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....
