Wesley and Donna Buck

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a training conference for Moldovan pastors. It was a blessing to sit in on these sessions with many great pastors from this country. The sessions were taught by several different speakers, but the keynote speaker was Rev. Jim Bradford, general secretary of the Assemblies of God. His preaching was very practical and down-to-earth and I felt that it was exactly what these pastors needed to hear. I told my wife Donna that Rev. Bradford’s two hours of teaching on sermon preparation was worth more than an entire Bible college class on the same subject.

I enjoy attending conferences in the states. The anticipation builds as the event gets closer. I look forward to seeing old friends, relaxing, being encouraged. One thing that I always enjoy is staying in a hotel. That seems to make all of the above come to pass easier. In Moldova, they don’t stay in hotels. They line up mattresses in dorm rooms and hallways sleeping close together to fit as many people as they can. Although I usually try my best to jump in and become a part of the culture, I was glad when Andy informed me that we would be staying in a hotel.

Most Europeans wear dark clothes. Rarely would you see anyone dressed in bright colors, especially among the older generation. Most of the pastors at this conference were wearing dark colors. I did my best to blend in over the first few days, wearing dark dress clothes. On Thursday morning, I knew that I was leaving quickly after only one session, so I dressed much more casual. What I didn’t know was that Thursday was group picture day. So, in the picture below, take your time and pick me out of the several hundred people in the photo. I know you’re thinking this will be difficult, but it won’t. Reply and let me know how long it took you to find me.

Last week during Pastor’s Conference, missionaries Andy Raatz and Troy Darrin were able to take some time and visit the church in Mihaien Noi. They were joined by several church members who were excited to show the progress on repairing the church building.

They were pleased to report that the church has new windows installed and has been completely enclosed, away from the harsh winter. The above picture is of the ceiling as it looks now, three months after the previous one was destroyed by fire.

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart,
but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

After Christmas has come and gone in the U.S., it remains alive and well in Moldova. If you walk down main street in mid-January, you can see festive lights, vendors selling toys, ornaments, decorations. You can still see Santa in the square and get your picture taken at one of ten stations for your Christmas card. In fact, you can even find yourself surrounded by a group of children who will sing you a carol or two (for a small fee of course.)

While helping to take down the decorations at our apartment, I received a phone call from the pastor of a local congregation. He was inviting me to deliver Operation Christmas Child presents to a public school. I excitedly agreed to go. Not only did we deliver presents, but the school allowed the pastor and some people from the church to do an hour presentation of the Gospel. When the last present had been given, the school was filled with smiling faces as the children opened their boxes, revealing what they had received. It touched my heart.

After distributing the gifts, I asked the pastor if they planned to do this again. I was excited to hear that they had one more school to visit the next day. Pastor Vitale asked if I would like to prepare the presentation. I jumped at the opportunity. The next day we piled several hundred presents and six volunteers into a small SUV and headed off to the school.

What a blessing it was to have an open opportunity to speak about Christ in a public school. I shared the love of Jesus with over 150 students through games, magic tricks, songs, stories and drama. The main theme of the presentation was that God had a special gift for each of them, Salvation. While I could not give an altar call, I did talk with several students after the presentation.

When the event was over, the school director invited us to her office for tea. While meeting with her, she said I am “A friend to this school.” She invited me to come back the next week and share again. I have now been to the school five times, continuing to share the Good News with children. The Moldovan leader of our Saturday Kid’s Club helps me with the school outreach so that as the children receive Christ, she can disciple them at Kid’s Club.

This ministry has made me appreciate Proverbs 19:21 all the more. We can make the best-laid plans, but in the end, it is God’s purposes that prevail, not our own.

I don’t think I can say it enough, thank you for your part in sending us here. I believe your prayers are helping God’s plan for us to come to pass.

“It’s Christmastime in Bethlehem….” began the words to our Christmas pageant at the International Christian Fellowship. This is the church where we minister to English speaking chidren and adults.

Last Sunday night was the church’s first Christmas pageant. Donna and I spent many hours in preparations for this event. The play had to be written, music chosen, a set built, costumes sewn, props created. The children needed to learn their lines and songs. For most of these children it was the first Christmas play in which they had ever been involved.

For these kids, Christmas is different. Christmas is the excement of getting a package slip in the mail and heading off to the central post office to pick it up. Christmas is talking to cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents via webcam. Christmas is just… well… different. The decorations are different, the carols are different, in this country even the day that Christmas is celebrated is different.

That’s what makes International Christian Fellowship so special to these children. It’s an opportunity to be around other children and to be themselves. They get away from all of the “differences” and can focus on their similarities. They don’t have to think about which language to speak. They don’t have to worry about being picked on for their faith. It is a chance to learn about God and to have fun in a church setting. And although they may not realize, it is an essential part of their Spiritual growth.

