Mission 193 to Moldova
When we first decided to go to Moldova all the information we found was about the poverty of the country, the terrible condition of the prisons and the number of orphanages. Based on this information we decided to contact various charities that worked in orphanages and prisons in the hope of serving them in any way that would be helpful. For months we contacted every charity we could find to ask about volunteering in prisons or orphanages and heard nothing back. When praying a week before setting out God told us that it was no coincidence that we’d not heard anything, he wanted us to totally rely on him. So we prayed that we would be guided by the Holy Spirit and set out to Moldova with no agenda and nothing set except the place we were staying and the transport.
We had made one contact in Moldova she was an independent tour guide who was recommended by Lonely Planet. We contacted her to get some advice on travelling in Moldova and it turned out she was married to a Mancunian and was living in Manchester. We were able to meet her and spend time with her in Manchester before we left and arranged to meet up with her in Moldova.
The journey to Moldova was an adventure; we drove to London, slept in the car in the airport car park, flew to Romania and then got an overnight sleeper train to Moldova. The journey was long and all sleep was interrupted by various security checks but it was a real adventure and was enjoyable despite being tiring.
While walking around Romania and Moldova we prayed that God would show us life as a lot of what we saw was religion and tradition. On our first day we decided to walk round the area we were staying to work out where everything was and get a feel for the area. We’d walked past a few church buildings and had tried to go in and find information out about them and were swiftly ushered out followed by barking dogs. After walking for a while we stopped and wondered whether to go on or turn back, we decided to carry on walking and 4 buildings up we saw a picture of Jesus and a sign which said “Elim Pentecostal”. With excitement we walked up to the building and knocked on the door. The door was opened by a smiley man named Serghei and praise God he spoke English!
We chatted to him about mission 193 and about his church and talked lots about their understanding and experience of the Holy Spirit. Serghei seemed very excited to meet us and hear about our mission. He invited us to the church meeting the following evening.
That evening we went back to the apartment very excited and spent the evening praying for Serghei and the church. The following evening after being tourists for the day we returned to the church building for their evening meeting. The meeting was brilliant, we’d found life!! The church were noisy and responsive, there was no silence between songs as the congregation continued to praise God. Serghei had found us a translator which meant we were blessed by hearing the word. God was speaking to the church about having a thirst for the Holy Spirit and the need to experience the Holy Spirit. We talked to Serghei about our plans to pray and prophesy over Moldova and asked if he thought anyone would be interested in joining us. We talked to a few people but no plans were set so we said we’d come to the building the next day to finalise some plans.
The following day we went back to the building, we asked to speak to Serghei but they were unsure where he was. We sat in the foyer hoping he would come soon as no-one else spoke English. As we were waiting Igor came down the stairs and introduced himself to us. He is a student in South Korea and he spoke very good English. We chatted to Igor about our Mission 193 and told him that we wanted to pray and prophesy for his country and asked if he’d like to join us. Igor asked us to come to a youth meeting at his church which was associated with the Elim church and located in another part of the city. He asked us to speak to the youth about Mission 193 and then invite the youth to pray and prophesy with us. We were very excited by this invite but we were meant to travel back to Romania on the night that the youth meeting was taking place. We had to rearrange our travel and book another night of accommodation in order to go to the meeting, so the one thing that had been set before we left was changing!
We went into town with Serghei to rearrange our travel, we were so blessed to have a translator and someone who knew where we were going. We had decided that Serghei was the righteous man who we wanted to give a bible to and had carried the bible round all day waiting for the right moment. The bibles we’d been given were Russian and although people generally speak Russian the official language of the country is Moldovan. While talking that afternoon Serghei was telling us that he was the only person in the church who’s first language was Russian, how perfect that we’d already decided to give him a Russian bible!
At the youth meeting we were introduced to Paul, their Youth Pastor.
Paul was full of life in the Holy Spirit and was very keen for us to pray with the youth. We played games in the park with the youth and then came together to worship and pray together. After reading the prophetic scriptures we held hands in a group and all prayed aloud together. There were over 40 of us praying aloud in English, Moldovan, Russian and in tongues, the sound was amazing and the time was powerful.
The time we had in Moldova was amazing and we all said it would be hard to communicate all that had happened. God answered our needs again and again. We were told before we left that no-one spoke English yet every time we needed someone who spoke English there was someone there. We had opportunity to speak to many people about Mission 193 as so many people recognised us as not local and wanted to know why we were there. We were protected and experienced none of the dangers we were warned about before leaving.
God told us before we left that we would return with a good report and we can’t say enough to describe how good our experience in Moldova was. The people we met were so kind, friendly, hospitable and generous and the time we had there was amazing! Dedicating our time fully to God and living guided by the Holy Spirit was so exciting and everything worked out so perfectly.
