God's Work in Moldova

The first 2 weeks of July, I (Alan) traveled to the country of Moldova with a team from our church. We flew from San Antonio to Washington D.C. to Frankfurt to Kishnev, Moldova where we worked to help establish a new church in a neighborhood that didn't have any Christian churches near by.
Upon arriving in Kishnev, we were met at the airport by some local pastors and their wives. Then, we traveled into town in 2 large vans and got our first impression of the city. As we were driving in, we saw two large white apartment buildings that line either side of the highway called the "Gates of Kishnev." From afar they looked really beautiful, but as we got closer, we noticed how run down they were.

The first picture (below) is of our team and a couple of the local pastors sharing our first meal in Moldova. The food was excellent and my teammate, Eric, and I fell in love with the honey that was served at every meal. We did not lack for good food. It was delicious! Here is a better picture of our team in the courtyard of the College that we were staying at. Our team consisted of 17 people, ages 18 to 74. At 74 years old, our oldest teammate had never traveled outside the US before, but she had a wonderful heart for God, trusted him for this adventure and always told the best stories.

We spent most of our days in the neighborhoods around the school where the church was going to be planted. We left the college every morning after a group devotional and drove 20 minutes through the city. Again, we gathered as a team with our translators and nationals and prayed for God to bless our time serving Him. Then we went out into the neighborhoods and talked to people and shared the gospel. Mid-day, we'd break for lunch, then do some more evangelism or follow up and spend time with new believers. In the late afternoon, we would get a pick up game of soccer going and after the game ended we were able to talk about Christ with the people we had played with.

The picture below is of my team sharing about God with the gentleman sitting at the table. We saw this man sitting at this table eating lunch and struck up a conversation with him. After some time chatting with him, we asked him what he thought about God and shared the gospel with him.
At the beginning of the week, most of the evangalism was done by me through my translator. Though as early as day 2, I had my translator, Olesya, take a turn sharing (she is the one on the right in the picture below). She spoke Russian and English very well. Olesya did a great job sharing all week. The third day, I had my national, Cristina, share. Cristina was a blessing because a lot of the elderly in Moldova spoke only Romanian, not Russian, and Cristina knew both. She also spoke English very well, so she was really like a 2nd translator for me. It was really awesome to see her heart for God because she always was enthusiastically interested in sharing Christ with everyone after she'd done it just once.

The tool that we used to share the gospel was the Evangecube. It has no writing on it, just the gospel message in pictures.
It was a wonderful tool for multiple reasons:
1. It's not something you read, it's something you have a conversation about.
2. It's visual, so it's easier for the person you are sharing it with to grasp the concepts you are discussing. Wonderful when there is a language barrier!
3. We walked around carrying them in plain sight and often we never needed to try and transition the conversation to the gospel because the people were curious about the strange cube we had and would ask us about it.

The biggest obstacle to sharing Christ with the people of Moldova was the Orthodox culture. People are taught that they can lose their salvation if they sin, that Christ's sacrifice for them was only part of what saves them, and the priests actually tell people that they have sinned too much to be saved and that they can never go to heaven! All of which is untrue!!!!!
Another unexpected obstacle were the Jehovah's Witnesses. In the America, maybe twice a year you run into a JW, but in Moldova they have them knocking on their door weekly. Therefore, the first thing we had to say when we approached someone was, "Privet (hell0), Menea zovut Alan (my name is Alan) and I am not a Jehovah's Witness." Once we got that out, they were willing to talk to us.

The picture above is of typical apartment building. Most of them were built by the Soviets and have become run down over the years. In the picture you can see that the balconies of the apartments have been enclosed by the individual tenants to create more living space. Some used wood, some tin, others brick or glass or concrete, so the buildings really had a hodge- podge, decayed look. In a single apartment, there were usually 3 or more generations of families living together. Can you imagine such cramped quarters?!

Above is a picture of Cristina, Olesya, Myself and Tripp (another guy on my team)
In the left of the picture you can see the edge of the grassy field that we played soccer on everyday. On the second day, Brendan (another teammate) and I decided to get a soccer game going every afternoon. We used the game as a way to gather youth and share with them. A side benefit was that as people would stop to watch, our team members who weren't playing started up conversations with the spectators and had opportunities to share the gospel with them.

