Yura (left) and Chris discuss ongoing ministry in Moldova

When Yura Deli was just 21 years old he began leading his church. Soon afterward, with a vision to begin a sports ministry, he led his church to buy and renovate a building—paying for half of it through gathering, hulling and cleaning walnuts.  God’s call on Yura’s life has blessed so many. He is just one of the ways God is at work in Moldova.

Yura’s church, called “the station,” is in the village of Budzhak , Gagauzia—an autonomous region of Moldova. IMB missionaries Chris and Nancy Russell have lived in Moldova for many years, working with the Gagauz people. They have been encouraged by God’s call on Yura’s life and have, in turn, encouraged and supported him with their presence, hands-on help and coordination of volunteers.

“We lived in the city of Comrat just south of this village and frequently attended the church services there to encourage the young church,” Chris said.

Volunteer teams that have come through Chris have held many one-day children’s programs, several youth events and week-long clinics for American football.  They have helped with weight training groups and bi-weekly ESL(English as a Second Language) classes, remodeled the sports center and donated weight training equipment to help with Yura’s ministry. Yura has helped Chris with sports and youth outreach projects in the neighboring village of Dezghinzea (Dez-geen-ZHA) where there is no church and has assisted with ongoing discipleship of several youth from this village.

As a result of Yura’s obedience, he and his assistant and fellow church member, Andrei, have seen over 40 boys and young men involved with them over the past four years.

“They seem to come and go because of the requirement of Bible study along with the sports training, but Yura remains committed to this requirement,” Chris said.

Yura is presently working with ten young men, aged 14-27.

“The goal of our ministry is to draw people into Bible study through sports.   For this reason we established some rules without which we couldn’t meet our goal,” Yura said. “ We want to make disciples, not only in sports, but in Bible study, who will be involved in church.”

Yura, who is now married and a father, was saved as a teen.  Though he had begun to take part in leadership of the church as a young man, he did not realize that God had such a big job in store for him.

“I had started to preach and sometimes stand in the pastor, but I didn’t understand that God was preparing me as a minister,” he said.

When circumstances in 2006 left the church with no one to lead, Yura said yes.

“Sadly, there wasn’t anyone else to step in, and I was only 21 years old, but someone had to lead, he said.  “Not knowing a lot about leading services, I turned to God and His Word to guide me. “

And God has accomplished so much through this young man.

To find out more about helping reach the lost of Moldova, contact Chris Russell.

Mark Edworthy, Affinity Global Strategist for the European Peoples Affinity Group of the IMB, addressing the partners.

PRAGUE — “This might be the greatest contribution the IMB can make to global evangelization,” said Gordon Fort, vice president of the IMB Office of Global Strategy, “More than anything we’ve ever done.”

Fort spoke of the internationalization of missions– churches all over the globe sending their own missionaries into other countries to share the Gospel.

This week, leaders from the IMB and several international missions sending organizations gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, for the European National Partners in Mission Sending Consultation.

Missions leaders from the United States, Europe and South America gathered to discuss global evangelization. During the consultation, leaders forged partnerships and shared their struggles and victories in sending cross-cultural missionaries. These organizations have a salient common goal: sending people from all nations, to all nations to share Christ.

“We thought this would take years to develop, this concept of the internationalization of missions,” Fort said. “And what has become very apparent is that God has already been doing stuff that we had no idea about, and we’re just beginning to get in on it!”

During the consultation, missions leaders conveyed their passion for reaching the lost. Those from Central and Eastern Europe shared their struggles with churches that still operate under a communist-era mentality. Some shared stories of traveling to more than 300 churches, urging pastors to embrace a focus on missions. Others emphasized the urgency of sending missionaries to unreached people groups in Central and South Asia. The leaders dialogued and shared ideas and needs, pinpointing ways they could assist each other.

“When I see the pictures and I hear the testimonies, I know that we are sharing lots of things, even though we are so far [away from one another] and have different contexts,” said Carlos Gomez, leader of PAAM, a Panamanian missions organization. “We have the same challenges. We find problems with money issues [and] churches with no missionary culture. But overall the main challenge we have is to go back to the Word of God. What were we created for?”

