Faith Partnership – latest news from Europe

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Latest news from Crimea

We’re now six months into our Crimea church planting project. Peter Paluch (Project Coordinator) has just completed this great update on all that’s been going on in Crimea. Please click on the link below and take a little time to read his amazing report.

As we head into the second half of 2010 we have another six mission teams going out to spend time with the Crimean church planters. Please pray for effective teams to have great impact on the communities where they are based. Please also pray for all the logistical arrangements that need to happen to make a mission work.

In the Autumn (28th Sept to 1st Oct) we also have our fifth Advanced Leadership Training Conference in Crimea. These conferences have been going so well and we’ve had great feedback about their value to the church leaders in Crimea. Unfortunately one of the trainers has had to drop out. Please pray for us as we look for a quality trainer to fill the gap and also for the required conference sponsorship. Finding finance at this late stage is not easy, especially in the current financial climate.

Thank you for your faithful prayers and support. We continue to believe for great breakthrough in Crimea.

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The Power of Prayer Teams

I’m passionate about engaging people in mission, especially in prayer support for the courageous men and women who are planting churches all across Europe. Each year NLI mobilises several prayer teams into Europe. We get some incredible feedback from these missions, but it’s especially great when we hear from the church planters about the impact of these teams.

Here’s what Slovak church planters, Mark and Liz Holdcroft, said about the prayer team from Portland (US) who visited them earlier this year.

“In April, an NLI prayer team (below) came to visit us in Sala, a small city in Slovakia where we are planting a church. Up to that point the work we had been doing had been going well, with an increase in the number of people coming to our outreach programs. However, personally, as leaders we were feeling tired, spiritually dry and really in need of refreshment. We can honestly say that refreshment is exactly what this team brought.

Even though they were only able to spend a few hours with us, as they prayed over us and the work here in Sala, they confirmed promises that God had already spoken over us. They prayed specifically into our present situation and prayed blessing and encouragement for the future; a complete refreshment. The clear insight God gave them into our lives and work was such a blessing especially considering they did not know us.

USA Prayer Team

In the evening that followed we did our usual outreach program and clearly saw the difference that their prayers had made, with specific answers to certain prayers that were prayed. Also, since that time we have seen more and more of God’s blessing poured out in Sala, and we know that this prayer team played an important part in this. The following week we saw around a dozen teenagers make commitments to following Jesus. We truly thank God and NLI for sending this team. Their input was priceless and we would gladly welcome a prayer team back again.”

If you would like to know more about NLI prayer teams or about supporting NLI church planting initiatives in Europe, please contact me.

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Summer News

If you want to know more about what’s going on with Faith Partnership and NLI, please click on the newsletter image below to download the latest Faith Partnership news pdf.

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Mission can be as simple as painting a bus stop!

Last week a Canadian team went on mission to Crimea. The team of 27 interns split into 3 groups and hit most of the NLI church planting locations in Crimea. Some amazing testimonies are starting to filter through. I’ll get  more info as soon as I can, but in the meantime, here’s an amazing story from the church planters in Zuya. I’ve left it pretty much it as they wrote it: think it gives you a better impression than if I ‘posh it up’!!

Hello to you in Jesus Christ love. We wish to thank you for a team which came to us from Canada. This program was really great blessing for our church and settlement. When they arrived we worked in three directions: the program at school, painting of a stop for buses in the centre of settlement and evening dialogue with youth and sharing the Gospel.

Surprisingly, through the painting of a bus stop God has transformed a place where the Word of God for people living here was preached. I do not remember that any church program would collect more faithless people than simply painting of a stop. People asked: How is it people from Canada have arrived to our settlement to paint a stop, moreover and pay for it too?! We express huge gratitude to you for this display of Divine love.

Not the actual bus stop!!

The team was well prepared. It was visible that these people have arrived not as tourists who wished to diversify somehow their lives, but have arrived as the attendants ready on any place to show love of our Jesus Christ.

We thank the Lord for you and your prayers!

Aleksandra and Anastassiya. Zuya. Crimea. Ukraine.

How amazing!! We’ve heard other news of many young people responding to the gospel, so as soon as I have more, I’ll let you know.

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Marin’s Story

You may recall back in 2007 I went to Romania on a prayer mission. One of the places we visited was the ‘Heart to Heart’ project in Constanta. It’s run by Elena and a team of dedicated people. The aim is not charity, but justice. Life in Romania is tough for many people, especially the elderly with no family to look after them. The day centre provides a hot meal, shower, clean clothes, and support to about 30 people. The project also tries to re-house people when required. Elena says that more and more desperate women and children are coming to their doors for help. Here is the story of one man who found hope.

Heart-to-Heart logo

“ I am 60 years old. My name is Marin. This is my story. I grew up in a village near Constanta, in a poor family. I learned from a young age that if I want to eat I have to work, so I started working in agriculture, since I was 13. Long days in the sun. I had to manage with little food on a good day or just water on a bad day. At 18 I got a proper job in the state agriculture system.

At 25 I got married and a year later our first baby, a girl, was born. Five years later we had a boy. It sounds like a perfect family and probably it was according to the standards of my parents: it looked good on the outside!

But the inside was not good at all. When I was 30 my wife decided to divorce me. The communist leader responsible for moral standards where I worked tried to convince her that is better to keep up appearances, but it did not work. She had enough of my drinking and my nights away from home. I was 36 when this happened and after that my life went down and down. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital where I spent many years. No one from my family visited me, at least from what I remember. Mentally ill people are a shame for our country! That was the state politics at the time.

