DAY 8

Day 8  Saturday 17th August
Caroline and Beth spent a day with Stella, Ciprian and their 2 adorable children Alessandra, who is 7, and Eduardu, who is 3. They are a new family who have moved into the area and regularly attend the church.  They have an interesting past and are very talented.  She is Moldovan and grew up in Chişinău, he is Romanian and they met when they were living and working in Italy.  They were married in Italy.  Stella speaks fluent English and Italian, Ciprian is fluent in Italian and Romanian

 The novelty is that Ciprian is building their own house and by Moldovan standards it is going to be a palace.   Whilst he was in Italy he worked as a builder and is bringing a lot of Italian influence to the house structure and design.  The house is currently a work in progress and there is a lot of work still remaining but this is something that we will look forward to seeing in the years to come.  
Caroline and Beth's claim to fame will be that they allegedly built part of the wall to the front terrace (or so they say!).

 Their highlights from the day was a bike ride with Stella and the children to the nearby woods and lake and drawing water from the local well.
Meanwhile, Brian and Anna (with Nastea, Cristina and Victor) went to Chisinau by bus with 9 of the children from the Centre  in order to buy them shoes and cardigans or pullovers for school. 

 Brian and Anna subsequently joined Caroline and Beth at Stella & Ciprian for yet further Italian influence,  restaurant standard bruschetta, lasagne and pork cooked with milk.  This was truly delicious.

In the evening, Caroline spoke at the weekly youth meeting about her year at Moorlands College, whilst Brian and Anna met with Igor and Veronica for an update about the after school care Centre. 

 Starting from September, the local school will be part of a new government initiative (LUMOS)  for affirming the right of people with disabilities to inclusive education without discrimination and on the basis of equality of opportunity. This will mean that the local school will be providing an after school care programme for those children with learning difficulties. 

Igor & Veronica will need to discuss with the local school as to how this will impact "Ancora Sperantei" as some of the children maybe involved in the LUMOS school project.  It was left that they will let us know once those discussions have taken place. 

There is no question that the after school care Centre at the church will still continue but subject to further discussions with the local school, may require some revisions.  There will always be a spiritual need .

DAY 7


Day 7  Friday 16th August
The enjoyment levels were taken to new heights with a trip to the newly opened acqua-park (Acqua Magic), approximately 30 minutes bus ride away.   All the children and young people who had attended the sessions at the church the previous days came.

A number of the children had never been swimming let alone visited an acqua-park.   It was a joy and a privilege to see the children really enjoying some great fun to the point they were reluctant to leave the acqua-park in the afternoon.

Friday evenings is the weekly Bible Study where the church are going through the book of Ecclesiastes.   That evening it was looking at Ecclesiastes 7:1-14.

Again good attendance with about 20 church members all enthusiastic and participating to find out more about God's Word



DAYS 4, 5 & 6


DAYS 4, 5 & 6 -  13th - 15th August 2013
The specific details of the day time activities can be found in the Itinerary section of this Blog. 
Our Theme for this year was The Armour of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) which has a very encouraging message, in effect can be summarised by Joshua 1:9   We can honestly say that there was a sense that God was with us and overall everything turned out better than we expected.

 Leading into the trip the numbers of children anticipated to attend were never confirmed but we were working on the basis this could be anything up to 50.   The actual numbers turned out to be 21 who consistently attended each day. Of these, 11 were children from the after school care Centre, which is run by the church ("Ancora Sperantei" translated "Anchor of Hope").  We could have had an additional 3 children had it not been for the fact that when these children arrived they were inconsolable and they decided it was best for them to return home! 

 We were initially disappointed that the remaining 9 from the after school care Centre, for one reason or other, were not able to attend but in some cases there were some very sad circumstances to overcome and certainly not a matter where anyone could force or make them attend.

As it happened, 21 was a very good number as it meant we could give each child specific individual attention and by the end of the week we felt that we had built a very good relationship with each one of them.

It was interesting to see when they attended on the first day there were a number who appeared to be apprehensive but by the second day there was more of an atmosphere of trust and we saw their confidence transformed to the point of enjoyment.

We are indebted to the Frinea girls (Nastea, Cristina and Andrea) and Crina for the help they gave to us especially for translating and communicating with the children. It was heart warming to see how all these girls had matured into fine and talented young ladies.  We were also very impressed with Sergiu, the new young man who had recently joined the youth group.  He has a genuine heart for  working with the children and young people.  Also, we are indebted to the ladies who arranged all the lovely food, (Veronica, Veronica and Viorica on Tuesday and Wednesday and Angelica and Iulia on Thursday).  

 All the activities were great fun and well received.  However, we are surprised how a simple activity of the Hokey Cokey (which was slipped in as a last minute time filler) was such a great hit with the children.  

 Making the banners in teams was a good opening activity which served as a great introduction to get to know the children and we could immediately see that they had an excellent artistic flair.  

 The children seemed to enjoy the face and nail painting the most.  Perhaps this is due to the fact it's giving them direct one on one attention 

Our prayer is that seeds were sown and that they will take root and one day bear good fruit.

