The Ministry in Tereblecia

The Lord helped me to visit this village seven times this month where I preached three times and led the Bible study on 2 Timothy 1-4 four times. As usual, after the church services, I offered spiritual counseling to 10 people from our church. Then I left to visit the sick. I visited 6 families. We shared from the Word, prayed together and gave the Lord's supper to two families.

This month I dealt with something I had never dealt with before. I visited a lady from our church who was hospitalized in a Psychiatric hospital. Her husband and two sons were not Christians. She had had a nervous breakdown. One day she tried to commit suicide by taking several pills.

God worked in an incredible way as her daughter who was married and lived away felt that there was something wrong and went to see her mother. She tried to call her but could not reach her. Then she came quickly to her mother's and looked for her until she found her sleeping. She tried to wake her up but she couldn't. She called the ambulance and they took her to intensive care. She is now well but in the psychiatry section of the hospital. My wife and I visited her there and talked for about two hours and prayed before leaving. I cannot understand how a Christian for 20 years could have such breakdowns that lead to an attempted suicide. That motivated me to study more as to why Christians could do that. People from the village started to talk about this incident. What she did  affected the church's reputation.  Pray that God will work according to His will both in this lady's life and in the village. The whole church is praying for this situation and we go on preaching the gospel to the unsaved.

We finished the Bible study on 1 Timothy. I prepared 48 questions about this book and gave them to each one. They had to take this test because it motivated them to study the Bible carefully. The Word of God is alive and it works so that people's lives can be changed by growing spiritually and becoming efficient for the ministry. Last Sunday we had the baby dedication service for little Diana. Her parents have two other children besides her. As a church we are happy to see that there are seven young families in our church who have 2 to 3 children.

The Ministry in Cernauti and Transcarpatia

I visited these two areas this month and preached the gospel in the church, visited the sick and offered spiritual counseling both to missionaries and church members.

Cernauti

We had two conferences with the pastors and missionaries from this area. The first one was with the people that are part of the Equipping and Edification Program, The second was for everyone. We studied two main topics, worship in the church and preaching. We talked about the way we should please the Lord when worshiping Him and also about preaching the word in the church. After the conferences, I got together with 10 missionaries and pastors and talked about finding a solution to the problems they faced in the ministry.

The need of ministers in the missions are greater and greater. The church I used to work with -in
Bahranesti no longer has a pastor. Ion P. worked there for a while. God put this desire in his heart, to be a missionary in Transcarpatia, the village in Poroscovo.  This is where I started the ministry among Volohi. They speak an old dialect of Romanian mixed with Russian and Ukrainian. I will have to help this church until we find somebody else to take over the ministry. Please pray for this.

I also visited the church from Pueni where we had a baby dedication service. The husband was a Christian but his wife was not. They wanted to bring the child to be dedicated in the church. Several unbelievers attended the service and heard the gospel. We pray that God will give them salvation.
The following week I was invited to preach in the Romanian church from Cernauti. After the church service, I talked to several people who had problems or questions.

I got back from Poroscovo, Transcarpatia, today. I spent two days there because I had to settle some problems regarding the prayer house. There is this mission, Nehemiah, that actually built it. Another Christian gentleman and I went to the town hall and asked permission to use this building for our activities with children. The neighbors opposed it because they said the children would disturb them because there were too many. There are around 800 children in this Romanian village that cannot read or write. They do not go to school and live like savages. This is why the Ukrainian people are against us. We really need to have something for them where they can study and learn about the Bible. The building we built right in the center of the village where the Ukrainian people live will be a church building for adults. There is a great ministry to do among these forgotten Romanian people that no one cares about. Please pray for this extremely poor area.

I will always give thanks to God for you because you care about God's ministry in our country and help us a lot. God bless you more and more!