Balti

Balti is a city in the North of Moldova, the second largest in Moldova (not including Tiraspol in Transnistria). An interesting aspect of the city is that there are very large ethnic Ukrainian and Russian populations. Around 90% of the city's population identify themselves as Orthodox. There is also a relatively large Baptist population, around 2%, but after that most other Churches and religions have only very small populations.

CSC - Communitatea Studentilor Crestin

CSC is the name for the IFES movement in the Republic of Moldova. They have student groups in Chisinau and Balti plus contacts with students in a couple of other cities. They seek to organise evangelistic activities, such as Bible studies, camps, evangelistic evenings, as well as to disciple Christian students. Here is a link with some more information: ifesworld

Moldova

Moldova is a small country sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine. Historically the territory has spent a large period of time as part firstly, of the Russian Empire and then after the second world war as part of the Soviet Union. However as communism began to collapse Moldova was able to gain it's independence on August 27th, 1991. The ethnic population living in Moldova are very closely related to Romanians, indeed the 'Moldovan language' is almost identical to Romanian. However, there are also large numbers of Ukrainians and Russians living here, many of whom use Russian as their first language.

OSCEBv

For the last few years I've been involved in helping the OSCER student group in Brasov called 'OSCEBv'. Last year a number of the key group members left the group, so this year the emphasis was on reforming the group. Alongside a few evangelistic activities, mainly a conference at the start of the academic year and a Christmas student evening, we had regular small scale meetings with the students in order to form a group. The process worked relatively work and I felt like ultimately it was God workingn to form the group! I personally feel like it is time to move on, but I hope that the students in OSCEBv will continue to meet once the academic year 2012-2013 begins and indeed begin some more regular evangelistic activities.

Moving On

A couple of months ago I was offered the opportunity to work for the coming academic year at least in Moldova for the IFES movement there. They are going through a transition period and need new workers to get involved. I've already been there on a number of occasions to visit their student groups and help at different camps and was thinking and praying about maybe getting more involved, so was glad to receive this opportunity. I'm not yet exactly sure how all the practical aspects are going to work out, but most important is to trust God and take the first steps in faith!