Thirty years of a Biblical leadership training scheme in Moldova are being celebrated.
Recently, Slavic Gospel Association staff members had the joy of joining with church leaders, and past and present students of the Mission School in Balti, Moldova, to mark the anniversary.
The occasion was also the graduation of the 15th group of students who had just completed their two-year study course designed to prepare and equip them for a lifetime of Christian ministry.
The 16th group has already commenced its studies. Each group is comprised of around 25 students approved and commended by their local churches. All are already active in their local churches and all have a great desire to develop their God-given gifts for a wide range of ministries. From the inception of the course almost 400 graduates have completed their studies, and we know from our contacts in North Moldova that more than 80% are continuing to advance the cause of the gospel through their local churches. Many are supported by SGA across a wide spectrum of gospel work – evangelism and church planting, children’s ministry and youth work, including the annual extensive camp ministry organised by the churches, and gospel-based support for and rehabilitation of those caught up in addiction. Female graduates are active in invaluable women’s ministry.
The training, strengthening and support of Christian leaders is vital to the progress of the gospel across the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. After years of Communist suppression of evangelical church witness, when pitifully few students were permitted to undertake Biblical and theological training, SGA’s initially ‘hidden’ training in forests and mountains in Romania in the 1990s, expanded and developed when freedom came. It was then ‘exported’ to a number of East European countries, including Moldova, where it has proved to be a powerful tool in God’s hand for an extensive programme of church planting across the north of the country.
It is thrilling see the principle of 2 Timothy 2:2 being worked out to the glory of God and the blessing of gospel churches in spiritually needy countries: ‘…what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.’ Michael, a young, recent graduate, and now part of SGA’s Leadership Support programme, is a fine example of this. He has commenced a church-planting effort in a Moldovan village which has no gospel witness, and is already seeing God at work in lives, and a foothold gained in a spiritually needy community.
