Moldova for Christ Team in Cahul

In October 2008, God opened a door for Moldova for Christ ministry to start new radio ministry in South Moldova. Yuriy and Vlada Semeniuc moved from Balti to Cahul to lead this new ministry. As result of the effort in Cahul, not only did thousands of people hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but also a door was opened and the hearts of the people were prepared to start a new church in the same city.

First, we organized a prayer chain for 32 hours: 64 people from all over Moldova and our church members signed the list of prayer, each taking 30 minutes to pray for the city of Cahul and the new church plant.

Many children came to our Puppet Shows

Second, we fasted for the people who live in Cahul – for the Lord to call people from our churches to join us in the effort of setting up an evangelistic campaign. We prayed for 30 people to answer the call and go on a short-term mission to Cahul. Little did we know what God was about to do!

God began calling one after another of church members, and the first five people were enlisted. Then, more and more people joined the team until we had 46 people from all over Moldova! The team was ready to go and start working.

Travel took almost the whole day and invitations were printed.  Since we did not have places to house our people, we had to pray for a place for everybody to stay. God provided six homes of people who were glad to receive our people without knowing us. Thus, our team went door-to-door and shared 10,000 invitations to evangelistic meetings that the mayor of Cahul let us conduct in the City Culture Hall. To our surprise, while sharing the invitations, 11 families invited us to come back and start home Bible study groups in their homes! And we had not even started the meetings yet!

Precept materials presentation at Culture Hall, Cahul

The weather was not favorable – the temperature dropped and it was constantly raining. On top of that, when we started the evangelistic meetings we had to face another major problem – the city stopped providing running water for three days…but it did not stop the work! Our guys carried water in buckets and plastic bottles of water from the nearest public well that was about 2 km away, making four trips daily to the well. The Lord was at work and we saw more than 110 people at our evening programs, plus dozens of children.

We thank God for Bill Grubbs, (Gainesville, GA) and Neal Walls (Memphis, TN) who shared the Word of God and their personal testimonies with everybody during the meetings. Twenty-seven men and women trusted Jesus and were saved. Children enjoyed watching the Agape Puppet Show team presentations every night and became close friends with our children’s ministry leaders. We were glad to serve children’s ministry leaders from other churches in the area who came every evening to take notes during our Puppet Show programs and Gospel presentation for children. Gospel songs, personal testimonies and Precept Bible Study materials were presented as part of the everyday program at the Culture Hall.

Many got very interested in Precept Bible Study Materials

The whole mission project lasted nine days. We spent the last four days surveying the population on spiritual beliefs. We asked questions about God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, church and the devil. 470 discussions occurred and the Gospel was presented right on the streets during these meetings. We prayed for each person and asked if they would like to learn more. 270 people said, “Yes,” and they wanted us to visit them at home and teach them the Bible, and gave their addresses and phone numbers.

We were also blessed to hear so many people thanking us for the radio station we have in Cahul and for Christian music and Bible study we offer live on the radio 24/7. Other people said our radio station is the only radio station they listen to.

Please pray for Yuri and Vlada as they do follow-up work in Cahul as well as continue the radio ministry. Pray God will call more missionaries to Cahul and that we will be able to involve all these people in home Bible Studies.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.  (Matthew 28:19-20)

From October 7 to 15, a group of 25 people from several of our churches joined the effort in starting church planting work in the city of Comrat, which is the capital of the Gagauz Autonomy, South Moldova.  Gagauzia is the area where about 200,000 former Turkish people live. Hundreds of years ago they were converted to Orthodox Christianity from Islam. God laid on our heart to start an evangelical congregation there with Bill Grubbs and Neal Walls, two preachers from the United States who traveled to Moldova to assist us in this effort and whom we thank our God for.

We visited about 4,000 homes door to door, inviting them to come to our evening Crusade programs. Our people walked miles and miles on the streets of the city since just one main street is 6.5 miles long. Our youth conducted Puppet Show programs right on the main square of the city, and 50 to 70 children attended with their parents daily. Many people brought camcorders to tape the program for their children to able to show it again at home. Sixty-five adults visited our Crusade programs at the central Culture Hall and two people were saved.

In the first part of each day we shared Jesus on the streets. We met several Muslims and a number of people were telling us that they sympathized with Muslims since this area is under heavy influence of Turkey. Amidst the divided population God blessed our discussions and we were able to share Jesus with 150 people on the streets. Everyone filled out a survey on his or her spiritual point of view and 98 people gave their phone numbers and addresses so we could invite them to visit us and tell them more about God.

Please pray God will help us start home Bible studies with new people in Comrat as we keep in touch with them through telephone and mail and as we visit them and start Bible studies with them and their families.