Searching for a Home

Many people from the Republic of Moldova, 

including our Roma brothers and sisters, 

must go abroad to find work. 

A number of Roma from the village of Vulcanesti 

have found work in the greenhouses in North Holland. 

Their first employer provided housing in temporary trailer houses.

More than one family shared a trailer house. This visit (ca 2018) began with food and moved to impromptu worship.

Then their employer provided a large house . . . where they all shared the kitchen and dining/living room area with each other AND with Polish workers.

This visit (ca 2019) also included a feast for the body and the soul. 

Next, the workers began renting houses on their own. 

And now a number of them are buying  homes in North Holland. 

(This photo is from a visit in 2023, hosted by one of the Roma families in their very own backyard.)  

This permanence has led to the desire for a more permanent spiritual home as well. 

They are prayerfully looking for a worship space to rent somewhere central to the towns in North Holland where they now live and work. 

Pray with us for the Spirit to lead them in the direction God has planned for them to go.
(And pray that we may soon be able to visit them again!)

Roma Work in Moldova . . . By Roma for Roma

"Many people have now heard about us as a church." Pastor Petru Ciochina was talking about Bethlehem Baptist, in the largely Roma village of Vulcanesti. (Photo of group visiting another Roma community.)

"We were invited to a big evangelization in Orhei with Roma people in May. All the program was from our church—testimony, preaching, songs."

Orhei is about an hour and a half by car from Vulcanesti (Nisporeni district). 

"Near the Roma community, they build a Christian center built by an evangelical organization. We discussed about this evangelization many months ago. They invited the Roma people (to come to the program), and we provided the program."

They have also been invited to Calarasi for a series of meetings. 

We are glad that there are new singing voices in the church. 

And we are glad that the Spirit is working through the believers there!

Planting Seeds

Vacation Bible School (VBS) holds a special place in some people's hearts. When I wore an old VBS t-shirt to work on the church's gardening team, another gardener responded enthusiastically. He's a college student from Aruba, studying for a time here in the Netherlands. VBS was the way he became connected with the Baptist church his family now attends in Aruba. When he goes home this summer, he'll help his mother as she once again coordinates the craft section of their church's annual VBS.

VBS is what first brought me to Moldova. Keith was going with a team from Virginia which included two women. The men were going to help finish the Baptist church building. The women were going to do a VBS program for the kids. I went along to help. We began with about 20 kids on someone's enclosed porch. We ended with about 100 kids in the village school. The school principal was thrilled. He rarely got that many kids into the building during the school year.

The program had a lasting impact. Debbie Emery, one of those first volunteers, continues to pray for the people she met there. (Photo, 2001, left to right: Debbie, Moldovan translator Constance & Mary)

I got hooked on Moldova and continued returning, first with the Virginians, later with Dutch, American, and Romanian volunteers, and am still partnering with the pastor and people of that church. 

Alina, a Romanian who joined us as a Romanian/English translator, made connections that lasted a life-time. A woman in the village organized an online Bible study and asked Alina to teach it. 

Ruslan, whom I remember as a child in VBS

(this photo from 2016) . . . 

. . . is now studying to be a church leader

(photo from baptismal service this past February; Ruslan is at the mic).

We pray a blessing on all those who will attend and who will volunteer with a VBS program this summer. The Spirit continues to work!

t

P.S. Can you pick Ruslan out of this photo of a 2025 session of the Gypsy Smith School, held at Project Ruth in Bucharest, Romania?

A Light Still Shines

 A colleague recently wrote that they were feeling tired and blue. Does that sound familiar to you? It does to me. This is begins a series of what helps me. Everyone's different. What helps me might help you . . . and it might not. 

Acknowledging emotions but focusing on truth.* 

For example, the Light does still shine in the darkness. 

Specifically:  A young Roma guy from the church in Vulcanesti, Moldova, only has 6 months left in his two-year pastor's training course. He and his wife had trouble making ends meet, and shortly before Christmas he thought he might need to break up his study to go work abroad. We prayed with our Moldovan partner Pastor Petru Ciochina about this. God reminded me of someone who had asked us to let her know if we ever had a specific need. We sent her an email the next day. She wrote back: 

Thank you so much for letting me know of this need.  I prayed to God that he would lay something in my heart to help someone in this season and then there is your email!  HE is an amazing God and reaches across the oceans. I will mail a check today . . . .

The check covers the rent for the rest of this young man's study time.

*Learned from my wise friend Crista Smidt. Crista has an MSW and 30+ years' experience as a guidance counselor in a Christian school system. She also has 50+ years' experience focusing on the truth of God's grace and Jesus' love.