While these international missions sending organizations are growing, sending dozens of cross-cultural missionaries annually, they are still young. IMB leaders seek to help these organizations become more established. “[The IMB] has an incredible infrastructure of 165 years all around the world, and our partners look to us for help in several areas,” said IMB Strategy Training Associate Mick Stockwell. “We need to pour our resources and everything that we have into helping the other nations to reach the nations.”

Throughout the consultation, the IMB provided insight on evangelical strategy, missionary training and equipping. IMB Strategist Scott Holste shared research on the unreached and unengaged people groups of the world, showing missions leaders the urgency of sending missionaries to countries without any evangelical presence. “If you take all the missionaries in the world… only 3 out of 100 are working with these least reached people groups of the world… so we’ve got to partner together. We’ve got to get the whole church involved.”

“We have sensed that God is really stirring the church locally in this generation,” said Fort. “And we have felt that perhaps the greatest contribution we can make to global evangelization is making it possible for those last peoples who have not heard.”

Readers can pray for these organizations as they raise funds for missions sending, develop strong and efficient training programs for missionaries and mobilize local churches to participate in cross-cultural missions.

Participating in the consultation alongside the IMB were the following organizations:

PAAM, Panama (www.misionespaam.org)

College of Theology and Education, Moldova

Asociatia Liga Crestiná Pentru Drepturile Rromilor, Romania (www.lcdr.yolasite.com)

Asociatia Rromilor Crestini Calea Adevarol Si Viata, Romania

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, USA (www.swbts.edu)

Mission Department Baptist Union, Romania

To All Nations, Germany (www.to-all-nations.de)

Jack Gilliland, a long-term volunteer, meets a few Russian women who attended his spiritual gifts seminar in Izhevsk, Russia. Jack is from Arkansas and serves as a virtual strategy coordinator to the Republic of Udmurtia.

Baptists in Texas are hosting the Engage Europe Summit Oct. 11-13 at First Baptist Church (FBC) of Forney, Texas. The Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention are joining the International Mission Board (IMB) and FBC Forney for the event.

IMB workers from more than 15 Eastern European nations will travel from their ministry locations to interact with conference attendees and share their visions for planting churches among Europeans. They represent missionary work in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, southern Europe and Ukraine.

IMB worker Russell Kyzar, who helps lead the efforts of reaching out to Europeans across the globe, said he looks forward to the opportunity to connect with volunteers.

“This summit is like an NFL draft—missionaries come eager to find new team members, and church leaders come ready to sign up,” he said. “The enthusiasm is really contagious. It’s an exciting time for everyone.”

The event will start Sunday night with two missions encounters at FBC Forney and Lakeside Baptist Church in Canton—churches of the Kauf Van Baptist Association of Texas—with testimonies from the field. The following two days will include opportunities to meet one-on-one with IMB workers and discuss partnering with them to reach their respective people groups. Attendees will also hear a challenge from IMB President Dr. Jerry Rankin and “best practice” testimonies from churches aggressively involved in international missions.

Missionaries are looking for volunteers to pray and lead others to pray. They’re also looking for those interested in visiting a ministry location to prayerwalk; help with children’s and youth camps, concerts, student ministry and evangelism projects; conduct English as a Second Language courses; and build relationships with businesspeople, teachers and others for evangelism and discipleship—to name a few opportunities.

“In most places in Eastern Europe a church can’t be started ‘from scratch’ in a week or even in a few months,” Russell said, “but long-term partners can greatly reduce the time that is required and give an encouraging boost to our field personnel.”

Churches looking for long-term partnership opportunities with an unreached city or people group are urged to attend to discover how they can be strategic partners in Eastern Europe.

Register for the summit online at fbcforney.org/EngageEurope.

These students were part of Impact 360, a nine-month program for students 18 to 20 years of age who are seeking God’s direction for their futures. Most of the on-site missionaries utilized these young people to teach English to national students. Through this platform they were able to form relationships and share their faith.

For some of these students, making a personal connection that reached across cultural boundaries was a first-time experience.

“God taught me I can talk to people from different countries and really understand them from my own experiences at home,” said Nic Spalviero, a skateboarder from South Carolina who served in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Nic comes from a broken home and is immersed in a drug culture among his fellow “boarders.” He said his testimony really hit home with his international audience.

“They were listening. It was an incredible experience. I cried … and I never cry,” he said.

