CULTURE AND BACKGROUND

Moldova is a country placed in the heartland of Europe. It is landlocked between Romania at the West and Ukraine at the East. It is a small country, covering an area of 33,700 sq. kilometers (about 13,000 sq. Miles). Chisinau is its capital and largest city. The total population of Moldova is 4,5 million people, making a complicated mixture of ethnic groups. Among them, 65% are Moldovans, speaking the Romanian language, and the rest are Ukrainians, Russians, Gagauz (Turks), Bulgarians, Jews, Gipsies, etc.

Moldova has one of the richest soils in Europe, good especially for wheat, but it also has huge vineyards and orchards. The irony is that, in spite of its rich potential, Moldova is the poorest country in Europe: 80% of its people live under the poverty line! The average salary of its people covers only 30% of the basic living expenses.

Until 1991, Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. The only concern of the Soviet Union was to see that Moldova produces wheat, wine and fruits for its own markets, and kept this country totally dependent for oil, natural gas and industrial products.

When Moldova declared its independence from Soviet Union, on August 27, 1991, it found itself severed from all these vital things for its economy. Still, the majority of the people prefer freedom, even in dire poverty.

However, believing that the communists might be in better terms with Russia, the people elected them to power in the last elections. Unfortunately, the communists were not able to improve the situation.

In short, Moldova must make its mind to either chose to come into the European Union or to go deeper into the economic and political union with the Russian Federation. One result of Moldova's long stay in the Soviet Union is the fact that more than one million Moldovans are scattered all over the former Soviet Union. They produce a strong link between the Moldovans from Moldova and the vast territory of the former Soviet Union.

Another result is the fact that practically all the Moldovans are bilingual: they speak both Romanian and Russian. These factors make Moldova an ideal platform for missions to all this vast territory of the former Soviet Union.

The predominant religion in Moldova is Eastern Orthodox. However, most of the people who claim to be Eastern Orthodox do not know their own faith. Their allegiance is traditional and nominal. The Eastern Orthodox church emphasizes salvation by the priest through the sacraments and liturgies. There is no personal relationship with the Lord, as a concept and as a teaching in this church. This is why our presence in this country is so vital for our people.

THE BAPTIST UNION

The first Baptist churches were planted in Moldova in the XIX century. Under the communist rule, the Baptists experienced very harsh persecution. Many of its most prominent leaders perished in labor camps. Many others spent long terms in prisons or labor camps. Training of pastors was in no way possible. The believers were under constant surveillance and constantly harassed by the KGB. When Moldova obtained its freedom, in 1991, there were 11,000 Baptists and not one trained pastor. About 6,000 Baptists emigrated to America in the last eleven years.

However, tens of young Baptists went to Romania and studied in the Baptist Theological Institute in Bucharest and Oradea. They graduated and came back and spread all over Moldova in pastoral positions and a variety of other Christian ministries. Our own College of Theology and Pedagogy was started in 1994 with teachers who graduated from Bucharest and Oradea, adding a lot of new trained workers to our churches.

In 1991, there were 130 Baptist churches in our Union. Now we have 521 churches and mission points, and a membership of 21,000 baptized believers.

As 6,000 of our people gave in to the call for a better life in America, hundreds of others herd the call to the missionary field of the former Soviet Union .Just one Baptist church has sent in recent years 38 missionaries into the Russian Federation.

Out of the poverty of our churches, they still sacrificially found means to send some of their members to be missionaries into Siberia, almost at the limit with Alaska.

We have a strong presence in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, et,).

The basic fact of our new situation is that we have freedom to preach the Gospel, freedom to train preachers and freedom to do missions, both in our own country and abroad. And we have people all over the country open to hear the Gospel.

The first challenge is the fact that there are still over 800 towns and villages with no Evangelical church in Moldova. At the Congress of the Baptist Union in 2001, the Bishop (President) of our Union, Valeriu Ghiletchi formulated our first goal in these words: " Our prayer and main goal is to have at least one Evangelical church in every village and town of Moldova. Not only a church, but a strong and healthy church in every village and town in Moldova."

The following work strategy was adopted at this Congress:

• 1. Training leaders. We do this primarily by supporting, strengthening and enlarging the College of Theology and Pedagogy in Chisinau. Help is needed to support financially the teachers and the students. We shall also organize shorter term training programs, like seminars, pastors' conferences, missionary training courses.

• 2. Evangelism and church planting. To increase the membership of our existing churches, we launched the program called ,, two plus one", by which a couple of members aim to win to the Lord one other person each year. In the area of church planting, if we continue with the present rate of church planting, in twenty years we shall have a church in every village and town of our country. But our call it to aim to achieve this goal in ten years time.

• 3. Missions. Due to the diversity of ethnic groups in our country, we are able to send missionaries to many countries. Our Russians can go missionaries to the Russian Federation. The Ukrainians can go missionaries to Ukraine. Our Gagauz (Turkish) brothers can go missionaries to Turkey and to the Turkish speaking countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, etc. Our Bulgarian Baptists can go missionaries to Bulgaria. Our College has special courses for training our future missionaries.

• 4. Discipleship and spiritual growth. Numerical growth without spiritual growth brings disaster. We have to produce materials for Sunday schools, for discipleship, for spiritual development. It is the job of the Baptist Union to select them, produce them and find resources to print them and to distribute them to all the churches.

• 5. Church Buildings. In many places we do not have a proper place for church meeting. As a short term solution, we should purchase homes and transform them in church buildings. In many places such a house can be purchased with $5,000 to $10,000. Local people do not have that kind of purchase power. Help should be brought in this area, too.

• 6. The unity of our brotherhood. As we live in an Eastern Orthodox environment, we live in an enemy territory. As we grow numerically and in unity, we have a greater chance to maintain our freedom. And as we grow numerically, we can do much more in unity than in fragmentation. We respect the principle of local church autonomy. But in our actions as outlined above, we must convince the autonomous churches to stay together, act together and defend ourselves together. The tendency that comes from the West to create independent churches is a very damaging one, both spiritually and politically.

GOD HAS A PLAN

The Baptists of Moldova are strategically placed at the gates of the former Soviet empire. The Lord has transformed these lands in the largest missionary field of the planet. The Moldovan Baptists, by their location, by their dynamism and by their missionary vision and zeal, can impact this huge mission field in a very substantial way. But they are poor materially. As the Lord blessed you with material means, would you, please, come along with us and/or give us your financial backing in order to fulfill this great call to conquer these vast lands for the Gospel and for the Lord?

HOW TO HELP

Here are some areas in which you can help us.

• Support a young pastor who wants to go to a small church, with $235 per month.

• Support a missionary who plans to go to another country in the former Soviet Union, with $300 per month,

• Support a student in our College, with $800 per year (that includes both tuition and board for one year!).

• Support a student who comes to our College from Asia, with $1,500 per year (tuition and board!)

• Support a student who comes to our College from Asia with his wife and children, with $2,500 per year.

• Support a village church to purchase a house to be transformed into a church building, with $5,000.

• Support the Baptist Union to produce Sunday school materials, discipleship aids, spiritual life courses, with whatever amount you can.

• Support our Missions Department with whatever amount you can.

GOD HAS A PLAN

If you want to help, call 817.599.0730 for more information.