Pastor Marius

Here is a picture of Pastor Marius. He has a great heart for the Lord and a passion that stands alone amongst his peers. He is now the pastor of the new Second Baptist church in Braila. He is very, very interested in the "Cell Church" model. He has a chance to really do it as he is now free to explore a new way to reach the lost. Please pray for him. Here he is in the vision room with ten copies of the 2nd Reformation that Bill Beckam wrote. Please pray that God will help us do this in the city of Braila. We are looking at nearly 1,000,000 people between the two cities. Combined they would be the second largest city in all of Romania. We now have a total of 300 or 400 Baptist in both cities. So out of nearly 1,000,000 people we have less then 0.04% believers.

So pray for Pastor Marius and his vision for his church. Please also pray for Pastor Stephenuti at Braila. Today I went and preached at Iaanca had found a lively church full of 40 people or so. We also had a great meal with much laughter afterwards. Praise the Lord!

Ilian is Ordained

My good friend Ilian was ordained yesterday at Focsani. This is a BIG deal here in Romania and was a real blessing to be a part of the ceremony. He and I have become very good friends over the last couple of years. We really have not worked so much together but we do plan on changing that. He really wants to do the small group Cell Type church that fits well into the culture. He is a very talented man and has a Joy and sparkle in his eyes showing that he loves the Lord. We pray that his ministry will be blessed and that he will see fruit over the next few years.

Here he is actually getting to serve the "Lords Supper" for the first time! This is a great honor in the Baptist Culture and not just anyone is allowed to serve this meal to the believers. Over the past ten years they have had to send someone from the Galati church, which is almost two hours away to do the Lord's supper each month. Now Ilion can serve his church himself. AMEN!

I told them about the time that I was ordained and how my toes were bent "sort of backwards" over the twenty minutes preaching that was in English;, then translated into Romanian and Russian. I said it was really a very painful twenty minutes! They all laughed....but compared to what Christ did for us....of coarse it was very trivial and amounted to nothing. I pray that the Lord will bless my dear Brother and his family.

I preached from 1 Thessalonians on the ministry from Paul's perspective: It is something I got from the great book John Mc Arther wrote, He pointed out that this is the best book to show what the ministry really looks like:

1) Praying 1:1-2

2) Evangelizing 1:4-5, 9-10

3) Equipping 1:6-8

4) Defending 2:1-6

5) Loving 2:7-8

6) Laboring 2:9

7) Modeling 2:10

8) Leading 2:10-12

9) Feeding 2:13

10) Watching 3:1-8

11) Warning 4:1-8

12) Teaching 4:9-5:11

13) Exhorting 5:11-24

The real miracle Troy got through this in 30 minutes!

Well, Pray for our dear Brother to flurish in all these categories of ministry and more...we dearly need an outpouring of God's Spirit here in this part of the world....

Spring Time brings NEW LIFE

This is a group that Bogdon just started. This is the second time they have met and should have included about five more men. He actually has enough men now to start two groups. PTL! Any way the guy on the far left is Victor. He is a repenter from several years back and is Lenuta's son, (DAR) lady. The guy on the right of Bogdon is Resvon who is very interested in repenting but wants to understand more before he repents. ( I countered this with, "If I told you that I had 10,000 Ron over on the other side of the city just for you and your family how long would it take before you were in my car following me!) They all laughed at that one! The guy to the right of Bogdon is Nicu who ran away from Bogdon one year ago after his religion teacher told him we were evil and to stay away from us. It seems now that he is much more interested in hearing about repentace after some recent events and ran to Bogdon. He gave his life to Christ yesterday after about one hour of listening to us explain God's great gift of Jesus and forgiveness. Please pray for Nelu he is a SUPER kid only 17 and has a very gentle and wonderful spirit. He is one of the Madoi family we call the accordan family from years back. Praise the Lord for all that HE is doing through Bodgon at the moment. (This may be a foxhole conversion so please pray for the enemy not to take the seeds from him this time)

Seeing the Potential

I met a great guy the day before yesterday at the Pastors meeting. He is Petreka who is a church planter in Braila county. He knows where every church is, how many members, if they meet in a building or house or room. He has a great heart to reach out but is extremely overworked. We went down the list of needs, the number one need...they need a plan! I am praying that we can move the Galati Plan to Braila and begin the work of training a couple of church planters over there. Here we are sitting in the Vision Room that now has maps of Romania and the city of Galati. Please pray that God will maximize this new friendship for his Glory! He is a law student and the manager slash chaplin at the medical clinic located in the church and does full time church planting activities.