Nic was not alone in finding that God had specially prepared him for a particular ministry. In Budapest, Hungary, Johnathon Scagfield, who has a special interest in apologetics, found himself sharing with atheists, secular humanists and even a Satanist. At a coffee shop one evening he was able to talk about God for two and a half hours with his new friends.

“Since I was 13 or 14 I’ve asked the Lord not to use me, but to make me usable … and then I had this huge conversation. God was able to use me…. He gave me the words to say. I look at where I am and how God could use that…. I am so unworthy,” he said.

For some of the students, the learning curve was not about being used, but about hard work and faith. Mark Heath served in the Czech Republic and worked on a service project that involved clearing large rocks off a tract of land.

“It was hard—all of us struggled to see importance of the work,” he said. “A lot of work we had to do in faith, knowing God will use it.”

Dave Darty, who served in Prague, saw the hardness of a different kind of soil. He and his teammates distributed Scripture for several days and were rejected until they figured out they should not try to talk to anyone.

“When we talked they thought we were selling something,” he said.

However, when they quietly gave out God’s Word, they were able to put Scripture into the hands of hundreds of people. Though the soil in Prague is hard, missionary Steve Warren did see results from the work. A policeman who took notice of what they were doing started asking questions and went to have coffee with Steve and the students. He has now agreed to meet with Steve every week to talk more about the Lord.

Missionaries in Moldova also saw God at work.

“I got the cream of the crop,” said missionary Larry Martin. “We gave them plenty of evangelism opportunities and they jumped right in and took advantage of each one.”

Zach Fallon served in Moldova and enjoyed his time so much that he plans to return soon.

“I know I’ll come back to Moldova for sure. It was awesome. I’m thinking about coming back during the summer and am considering the Journeyman program.”

For others, the future is not yet clear, but they know some good groundwork has been laid.

“I’m struggling with what to do for summer, college and career,” admitted Mark Heath. “But I’ve realized whatever He says, I need to do. And if it requires sacrifices, then I’ll make those sacrifices.”

That’s a great lesson to take home.

More information about Impact 360

The family lives in one room and the other has been transformed into a church. On a given Sunday there may be nineteen or more family members and neighbors who come to this little haven to hear words of hope. Most are like Uri, making maybe $2 a day for menial labor. Though poor in the things of this world, they are rich with the greatest treasure they could possibly posses–Jesus Christ.

The home church is the backbone of a church-planting movement. Scripture supports this in Acts 2 when it speaks of believers going from house to house to break bread and fellowship together, and again in Romans 16 when Paul sends greetings to the church that met at the home of Pricilla and Aquila. It should come as no surprise as missionaries labor in the cities and villages that have no Christian witness or evangelical church that the believers would naturally gather together in their homes to fellowship and worship together.

As more and more small house-churches begin, so does the Church Planting Movement that spontaneously reproduces churches wherever believers are willing to open their homes to share the truth of the Gospel. This phenomenon is occurring all over Central and Eastern Europe just as it is in this small Ukrainian village of Vellekey Mekailovka.

Nine of Uri’s brothers attend. All but one has confessed Christ–being freed from a background of alcoholism passed on to them from their parents. There are also a young teenage girl who loves to sing, a woman in her 50′s and an elderly gentlman in the goup. The crowd is mixed and never very large but the spirit is sweet. Even when the pastor is delayed by an hour or more, the worship spontaneously begins with testimony and praise of how God has worked in the midst of these peasant children of God. They are not going to waste their precious time together. Some travel miles in horse-drawn carts through freezing temperatures to share in the fellowship of other believers. Just as in Acts, after the worship there is a meal prepared by Oksana for all who will stay. The sweet fellowship continues until late in the day.

This little church is pastored by a young Ukrainian man who has been sponsored by the Mississippi Baptists. The Mississippi Baptists have partnered with Southern Ukraine for the past three years to send volunteers and work together with missionaries in winning this country to Christ. They support nine church planters who have planted nine churches and are seeking to establish more churches in the areas surrounding those initial plants. God is using this partnership and these young home missionaries to make His name known.

Vellekey Mekailovka is just one small village. There are thousands more like it with no evangelical witness at all–no house church–YET! In Ukraine, 2300 people die every day with only eleven of those knowing Christ. Only the Lord can change that statistic and he has begun in a small village with a poor family and willing hearts to do just that!

View the photo essay of “From House to House.”