Saturday 1 October 2011

A Trip to a Village

On Wednesday morning I was invited to take a bible teaching session with the OM team. I went through part of the material of my message from 1 Cor 6 entitled 'Don't you know?" It was interesting preaching with an interpreter. It seemed to go down quite well, although teaching on grace and that God cannot judge us, because all his wrath was poured out upon Jesus had caused some questions, I was told later. It seems that God's judgment is quite a popular topic in the churches here in Moldova. The message about being the temple of the Spirit seemed to be less controversial. It is interesting talking to younger OMers who feel called to serve the Lord as missionaries, serving the churches here. After the morning session we got ourselves ready to take a trip down south to a small village called Paicu, near to the town of Cahul, very close to the Romanian border. A delightful young lady called Tamara, who was one of Matthew and Helen's first converts, drove us to her home village where she is doing a remarkable work. She works for OM and also cares for a church that she has planted in the village. She has supervised the building of a property as a church centre, with a worship room, kitchen and adjoining hall and two rooms for accommodation all completed and up and running. There is another upstairs hall, office, meeting room, toilets and staircase that need completing. So the loo was a long drop, a hole in the ground some way away from the building (in a wooden shed). They have quite a bit of land behind them where they grow food and they are hoping to be able to keep chickens too soon. The hen coop is built. We met the kids that come after school, about 15 of them. Many of their parents work in other countires and they live with just a mother or grandparents, but although dad should be sending money home for the family, often he drinks it all and they have very little income. Alcoholism in Moldova is apparently higher than in any other cuntry in the world by far. The OM project feeds children in many villages around Moldova where a church is able to provide the facilities and workers. Some of the children did their homework and then they all tucked into a hot meal after which they went into the church room where a 31 yr old Moldovan guy working with OM called Vitalie gave an enegetic talk to the kids about the wise and foolish builders, using some great home made flannelgraph illustrations. Afterwards they all played games in the sort of field behind the property until the sun was setting at about 6.30 pm. That evening was the church mid week meeting and I of course had to speak. Another variation on the 'Don't you know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit' theme. Boy when they prayed it reminded us of Korea. They all prayed out loud, and I mean loud! There was a wonderful sense of God's presence and although some were more passionate than others, everyone was enagaged for ten minutes or more. Being a Pentecostal church many prayed in tongues as well as Moldovan. But what passion. They also meet every weekday morning at 6.30 to pray, like in Korea. The only difference was the numbers; no more that twenty here instead of twenty fifty thousand in Seoul. Tamara has personally led evey one of these people to the Lord, and sort of leads the church as well as heads up the building project, child care centre and the elderly feeding programme. All the time we were with her she seemed to be constantly chatting to people on her mobile phone, even on our drive up- which is not illegal in Moldova. After my message I got them praying in twos for each other which they were not so familiar with, but it was humbling to see the ladies in particular on their knees on the floor arms round each other praying for each other - very loudly, while their partner prayed loudly in tongues. That night we stayed in the church building in the only completed upstairs room and had a bucket as it was pitch black outside. Slept well, and sister Paulina a Moldovan OM worker the same age as us had made rice pudding for breakfast, popular here as a warning energy breakfast for Moldavians working on their smallholdings. That morning Tamara drove us into the town of Cahul, where she went to the market and also bought some more building materials they needed. When we got back the elderly were arriving for their only meal of the day. Three old gentlemen and two ladies all between seventy and eighty six. They ate well and then sister Paulina spoke to them about the Lord and prayed with them. We then took food round to three old ladies unable to get to the building. One had been married to a company director who had died and she took to drink and now has nothing left, her beautiful house is now a slum. It was so sad. The last lady we visited had had serious problems sleeping but after Tamara had prayed with her and through her rooms, she has slept well ever since, she wanted to tell us all about it. Her grandson is one of the lads who comes to the after school project and also come to the Wednesday night meeting. After we had some lunch back at the church centre, we had to catch a minibus back to Chisinau. It took about three hours and was not particularly comfortable. Matthew picked us up from where the bus dropped us and it was good to get back to the comparative comfort of the OM Mission Centre. Tat evening we had a meal with the American business guys at Matthew & Helen's. It was great chatting to them, especially a Korean named jason, who had lived longer in the US than in Korea. The Koreans in the US are exactly the same as in Korea - they pray!

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