One man asked me recently, “Grace? What is grace? I have heard that word but not sure I understand what it means.” Another person I witnessed to in our van said, “Mary and the saints are our mediators between us and God. We are too sinful to come to God in prayer.” These statements and others over the past couple months remind me of why we are here in Moldova. We thank the many opportunities we have to preach God’s truth and shed light in the darkness that abounds here.

FAMILY VACATION

     As with many of you, our plans for this year changed drastically due to the pandemic. We had planned to have our family vacation this year with Stephanie’s parents this past May. When that was all canceled, we put off our family vacation until September. We went camping to the same place I had taken my boys camping last year.
The trip started out with not much rest due to people showing up next to us with loud music and alcohol till past midnight. While I did get to witness to some of them till 1 am (one man saying he was Orthodox but believed in reincarnation… those two do not mix), we were praying and asking God whether we should stay and lose more sleep, go home, or go somewhere else. After I asked the Lord about it, I climbed out of the tent and found a man we met before coming to see us at the campground. Long story short, he invited us to setup camp next to his house in that village. The Lord turned the trial into a blessing. Our children had a blast playing with his children, we enjoyed the time with him and his wife, and we were able to share the Gospel of Christ with them and some other of his acquaintances, including a couple I had witnessed to at last year’s camping trip. We thank the Lord for meeting our needs during that trip, for making new friends, and for the open doors to be witnesses for Christ in that week.

POSITIVE

     I try to be a positive guy. My blood type is A positive. I even tested positive for COVID-19 in October. I came down with a back ache and then fever on Thursday, Oct. 15th. We all stayed home the following Sunday once others in my family started coming down with symptoms. Since it wasn’t like my normal flu symptoms, wasn’t like a normal cold, and I work with older folks, I went in on Tuesday for a COVID-19 test. The next morning the results came in my inbox with a positive result. This was followed by phone calls from the Moldovan health department and the nurse in our village calling me each morning to check on us to see how we were doing. I was actually impressed at the system the government had setup for getting all those who test positive connected with a local doctor or nurse.
Thankfully, we had mild cases and never needed any medical assistance. Our coworkers, the Hughes, helped us with doing our grocery shopping and making sure we had all we needed. Another lady in the Soroca church-plant brought us some food, too. We appreciated all the phone calls and emails of people who found out about our situation and were praying for us. We are happy to be out of quarantine and back into the normal routine, witnessing to people and sharing God’s Word.
One of the men, with whom I do an evangelistic Bible study each week, came down with the virus the same time I did; but he developed pneumonia within a week. Thank the Lord, he is on the mend and almost back to normal.

ELECTIONS

     I know, I know. The last thing you want to read about is COVID and elections, but this is what has been going on here, too. Moldova had the presidential elections this month, not just the USA. We had eight candidates the first round of voting. No one had over 50% of the votes, resulting in round two of voting on Nov. 15th between the top two candidates. In the end, a woman named Maia Sandu won a clear majority and will enter office later on in December. We thank the Lord on several things. The elections were peaceful, had a clear winner, and the winner has the potential to take Moldova in a good direction. She is pro-European, stands against corruption, and is committed to keeping religious liberty here in Moldova, allowing us to continue to serve Christ openly.

Harvest Sunday

     Though this letter has been more of an update and list of praises, please do continue to pray for our safety, walk with Christ, and for fruit for our labors here in Moldova. We covet your prayers and appreciate all you do for us. May God bless you as you seek to serve Him each day.