.

Our youth are using this opportunity to teach the Word of God in public schools. When they are given a class to teach, they do a Precept Bible Study lesson with the whole class. Depending on the subject, they are supposed to teach the lesson that is chosen.

Alexander Cocetov

Alexander Cocetov from Briceni, a member of our Word of Life Christian Church, was given an opportunity to teach to the fourth grade. He prayed for this opportunity and was so glad to find out he could share the Word of God with 25 other children. The Bible study he chose was from the Gospel of John, chapter one, verses 1-18.

There are more than 200 Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city who do not believe Jesus is God. They claim He was just an angel, created by God the Father, so this text clearly shows that Jesus is God. So, it was a very good lesson to study with children.

Everybody enjoyed the lesson so much that they asked Alexander to come back and to do more Bible study with them.  After hearing how well the Bible study was received, a teacher came to Alexander during a break and asked for his notes to teach the Bible in his class as well.

From January 2-11, we had two Precept Leadership Training Institute sessions in Cupcini. God blessed us with 34 students from seven cities across the country. Young and older, men and women, Russian and Romanian speaking – all of these were united by a passion for the Word of God and the desire to tell everyone.

Lessons started early in the morning and went until late afternoon. They studied in class, and everybody was studying at home till late at night. The next morning everybody was in class, joyful and ready to start another day’s journey through the Bible in order to know his or her Savior in a more personal way.

We taught two different courses. The Russian speaking group studied the Gospel of John, Part Two, that covered chapters 12-21, and they also learned how to study a difficult subject in the Bible. The Romanian speaking group studied the book of James and Homiletics, and each student learned how to study a passage, prepare a sermon and then deliver a message. Two trainers taught in different groups: Pastor Vasile Sanduleac from Balti taught the Romanian speaking group and Pastor Vasile Rusnac from Chisinau taught the Russian speaking group.

Because our church building is not finished, we had to rent two classrooms at a local high school. We thank God for not just opening the door for classrooms for us but also for opening the school leaders’ hearts toward helping us in the ministry of training God’s people and establishing them in God’s Word so that they will know Him and will know how to live accordingly.

Since we do not have a dormitory facility, each student who was not from Cupcini stayed with local families, and we are so thankful to God for every family that received a student or two or even three for the period of training, giving them a place to stay, providing food for them and many times helping the students with their homework every evening. It is truly a blessing to see the unity of Christ’s body working toward the goal of knowing Him and getting the Gospel into every village and home in Moldova.

At the end of the training during the midweek church service in Cupcini, every student shared with the body of believers his or her personal testimony on how God was at work in his or her heart during the Training Institute. The church was filled with church members and guests eager to hear of God’s work in our days. It was a great time of building the faith and encouragement for the ones who had opened their home to students from other cities of Moldova.

Every Precept Training Institute involves a practical assignment when students go door-to-door and teach at least one lesson that they have studied in class. It helps them to catch the vision to do the same in their own cities and villages and to start home Bible studies when they will teach the whole course they studied at Training. As a result, many went home and started more than one study group, and people were saved and wanting to join our churches or form a church if there was none in their city, which was often the case. After this training, God put on the hearts of the students from both groups to start new Bible study groups in their cities where local people will come to study God’s Word right in their own neighborhoods.

Please pray that God will move in a powerful way through our students as they boldly proclaim the Gospel and start new home Precept Bible Studies, and pray that people will be saved and join the church.

Vasile and Nadejda Rusnac, our missionaries to Chisinau

His first visit to our church service was because he needed a job and Cupcini church offered a job and a meal a day for the construction work at the church building. Several months later, Vasile was saved through the Word he heard at the church and joined the church through baptism.  Soon after that, he understood that God was calling him into full time ministry, and after prayer he was sure God was calling him to plant a new church from scratch in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, where a quarter of the entire country’s population live.

For six months, we made the trip every Sunday morning as a team to Chisinau to start the church, traveling about 250 miles. It was a great time of travel, discussion and training on the field. Several home Bible studies were started in Chisinau, and even in the city of Tiraspol, in both Russian and Romanian languages. We taught two Precept Bible studies: “God, are You there? Do You care? Do You know about me?” based on the Gospel of John, and “Lord, I want to know You,” a study on God’s names from the Bible, both written by Kay Arthur.

As result, one by one, people began to join our Bible study groups and several received the Word through faith and were saved. Some of these people had never studied the Bible before and never thought they could study it.

Silviu and Rodica, a young couple, were the first family to receive salvation in Chisinau. They decided to join the church, and we organized our first baptismal service in the capital. As we were praying for the baptismal service and for other people who were involved in home Bible study groups, the Lord moved in the heart of another lady, Natasha, who declared she was also ready to follow Jesus and be baptized. Another man named Igor also decided to obey God’s Word and be baptized. The Lord began moving in powerful way in the hearts of people, and we were so glad to be part of it!

For the baptismal service we rented a sauna that had an indoor swimming pool. We had several other families that came to observe the ceremony. After we held a church service in the rented sauna, which included praise songs, prayers and reading of the Word of God, we went into the water and the first people from the Chisinau church were baptized as a testimony of their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior! The baptism was followed by the Lord’s Supper, which we did next to the swimming pool and jacuzzi.

Silviu and Rodica were looking for a church where they will be able to serve the Lord and God responded to their prayer in this unexpected way, by sending Vasile all the way from Cupcini to start the work and plant a new church, that will be dedicated to teaching people the Word of God in a world, that does not know Him!

Soon after that, Vasile moves from Cupcini to Chisinau and now he can spend more time with his disciples and train them in studying the Bible as well as train them in preaching the Word of God to others. Chisinau is a city of one million people, and it is the least evangelized group of people in the country.