Sharing the gospel on the soccer field was easy because we had an awesome tool called the Evangeball. It's a multi-colored soccer ball (seen picture below) and each color represents part of God's story.
Yellow = God loves you, created you and wants to have a personal relationship with you!
Black = Sin - all the wrong things you do. God's standard is perfection and it is your sin that separates you from God.
Red = Jesus' Blood and his sacrifice on the cross. He died on the cross, in your place, to pay the penalty for your sin. "For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life." John 3:16
White = Represents you after your sins are washed away by Jesus. This happens when we
believe in Jesus. " If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9
Green = Growth in your relationship with Christ by praying, reading the bible, and going to
church.

In the background behind Victor (see photo below), you can see my interpreter and I sharing with some of the guys after a game of soccer. In that conversation, 2 boys decided to believe Christ for their salvation. The only reason we were even able to share with them was because we had earned their respect by playing soccer with them for 3 or 4 days in a row.
A funny story about Victor...he knew enough English to be able to make communication possible but so little that a conversation was a serious mental workout. Mid-way through our time there, I convinced him to say, " We're two wild and crazy guys!" He sounded just like Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin from Saturday Night Live in the 70's. It was hysterical!

In the picture below, Brendan (with the soccer ball in hand) is talking to 3 of the guys that we played soccer with (the ones sitting on the pipe). You can also see in the background the spectators that the rest of our team got a chance to share with.

I now know why our nation is not the world's best soccer nation. This little kid, Sasha, (pictured below in the red and white shirt) is the reason, and he is the hope for Moldova. Sasha is 11 years old and was schooling everyone on the field including teens and grown adults. When he got knocked down by men that outwieghed him by at least 100 lbs, he would just get back up and continue schooling you.
I mentioned he is the hope for Moldova. It's not because he's their next soccer superstar. Sandra and Cheryl, members of our team, led him to faith in Christ with the Evangecube at the beginning of our week there. Some days later, Sandra gave him his own Evangecube and one of the interpeters took him aside and taught him how to use the cube to share the Gospel message. Just minutes later he was sharing with one of his friends!
If Moldova is to become a saved nation it will be because of the nationals that take the Gospel to their own people. And Moldova needs Godly men. All but 4 of 30 our translators/nationals were women, most in their early 20's. If the Gospel is to spread through out the country, they will need Godly men to lead the churches and Godly men to lead the families. In Moldovan culture, it is expected that women get married between the ages of 16 and 25, and if you are not married by 25 you are an old maid. Right now there are very few Christian men. Please pray that God will raise up more Godly men for the nation of Moldova, as leaders and as husbands.

One night, I had the opporunity to preach at the evening church service. I shared about Faith: What is it, how you get it, how you can have assurance of your salvation and that you do not lose your salvation everytime you sin.

At the end of every day, we had an evening service where we were able to share testimonies, sing worship songs and deliver a mini sermon. It was an opportunity for the new believers to meet, connect and get to know the pastors, Sergi (former KGB) and Slava (looks like he is mafia).

As you may have read in some of the earlier posts Kelly put on our blog, we ate lunch everyday at a place called Andy's Pizza. From it's name you might have guessed that we ate pizza, but you would be wrong. We ate either pasta, with a tad bit of meat or buckwheat, or we ate chicken. Lunchtime was a chance for us to take a break from walking the hilly neighborhoods, get some food, some encouragement, and new energy to go back out and share.

The last day we were in Moldova we went to an Orthodox monastery that was built in the side of a cliff. It was really cool to see how Christianity was preserved through the different babarian invasions over the centuries. The Orthodox religion is a Christian religion, but over time, the message of the gospel has gotten lost in the tradition and culture and it has become very difficult for people to believe in Jesus for their eternal salvation and have assurance of that salvation.
After we visited the Monastary, we walked into the Moldovan village and three of us, Sondra, Tripp and myself, were able to relax in the shade by a well and enjoy our last few hours in Moldova.

Overall, our team from NEBC, with our translators and nationals, shared the gospel over 700 times and we saw 98 people make decisions for Christ. 50 of those individuals were followed up and discipled by our team and pastoral staff. PRAISE GOD!!!
If you are wondering, "Will he go again?" I am hoping to go back next year and thanks to the Air Force, I will begin learning Russian this September.
Thank you for your support and prayers! This was the first mission trip that I have been on where the entire team did not feel like we were under spiritual attack. That could only be from all of the people praying for us. Thank you so much! God used you in Moldova!