Dear Praying Friends, thank you for all your prayers. We had the prayer letter typed up a month ago, but David’s hard drive died and took several weeks for him to resolve that problem. But in that time God brought several more interesting events into our lives.

We have often mentioned Tamara in our prayer letters, whose life of suffering has only continued.  On October 7th, her husband, Alec, passed away.  In addition to this heartache, her cancer is now attacking her only remaining kidney, requiring her to have further radiation treatments in January.  Please pray for the emotional, spiritual, and financial needs of this lady.

In November, we found out that our village’s mayor and his wife passed away from COVID.  David and I thought we were going to calling hours on the evening before the funeral, but when we arrived, we found out that there would be none.  We were invited in and were able to spend some time with the family and leave them with a Gospel tract.  Please pray for God to use our visit and the tract in their lives.

Over the past several months, David has been trying to witness to the husband of a lady in our Soroca church-plant.  The first discussion with him ended with him saying, “I don’t want to hear any more about sin.  I’m not a sinner.”  After his wife left to spend some time with her daughter in Russia, the Lord opened up other visits with her husband before he left for Russia.  In the end, her husband ended up coming to both the midweek service and the Sunday morning service before David drove him to the airport the following Tuesday.  He heard the Gospel both times.  Please pray for the Lord to work in Vania’s heart and for him to come with his wife to services upon their return in the Spring.

In the beginning of December, a lady called David and explained that her mother was dying and insisted on having a Baptist funeral, even though all of the rest of the family is Orthodox.  Though David had been a part of a couple funerals in different aspects, he had not led one himself.  David and I went and visited the dying lady that day, and she passed away a couple days later.  When David called some Moldovan pastor friends of his for input regarding doing the funeral, one of them offered to come and assist him, which was a huge blessing.  The Gospel was given multiple times during the funeral.  Please pray for the Lord to draw this dear family to salvation.

Caleb, our oldest son, has been taking advantage of his free time in the afternoon to go out and meet people of all ages and hand out Gospel tracts in our neighborhood. An elderly man he has talked to several times is interested in coming to our services. One fifteen year old boy said he was interested in Bible study. We haven’t seen any fruit from these claims, but the gospel is going out through him, too, and we are excited about that.

David continues to pass out tracts in town, looking for opportunities to witness. He continues to do Bible study in town with a couple “V and L” as well as a Bible study out in a village where he led two ladies to the Lord last year. They have gotten a real zeal to share Christ with others but have met discouragement because the gospel has not been received very well. Pray for these ladies that they will continue to share Christ with others and make a difference in their village. Pray the Lord will open more doors for Bible studies, especially with men.

Several weeks ago I (Stephanie) was able to give the gospel to a lady at the outdoor market. More recently another door opened for me to go through the gospel again. With this lady in particular, there is a language barrier. She doesn’t understand Romanian and I speak very little Russian. She speaks some English, and she can understand when I speak about things that are familiar. The gospel and God are not familiar, so David plans to go talk to her because his Russian is better, though he, too, is limited. Pray for “A” to get saved.

Several weeks ago I also got to speak to the lady who works right across from the lady I just mentioned. I asked her if she reads the Bible. She reads Psalms and the Prayer book, but she did not have a Bible. I said I would get her one. The next week I went to take her the Bible that I had promised, only to find she had already bought herself a New Testament. I was shocked and so excited. David was with me that day and gave her some questions to answer as she reads through John. She is Orthodox but very friendly. I am hoping I can continue to point her to the truth of Jesus Christ. Pray for “E” to trust Christ.

Please pray for us to have boldness and Spirit-filled ministry as we go into a new year of serving Christ.