The Clarion

The Marriage Course & Outreach

During an extended Zoom meeting report with the only employee of the Moldova Mission Network, our President and Executive Director (both volunteers) report considerable encouragement and progress. Slavic is working such long hours, we needed to b caution him not to overdue. For example, one morning he got up at 6am, loaded his van with the material for a session for the Marriage course and then spent four hours driving to the church for the meeting. (That is about as far as you can travel in Moldova.) After the meeting re re-loaded everything, and drove home. He arrived back home at 11pm!

He reports that except for last year with the Covid close down he did not travel his average of 30,000 miles.

Three times during our meeting he told us your donations allowing MMN to supply reimbursement for travel expenses is an answer to his prayer. Gasoline is is very expensive in Moldova.

Slavic has planned four weekend village Tent Meetings this summer. You can see pictures and read about these on our new website MoldovaMissionNetwork.org. Look under the Outreach section.

His outreach efforts recently required each couple to bring along a non-Christian couple to qualify for participation! Follow-up with participants of The Marriage Course usually involves regular Bible Study. Some he and his wife Ala conduct. In other instances, the local pastors do this. With your donations he has been able to rent an office used for marriage counseling. There are many troubled marriages in Moldova because of the social and economic situation. One couple had so many problems their counselling session extended until 3am.

Orphan Update

Pitiful and critical describes the orphan situation in Moldova. The worst in Europe.

Under EU pressure there has been a movement to close the orphanages in Moldova and relocate children in foster homes or return them to their homes. Progress has been made in this area. However significant problems remain. The worsening economic situation in Moldova has intensified the struggle of foster homes to have enough money to feed these foster children. In most cases your donations for MMN money formerly used to help children in the orphanages has been switched to buying food for foster families. There remains a long run food shortage to ensure a healthy development of many children.

There is an ongoing attempt to close the few remaining orphanages, some composed only of handicapped children. In too many cases children are sent back to families that are not capable of taking care of them. This is usually the situation where an alcoholic father is a single parent. Then the children are basically street orphans looking for food. There is no way to know exactly how many returned children are involved as there is no organized attempt to do a follow-up check on these families. Recently four pre-teen homeless street children were discovered and placed with a foster family, which now has 13 children, both natural and foster.

There is no central government register of foster families. Most are created by the churches.

All additional donated funds will go first to supplying food and then followed, as funds permit, to locate all former residents of orphanages, and establish and maintain a central register system. Long range goal - to financially support an orphan’s chaplain as well as a local person to help coordinate and track all function private, Christian and governmental orphan care activity.

What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans

James 1:27

UDG Update

Following the exam period, UDG officially started the second semester of the UDG academic year on January 24. Right from the start UDG bumped into a few challenges.

Covid-Omicron Impact

By December 1 the number of daily confirmed cases dropped below 500. Now they are in the upper 5,000’s. All the teaching at UDG will be done online until at least Feb 20. Some students manifested flu-like symptoms and some teachers have tested positive. Teachers Elena and Mariana were supposed to travel to Dushanbe, Tajikistan to teach for two weeks at the UDG satellite school. This trip was postponed until the second half of February because Elena tested positive. 

Kazakhstan UDG Students

UDG students are from Kazakhstan where civil unrest and protests delayed the five students return to classes. UDG also has a satellite school in the city of Shymkent which is not very far from where the riots took place. 

Russian Gas Price Increases 

Another challenge is due to the ongoing energy crisis Moldova are is experiencing. The price of Russian natural gas increase by more than 30% for the final consumer. In February, the price will go up again. This has led to a chain reaction with price increases in almost all categories. Food-related expenses increased by 35% from last year.

UDG Staff News

Nathanael Longstaff, a young man from the UK came to UDG this month and plans to stay with UDG for a year. He will be teaching English to our Mission and Social Work students.

Our next newsletter will be an update on the Ukraine impact on Moldova with an opportunity to become involved in solving the problems and helping.