Stadium Thanksgiving

Saturday 7th September and Sunday 8th September I participated in the special Harvest Thanksgiving service organised by the Baptist churches in the city at the local stadium. My role in the service, apart from giving out invitations in the days beforehand, was to be a spiritual counselor. After the musical programme, which involved various Christian artists and bands, both from Moldova, Romania and Belorussia, there was a message, on the Saturday by a pastor from Romania and on the Sunday by a Russian pastor who lives in America. Each day, at the end of the message the pastor called to come forward anyone who wanted to respond to the message. Both times a hundred or so people came forward out of the stands and gathered in front of the stage. After the pastor had prayed for them, me and the many other spiritual counselors present had the task of talking to this people about what they had experienced and understood from the message, to give them some christian literature and also take their contact details. Both times I only managed to talk to one person as there were quite a lot of counselors. It was a bit tricky as they were both Russian speakers, but I was able nevertheless to discuss a bit about what they had understood from the message and get their contact details. Both seemed quite moved by the messages and had understood at the very least that being a Christian is about God changing your life. Below are some photos from the event (there are more on my facebook account: aidanbenbow ). One thing I learnt and observed from the event is that the on neither day was the stadium full, despite the fact there had been very intensive publicity for the event (at least three billboard posters in the city, very many posters around the city and lots of flyer invitations - I alone must have given out over a hundred). The capacity of the stadium is 5,000 so there was probably around 3000 on the Saturday and 4000 on the Sunday. This just goes to show that alongside occassional big event evangelistic work, there is very much a need for week in week out evangelism through small groups and personal relationships, which is where ministries such as CSC can come in! Billboard advert My name badge The stage The choir The stadium slowly filling up Speaking to people afterwards Going Home Standing by the pitch Stadium Entrance

Thanksgiving at the stadium!

This weekend there is a very special event taking place at the local stadium in Balti. The baptist churches in the city have organised a Harvest Thanksgiving service there both on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The hope is that many people from outside the Church will also come. To that end we have been giving out invitations in the city. The messages at the services will be given by a Romanian pastor and a Russian Pastor who lives in the USA. There will also be a joint choir of all the baptist churches in the city plus various other musical groups from neighbouring countries. I have been able to get involved by helping to give out invitations and by being one of the 'spiritual counselors' at the event, which basically means after the message there will be a call for people who want to respond to come to the front and so there will be a team of 'counselors' waiting to talk to whoever responds and comes forward.

Retreat and New Academic Year

Last week for three days the staff, volunteers and some students from CSC met together in Chisinau in order to plan for this coming academic year. We had some different seminars about the organisation CSC so that we are all better informed about how everything works and also about the vision and aims of CSC i.e. evangelism and discipleship as a motivation and encouragement for the coming year. In Balti, two of the female students decided to join the leadership team, so now we are four people i.e. the students plus myself and Zina, the full time CSC staff worker in Balti. We made some tentative plans for the coming semester and over the next few weeks we will get to work at putting them into practice!