We've had several major events this month. After a time of counseling sessions, Slavic and Lena got married and we celebrated this event in our church. Slavic has been one of the young men that is active in the ministry and I helped him to grow spiritually. I was happy to be there for him on this special occasion.

On June 5 -6, our church had its tenth anniversary. We rejoiced not only with the church members but with friends and people from other churches and villages.

As the youth pastor for the southern part of our country, I wanted to have a special night for all the youth in this area on June 5. Although not everyone could make it, more than 200 people were challenged by the message about spiritual maturity and a close walk with the Lord. Others leaders have shared that the event encouraged some of them to bring others along to these meetings. The time we spent together was encouraging and refreshing and an example for other church youth ministries.

We visit a church in Manta twice last month where we have appointed two people to be in charge. One of them had been previously involved in ministry but gave it up due to disappointment. We had a talk with him and told him that it was all part of his spiritual growth as God may use others to work on our lives.

Another event here was the VBS we had for the kids. A team from the U.S. was here to help us. We had around 130 kids and I was able to talk to some of the teenagers that were there. We were happy to help Doina again. She is a teenager that was here for the same event last year and continued to come to church for a while. The same thing happened with Natasa. We hope to be able to share the Gospel with her again. We want to do that in a different manner this time, without using words. She heard the Gospel last year and God has brought her to us again.

We continued to do street outreach. Because we had guests for our special church event, I took advantage of that and invited someone to come along with me. I was surprised to see people's good response. We preached the Gospel to 10 people and gave them some Bible tracts for their kids. The special thing about last week's outreach is that while we prayed for many people there, we met a 70-year old lady that when she heard the Gospel, she started to cry. No one lived very close to her. As a matter of fact, she was very sad because her own kids did not visit her very often. She thought it was pretty special that someone would take time to spend with her. We are praying for her and would like to share this need with the whole church so they can also help the people.

Regarding the counseling ministry, my wife and I visited a family. We were able to talk to the wife. She was having many problems with her husband who is not a believer. Our first visit didn't seem to be very successful, but during the second one I encouraged her to read the Bible as God's true word. Many of her thoughts and emotions were based on lies from the Evil One. I motivated her to read the Scripture, pray, repent of any sin and accept God' plan for life.

Cristi is a young man I've been counseling via the Internet. We've done more than 30 sessions. I met him while being in the ministry in Romania. He was a teenager back then with whom I shared the Gospel and prayed for. He eventually came to know the Lord, but now works in Italy. I helped and encouraged him to read the Bible regularly and change his lifestyle. I also helped him with premarital counseling. His girl friend is in Romania and I told him to stay away from flirting and other sinful things. I also told him that opening his heart to someone should eventually lead to marriage. A few months later he understood it and expressed his desire to marry the girl.  So we started to have a Bible study about marriage twice a week. Although they're far from one another, they can learn useful things such as family life and how to honor God. I really appreciate Cristi's diligence in doing his homework and his obedient attitude. I praise the Lord for the changes God has made in his character.