Spring Caravan...

The 'Spring Caravan' happened just after the Easter weekend. The plan was to visit four different villages with a children's programme and visits to the elderly - helping with a feeding programme and doing any practical work that was needed. We spent the first day planning our children's programme, which ended up being a tour of the different countries. In each country the children would learn a little about the place then either play a game, sing a song or do a craft activity. We also included Moldova in the programme so that they could show us something from their country before praying for it.


In the village of Ilenuta we were able to visit several elderly people and take them some food and talk to them. The lady on the right is the oldest lady in this village. She is here with her daughter-in-law and great grandson.

We were able to stay with different families during our time in Ilenuta. Below is the family that the girls stayed with - Svetlana, Antoni and Natasha. This was a wonderful family to stay with. They liked their animals - to get to the outside toilet we had to negotiate our way past dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, a cow, calf and bull, horse and some pigs! - Quite an adventure!! We had lots of fun trying to communicate with them in Russian/Romanian/English and drawings!!



In the next village of Albinetual Nou we went to help the church with their programme of feeding the elderly. However, when we got there, we were told that one old lady had gone into hospital and so we decided to plough her field instead! For most of us, this was the first time to do this and we had lots of fun! It was hard work though - the old lady would have done it all by herself - she was 77 years old!!

Here is the lovely ploughed field!!

On the Saturday of the Spring Caravan we were able to go to one of the parks in Chisinau to do some evangelism. We were joined by some people from the international church and went to talk to people and give out some tracts. Hannah and I (Lisa) had a very interesting conversation with a young guy called Michael who knew all about religion but had never considered that he could have a personal relationship with God. I was able to share my testimony with him and we prayed with him. The people in Moldova are quite open to talk about religion and each group was able to share the gospel with at least one person.

Sunday was spent in a village called Malcoci where we were part of the church service in the morning and then we did the children's programme in the sunday school.

The children would travel from country to country by different

types of transport. Here they are coming from Moldova to England

by train!!

New bus driver...???

We would like you to meet our new bus driver - Boris!!

He's very reliable and has lots and lots of energy!!

Rezina....

The first four days of our time in Moldova we spent with a local ministry team in Rezina, in the north. Here, we spent the first day doing practical work around the church - painting a fence, painting the kerb and taking tape off windows! as well as stopping inbetween to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and play games with the kids!

It was Easter weekend so the church was getting ready for the Easter Sunday service in which the transit team had to sing two songs (It wasn't so bad I don't think!!) After the service there was a children's programme for two hours and then a second service in the evening.

During our time in Rezina we stayed with two local

families...The girls stayed with a wonderful family

and we were able to spend each evening talking, drinking compote (Moldovan fruit juice!) and eating lovely Moldovan chocolate with them!!

Food glorious food!!

Moldovan food is wonderful!! We are all enjoying it and eating way too much!! Here's a typical Moldovan meal that we have been eating...mmmmmm.......

A tale of Wanda, the Wandering Van....

Well, the journey to Moldova took a little longer than expected! - by the end of it we had spent more than 41 hours in the van and travelled through five different countries, stopping off for the night in Hungary and Romania before finally arriving in Moldova on April 1st.

Toni is in the van!!

The adventure began in the Czech Republic, where we got stopped by the police and Toni got taken into this van - turns out we hadn't paid our road tax...were given a fine and sent on our way...!

Slovakia presented us with no problems and we drove on to Hungary...We arrived in Budapest in good time, but our google map did not give us clear directions to our destination so we spent around two hours driving round Budapest and the surrounding area, talking to many people along the way, trying to find the address we needed...Finally, we arrived at the right address, only to find that we were in the wrong city!! Six hours later we arrived at the Csernus family home for dinner - and then spent the next day at Istvans house.

Istvan gave us a tour of Budapest by night!

The last stop on our journey was Romania, and, all was going well here, until we had to use our google map again!! This time however, we thought we would be wise and paid a taxi driver to lead us to our 'villa.' Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all as we ended up waiting in the van outside an abandoned orthodox church for the owner of the villa to turn up - only 3 hours late this time!!

Turns out, we weren't really staying in a villa...like the name suggested, but instead in a random apartment where we all had to squeeze into the tiny kitchen as it was the only place that we were allowed to eat! As the owner told us 'we were VERY lucky to stay in the apartment' even though the boys had to sleep on the floor in the lounge!

Spent the next day in Brasov before setting off on the last leg of the journey - Romania to Moldova...by now we had given up looking for nice places to stop and eat and just stopped on the side of the road....

The end of our journey was in sight...we crossed the Romanian border without any problems and thought that we were in Moldova when we saw another border and realised that we had celebrated too early - we had only managed to leave Romania and had not actually entered Moldova yet!!....At the border there was no problem with Hannah's visa....however, they were not happy with Wanda...Turns out that we needed a separate form to prove that we were allowed to drive the van, so, we were sent back to Romania where, after a couple of hours, several phonecalls to Belgium and a visit to two slightly dodgy internet cafes...we headed back to the border to try again....After about two hours, and a slightly scary time where we thought the border guard had either lost our passports or given them out to some random Moldovans, we were allowed through!! All that was left now was the dark and rainy drive to Chisinau on a Moldovan road (which means no sign posts, no lights and not a lot of tarmac!!)

so...five days later, we arrived safely in Moldova! Praise God for an eventful, but safe, journey!!

Wanda did us proud! - she got us all the way from Germany to Moldova without any problems. However, she is a little sick right now - please pray that we can find out what is wrong with her and fix her during our stay here...