I left in 1998 with a plastic bag containing all I had. I found myself on the streets, homeless, moneyless, alone. I knew nothing of my children: nothing of my wife. I had nowhere to go. Eventually I remembered my brother’s address and went there. I stayed on and off. Some nights I spent on the street, just wandering around. I managed to find temporary jobs and I was doing ok. My mind was ok, but my heart was not!

One day I heard about this day centre. I still remember my first day at Heart to Heart – I had good coffee, good food, and I saw many people that seemed to have a good time there. I remember the peace I felt and I remember, I laughed! It did not take long for me to fall in love with the people that worked there and welcomed me. Mitica became my best friend! He could listen to me for hours and encourage me.

I believe I am part of the Heart to Heart family now. I feel I have responsibilities there. I  can help and I can ask my questions. For me Heart to Heart is the church I never knew existed. I found God and He is part of my everyday life now. Everything is not perfect. I often think of my children. Where are they? What have they become? Will I ever see them again? And if I will what would they say?

I am 60 years old. This is my life story and it is not over yet. Marin

Traian & Elena Pascalau

Elena writes: I pray you will be encouraged by the life of a man, formed by communism to believe there is no God, saved through grace, by God who proved Himself to Marin!

Traian and Elena Pascalau pastor the Good News Church, Constanta. Traian also oversees the NLI CP project in Romania.

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Crimea Trip News – March 2010 – online

Click on the newsletter image below to download the latest Faith Partnership news pdf. Great articles and photos from my recent travels in Crimea…

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Living An Honourable Life

On January 10th I had the privilege of preaching in my home church in Burnley. The message – taken from Luke 1 & 2 – is about how we can live honourable lives before God and impact the world we live in.

If you’d like to listen to the message then click on the link.

You can listen to more great teaching from Life Church Burnley by subscribing free with iTunes or directly from the church website www.lifechurchburnley.com

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2010 Winter News Online

Click on the newsletter image below to download the latest Faith Partnership news pdf. Some great articles and news updates…

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Ukraine Revisited

It’s always so encouraging to hear about thriving churches, and even more so when I’ve visited these churches in the past. I recently heard from a couple of pastors in Ukraine, and thought it would be great to pass on their news.

Marganets

In my pre-NLI days, back in 2004/2005, I was involved in a couple of short-term mission teams from my home church, Life Church Burnley. The main focus of the mission was our partner church in Nikopol, Ukraine, but on both trips we visited their mother church in Marganets, about 20 miles from Nikopol. We had some great times with Pastor Oleg Lugovs’kyy and the church community in Marganets and have fond memories of our mission endeavours there.

I was impressed with Oleg’s vision and passion to see the church impact the Marganets community. He was willing to push the boundaries. One year he gave us a chance to appear on local TV!! (I still have the evidence!) What’s more, Oleg also had such a refreshing attitude to women in ministry. He treated his lovely wife as an equal  partner in leading the church. What’s more, Marganets was the first Ukrainian church I preached in!

So, imagine my delight to reconnect with Oleg again on Facebook recently. This is what he had to say about current church life in Marganets.

Marganets church building - a renovated factory

“We’re fine here in Marganets in spite of different difficulties around. The church is growing and praying. Praise God nowadays we pay attention on evangelism. People from the church evangelize personally and it’s the main thing that helps to bring other people to the church.

Celebrating miracles!

Also we make a lot of printed advertisements and newsletters that contain testimonies. We have made our own TV programs on the two regional channels. God has opened this door for us and it’s a great miracle for us. Impossible is possible! PRAISE GOD!!!!! We conduct healing service for unbelievers once a month. That’s all we live with.”

Inside the church building

Great to see what God is doing in Marganets these days.

Poltava

The first NLI church planting project in Ukraine started in 2004. As well as the church in Nikopol, 11 other churches were planted, including one in Poltava, led by a great young couple, Andrey and Natasha Zibrov. In my role as STM coordinator with NLI I spent 4 days on a site visit here in August 2006. Andrey had organised a 5-day camp for local kids. The STM team played a key part in the camp program, as well as engaging in ministry in the church plant itself. You might recall the incredible testimony I shared from this mission, when young Stefan became a Christian, got baptised and filled with the Holy Spirit all in the space of 24 hours. It was certainly a memorable few days for us all.

Just before Christmas I received an email from Andrey. Not all the news was good, but Andrey & Natasha’s faith and passion shines through.

2009 was for us not easy, but fruitful. Hard, because we lost a child. Natasha was pregnant and in August we lost the child. Emotionally it was not simple to endure this event, but the Lord was with us and gave forces (strength). Thanks you for your prayers.

This year there were as many remarkable events. As usual, in the summer, we did children’s – teenagers camp. It was remarkable time both for children and for us. In the evenings there came parents of children and their unbeliever friends – all of them spoke about unusually warm conditions in a camp. It turned out fine!

Poltava youth camp

The water baptizing event followed. 11 persons from church made the decision to follow the Lord. This time we have made it more festive, with a path made from flowers on the water. After the baptisms we had entertainment and memorable gifts: the Lord gave us blessed weather!

Last month we had celebratory service – a Harvest holiday. Our hall was full. We leased a projector and made a presentation of all the events of church in a year. We had very good responses from visitors!

One week in church there was a wedding of two couples. It turned out to be a very beautiful evangelism service because there were many unbelievers, relatives and friends.

A double wedding!

This year we have started to have family video seminars. It is a success. Families enjoy participating and testify to changes and successes. We plan to continue seminars next year and to develop family services.

We pray about our own building for the church. The site we have, near Poltava, is not convenient, as not many people have cars. We pray and search the city as the prices for real estate have fallen, and we trust in a miracle from the Lord for our church. We have started to donate already, believing for the finance on building. Pray please for it together with us. With love in Christ, Andrey, Natasha, Vera, Grisha.

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