Baptist Church in Florica - September 20, 2009

These are selections from the church service in Florica on September 20. Thanks Paul for putting this together.

A 34 year old prayer answered today...

A new church

September 20, 2009 was the day when a 34 year old prayer was answered. In 1975 when my dad became a born again Christian and was baptized, his family told him that they don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. Years have passed and the relationship with the family was restored little by little, but not when it came to discussing about the message of the Gospel. A few years ago God also put on our hearts to pray for Florica, my dad's home village, that an evangelical church would be planted there and the message of the cross would be made known to the people. We went on mission trips and shared the Good News with the people, and at the same time we encountered great opposition from the Orthodox priests. But our God is stronger than any man. He answered our prayers and around 75 people witnessed the first church service in the village of Florica. As you probably know already, God helped us to buy a house in the center of this village that now became the building where the Baptist Church in Florica will gather for their services. We are so thankful to God for His great provision, for His faithfulness, for blessing us in such a wonderful way.

Not too many people attended from the village... only 5. The rest of us where from the churches around Campina and Pitulicea. But it was such a joy to see the 5 people there...my grandma, my aunt, two cousins and a neighbor. It meant so much for us to see our relatives there! We know that God loves this village and He has great plans with those people. Let us continue to pray for this ministry. Pastor Marian from Pitulicea will be there every Sunday and lead the church service that starts at 3:00 p.m. The church in Campina committed to go there once a month and the churches in Filipesti, Bratasanca and one in Bucharest did the same.

Below you may find some pictures with the house in Florica - how it looked in the beginning and how it looks now.






Here are a couple of pictures from the first church service in Florica. It was a great honor to have with us Pastor Chris Griggs and Paul Ratcliff from Denver Baptist Church, NC. Thank you for making the effort to be here and for supporting this ministry.



Blessings to you all!

Ioana

April 2009

Dear friends,

We have great and exciting news about Florica. Remember a few months ago we were telling you that our grandmother decided not to give us part of her property so we could build a church there and that we were still going to look for other opportunities. We believe God has great plans for that village and we are able to see that very clearly. A while ago we were able to find a house in the center of Florica with land in size of 12,920 sq.ft. We took a big step in faith when we signed the pre-contract for the property, as we didn’t know if we were able to gather the whole amount of money on time in order to pay for the full contract.

We asked many churches in Romania to pray for this and support the ministry in Florica and there were many who responded in a positive way to our need. We are thankful to them. We would also like to express our gratitude especially to Denver Baptist Church as you were the ones who encouraged and supported us financially to take the first step towards buying this property for the Church in Florica. Thank you all who prayed for this. God was faithful and we managed to get the entire amount we needed and last week we signed the final contract. Praise the Lord for this!

A lot of work is still to be done on the property to arrange the courtyard and the interior of the house, but slowly we will get this done as well. We took a team of 10 men there today and we already started to do the changes.

Rejoice with us for God has done great things in Florica and He continues to work in that village. Our prayer now is that God will raise a missionary who would move to Florica with his family and live there. We are thinking about a student from the Baptist University in Bucharest, but we will pray and let God guide us through this journey. Please join us in your prayers.

In Christ Jesus,

Pastor Ion