As far as the evenings were concerned, on the Wednesday we were invited to Sergiu & Iulia's house for Placintas  (which means 'Pie'). This is a traditional Moldovan pastry. It's similar to pitta bread, a thin layer of baked or fried dough which acts as an envelope for some sort of filling, (usually cheese).     Sergiu and Iulia don't speak any English so we were grateful to the youth who are residing with them as they speak excellent English and were able to translate for us.  Also there was young Sergiu and Mihil's sister Elena who had only got married the previous week to (yet another) Sergiu.   It was interesting to hear of their passion for sharing the gospel in the local community and how they had been involved in helping in a summer camp.

On the Thursday evening we attended the church weekly Prayer & Praise meeting.  This was well attended, with about 30.  Igor lead the meeting, focusing on Psalm 133 emphasizing the importance of unity and encouraging one another.  The meeting ended in fervent prayer as always.   It's inspiring to see this church with a real heart for prayer.

DAY 3



DAY 3  -  Monday 10th August 2013
A day spent  preparing and ensuring we had all the resources and food for our planned sessions with the children.  This required a trip to Chişinău with Igor, Veronica and Crina.

Chişinău is Moldova's capital city and the largest and main industrial and commercial centre. It's a place with a very high concentration of people and commercial buildings; outside of this city the areas are less developed and rural, most people in these rural communities simply survive on what they can grow.    

 At the city centre we stopped off to see some of the sights of the capital which included a browse through a market selling Moldovan souvenirs, Beth succumbed to buying a set of Russian dolls, Anna a fridge magnet and Caroline decided to go for something unique bought a catapult

 We also stopped off at Andy's Pizza to meet up with Rob & Jo who treated us to a pizza and drinks.  It was really  good to see them and their young team    The added bonus was that Nicu Bocaneala, founder of Agape - a Moldovan Christian charity serving and working with young underprivileged people in the local community, was also there.   It was good to catch up.

Thereafter, onto the Metro, a huge cash'n'carry place, to buy the food, we ended up filling up 3 trolley loads.   Their trolleys are just as bad as our UK supermarket ones - having a mind of their own, albeit a Moldovan one, and so difficult to steer!

DAY 2

DAY 2  -  Sunday 11th August 2013
Sunday mornings are always dedicated to worshipping God with a church gathering.  Again, we heard the congregation in fervent prayers and some worship songs sung in Romanian, which was interesting to work out the English translations.  We did get to sing one English Song, 'Lord I Lift Your Name On High' with the rest of the congregation singing in Romanian. We had 2 sermons: one by Brian who spoke on Numbers 13, outlining how important it is for us to take possession of God's promises; the other from Igor who gave an encouraging word based on Matthew 5:4  

 It's been another very hot day with temperatures in the 30 degrees centigrade but we have managed to progress the plans for the teaching sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Once again we have enjoyed a day of wonderful Moldovan hospitality.

The highlight of the day, by far,  was lunch at the Frinea's house and hearing Andrea playing a beautiful rendition of Beethoven's Fur Elise. Only 2 years ago, Andrea could not play a note on the piano but Brian's daughter Michelle has since been sponsoring her piano lessons, which Andrea undertakes twice a week, and it was so moving to now see the fruit of that sponsorship.

Tomorrow we are planning to take a trip to Chişinău to buy some resources and meet up with Rob and Jo.

DAY 1

DAY 1  -  Saturday 10th August 2013
We've arrived in Moldova but only with thanks to Tim and Chris who made a very early morning (3am) start  to take us to Heathrow Airport. We are also thankful to Igor and Veronica who were at Chişinău to greet us at the airport and drive us to Malcoci.    It was really great to see them again.

 Upon arrival at Malcoci we could immediately see that they had worked really hard to fully complete the church building works.  Since our last visit, which was in August 2011, there's a new boundary gate and railing fence, a new patio area at the front and new guttering, downpipes and facia boards.  The last time Caroline visited was in 2010 and she's  massively impressed by the completed works as back then the ground floor was the only area which were furbished.  In many respects it was an emotional moment to ponder that from very humble beginnings there now stands a fully completed building, set on a hillside and serving as a light and a hope into the area.(Matthew 5:14)  

 Our accommodation and base throughout our trip was on the first floor of the church 

That evening we attended their weekly Youth Meeting and it was a real blessing to see that they have a real heart for prayer.  It is powerful to see young people praying fervently for each other and for their community and, above all, who have a passion for Jesus.

 It was encouraging to see that there were both the familiar youth of Crina (Igor and Veronica's daughter), Nastea, Cristina (although all 3 of them in term time will be away in their respective universities either in Chişinău or Romania) and Andrea and this year they are joined by new youth, Stefan and his brother Iulian;  Sergiu and his brother Mihail who are studying at a local university.  These “new” youth are all currently residing with (another) Sergiu (joint church leader with Igor), and his wife Iulia.

In Moldova it is a familiar story, due to their weak and unstable economical state, a young person will migrate their native regions or country in search of better education or work prospects. For this reason for the summer period we found that Aliona, Pavel and Soreen were away in Russia for work reasons as were Veronica’s and Angelica’s husbands. We were sad not to see them this time, especially Soreen.  Victor was also away, in France, but thankfully made a brief surprise visit later on in the week.