After doing lesson five which is about the need to be Born Again, Chiprean prayed to accept Christ. He might have some shakey motives..(nuff said) but I pray that God showed mercy on his soul! He listened to the thirty minute testimony of a former Orthodox Priest who also gave his life to Christ. After the testimony he said, Every thing he said about the Orthodox is true. It is just tradition with no meaning. Pray for him as we continue to concentrate on making disciples. He will continue to do the lessons.

This is the map in the vision room. LOOK at the valley. The pink flags represent all the houses that we have a welcome invitation in. I think it is over twenty with some representing multiple families. It is probably more like fifty families with well over 150-200 people under the possible outreach potential. We praise God for one convert but this really is incredible what is happening down there....praise God and all the Glory goes to him. I think it is amazing that this was the product of SBC teams from America coming three years in a row to just say Hi and be apart of their lives while teaching simple lessons to lost people. God is so good to allow us to see this happen from nothing to this in just three years!

This is our prayer room...we just put the chairs in yesterday and had a powerful time of prayer with the brothers that operate the boys home. See the cusions under the chairs....for your knees!

I pray that we have a great out pouring of God's Spirit in this room when people leave the Vision room next to it and realize the great need for new churches in our region. Galati was just noted as the largest city with the fewest number of EV churches in all of Romania. This is why I believe God brought me to Galati and He has been so very gracious to show us how we can do church planting in a different way that concentrates on the lostness and not just keeping all the rules!

100th blog post

Bogdon and I had a great time in the Valley last night. We first met with this family. The man on the far right says he repented around 10 years ago but lost touch with the church. He really was interested in getting together with a group of men. He says it seems like their is more power when a group of men pray together. This matched the instructions I gave Bogdon exactly. The lady wearing the pink says that she smokes therefore can not be saved! (We shared with her for over 20 minutes) Before we went down into the valley Bodgon was very discouraged and doubting that this is the work that God wanted him to do. He was not sure that he could do the work. THIS IS A GOOD thing. I have noticed it is when they are certian that they can do the work that it goes no where. Any way I told Bogdon, "lets just try and get one men's group started on Sunday evenings, One mens group and one ladies group." So before we have been in the valley even ten minutes, Zasham! It was great for both of us!

We went on to find several more men that said they would come to the group. When we were leaving the Valley I said, "Bogdon this was a great evening....and we really aren't out of the valley yet." We were climbing that big hill where several houses line both sides of the road. Just then I noticed Relu, a man I had been talking to a year ago. He now has a good job and said, "I want to start lessons again. Me and my wife." So in just a few hours God, once again used the Valley to teach this church planter and assistant a lesson on His ways and methods. I am so sorry that everybody doesn't get to experiance this kind of on the edge of lostness kind of thing but it really just continues to blow my mind and expand my faith every time I walk down in the valley. The 18 year old man we talked with two nights ago....Resvon...went to church last night. After talking with us he told his mom.... "I really want to repent but I can't read very well." This is another great thing we learned while in the valley." One child from the Nine Families had a young child hit by a car yesterday. We hope and pray that she will be alright. We understand that she did not die and that the situation is improving.

Lenutas Sister gives her life to Christ

Geheorghita Gloicanu gives her life to Christ yesterday. She is 39 years old and has seen Lenuta's life change and also her niece Valerica's life change and said she wants to follow Christ also. She takes care of two brothers that are disabled and really needed some hope. She knew that her life was headed the wrong direction. When asked where she would go when she died she pointed down. This by the Grace of God has all changed as we hope and pray that God received her prayer of repentance and sent His Holy Spirit into her life to open her eyes and seal her for the day of redemption. Lenuta was in the hospital for heart problems and blood pressure issues but said she took the Bible and taught others while she was there and also prayed out loud each night. The others in the room with her kept asking her what that was all about!

We had a great day in the Valley yesterday. Bogdon and I went down and talked with several people. We ended up at the house of Lenuta (the DAR) lady. It was a special day for the ladies of Romania as it is called the Womans Day. They were having a celebration there and Geheorghita (sp) was there also. I found out she was Lenuta's sister and just started talking with her. It turns out, long story short, that she wanted to also give her life to Christ. So after doing SJWF with her she did invite Christ into her life. We pray that God showed mercy upon her and opened her eyes to the truth. We went around in the valley and had many great conversations with people. We really just started working again in the valley after about one year away and it is so good to start again. We are pretty sure that we will have at least two ladies groups full of repenters and one mens group that will start meeting. (We pray) It will be nice when Randy and Teresa get here to help out.This family lets us in to there house to teach lessons. This little girl needs our prayers. She has been deaf in both ears since birth. Her name is Anna Marie. She is a sweet little precious girl. We need to pray that God will use her situation to bring Glory to His Son and that if it is His will we would open the ears of this little girl. The house has only one 18 year old male living amidst 8 or 9 women. His name is Resvan.... (he already has three children and Anna Marie is one of them) please pray for him as he is showing no signs of rejecting Chrsit but doesn't understand enough to be saved yet. We will add him to our men's group we hope to begin this week.

Chiprean

This is a young man that is 21 and starting his forth lesson. Please pray for him as he has some enternal decisions to make. Lesson 4 is about the blind man that Jesus healed and I always end up seeing my own story inside of this teaching. Chiprean has some ulterior motives for taking these lessons... so we think. Please pray that he will be under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and give his life to Christ. I won't see him for a week but he is waiting for the next lessons. My own opinion is the more that someone lets me explain the Good News the more they are almost certian to come to Christ. The Word does not return void. Please take time to pray for this young man and pray that when he meets you this year he will be praising the Lord and a part of our team.

A Team

This has been a good week for me. I am now able to put 100% of my effort back on the work of church planting. I am trying to pick up where I left off about 13 months ago and it is a little difficult. We spent almost all of 2006 in the states and after that the summer kept us very busy with teams (PTL). Then we entered into six more months of training that led to spending three weeks in Prague last month. So for all practical purposes we are now starting what we stopped amost a year ago. The Good News is that it seems we are emerging more focused and stronger then ever before which is great. This is a picture of Bogdon, Dragos and Mihia who are all diligently trying to learn how to teach the Kingdom Doctrinal Track. Bogdon will have many students in the valley and Mihia has a group he wants to start. Dragos has a group of young men also on Saturdays. This will give them something to do. Last night the verse that really stuck in my mind was "Make the Kingdom of God your primary concern" don't live like the pagans. Pray for this group. Our team is building as we have four more coming from our SBC churches to help us. Pray for Randy, Teresa, Justin and Marty. They have great hearts to help us here in Southeast Romania. We are also now working with the missions pastor from Holy Trinity, only one problem....he is too busy to help us...! He is constantly attending prayer meetings, committee meetings, group meetings, pastor's meetings, ect. (pray about this)

A recent study revealed that Galati City is Number ONE when it comes to the LEAST number of EV churches in a large Romanian city. So I have decided to really intensify the praying for our city and the surrounding Villages. When looking at the Baptist work it is shrinking on all fronts. We are almost an "Endangored Species." The work in Moldova and Northwestern Romania is flurishing so the problem is not with the culture. We must break down the strong holds and start planting churches. This is on my heart day and night. I had a very moving moment when I was counting these 150 villages in our county excluding the 700 villages in the other four counties in my region. Every little red mark represents an entire village of people that are lost in religious emptiness that offers no hope. I had the impression (much like that of a 747 full of people crashing and catching on fire) of each village full of people, children and the elderly just dying and spending enternity in hell. This brought me to tears....

We have so much hope that God is with us and will expand His Kingdom through our efforts. We are hoping to use this location..what is now being called the Regional Training Center to reach out to the 800= villages and 35 cities in Southeast Romania and beyond. We are praying and praying that God will send us strong SBC teams over the next ten to fifteen years that only have ONE thing on their mind. Reaching lost people with the Gospel. We know that God can do anything but He uses us to build His Kingdom..... the church of the Living God! The pillar and support of the Truth......