The Christmas pageant is something in which most Christian children in the U.S. get to be involved. It’s one of the events that they will remember forever. Now, because God sent us to Moldova, these children were able to experience this too.

As the year comes to a close, we want to thank you for your prayers and financial support. Because you helped to send us, the English speaking children here have a life-long memory of their first Christmas pageant. Because of your prayers, barriers and walls are coming down in this country. Because of your giving, God is able to use us to make a difference in the lives of many children.

My last blog post spoke of the month of ministry that was accomplished in northern Moldova with the help of the Convoy of Hope interns. One of the churches where we did some outreach was in a village named “Mihaiien Noi” We’ve had teams come in and help the church to build a nice building there.

We had sad news last week as we learned that the evening after their dedication service, the building burned down. There were sad, tired people at the church the next morning as they saw the remains of their building. But their sadness turned to determination as they began to rebuild.

I was able to spend some time helping them to get a roof back on the building. I think it was an encouragement to the congregation to have us come up and help with the reconstruction process. They were an encouragement to me as well.

I live in a country where Christians are the minority. We are the ones who are looked down upon for not being “orthodox.” In our Saturday children’s outreaches in Chisinau, we encourage the children to invite their friends. I have heard story after story of these children being picked on at school for inviting their friends to church. But, this doesn’t stop them.

One little girl gave a bible to a friend at school who was hurting and told her the words in this book will bring comfort. The book was well received until the little girl went home and her mother made her get rid of it. How do I answer the child that is discouraged by the reactions of others?

I can tell them that God is able to change hearts and lives. He is our comfort and our help. This is a lesson that the church in Mihaiien Noi has learned. It is a lesson the children in our outreach are beginning to learn. It is a lesson that God wants everyone to learn. So we preach, build relationships, build churches, build people, and sometimes re-build, until all of Moldova has heard.

A woman leaving the outreach with her bags of food.

During the month of October and into the first week of November we have a group of young people with us from an organization called Convoy of Hope.  The group is made up mostly of college students who have taken a semester off to make a difference in the world.  They packed a container of food and supplies in Springfield Missouri, then they boarded a plane for Moldova.  We’ve had two of the young men stayin with us on and off.  I have also had several opportunities to visit the team as they minister in various villages.   

The container arrived about a week after the interns did.  They unpacked the supplies and sent them around the country for distribution.   I have visited the team in two villages this month and they also assited me with a children’s  outreach in a third village.  I had the privilege of helping to pack bags of food for two different villages and was honored to help give away the food in one of those villages too. 

This is more important than it may sound.  This is not just giving bags of food to Moldovans.  This is breaking cultural barriers.  You see, 98.5% of Moldova is Orthadox.  They are “taught” from birth to stay away from Christians because they will lead you “astray.”  They think of us as a “cult.”   So, for the people in this village to come to the city center to pick up food which is being provided by “Christians” is a HUGE DEAL.  This act alone would cause them to be shunned or at the very least highly looked down upon by their Orthadox congregations. 

Providing this food is breaking down walls that have been built since birth.  We are showing them the true love of God.  Some of the people that took the food allowed us to pray with them.  What an honor to ask God to prove Himself to people who desperately need Him. 

God loves the people of Moldova and so do we.  We desire to see the whole country changed one family at a time.  Please pray for us as we minister to God’s people here.

As a child, every Wednesday night we would go to Royal Rangers. And every Wednesday night we would say the Royal Ranger pledge. “With God’s help, I will do my best….” That’s how it starts. This phrase has been my “theme” this past week.

Last week was also my first time in a long time (which I am almost embarassed to admit) to be in a situation where I realized “If God doesn’t help me do this, it will not happen.” Thursday night after church I was meeting with a team of children’s workers as we are launching a kids service this Saturday. I was explaining to them our heart and vision. It all needed interpreting and I left the meeting realizing how much I need God’s help.

That night Donna fell asleep and I was up thinking about this. When was the last time I was in a situation where I felt “Without God, I can’t do this…” I couldn’t remember.

I feel it now. I think to myself….”I have to learn this language so that I”m not always using a translator. I have to figure out how children’s ministry works in this country (which could be a lot of trial and error) I have to develop a plan. I have to explain that plan to a group of people who don’t speak the same language as me. I have to show them how to do “the plan.” Show, not tell since they don’t understand me anyway….. All of these thoughts are running through my head as I pray “God, I can’t do this without you.” I have trouble explaining to bus drivers where I want let off the bus. I have trouble counting to one hundred in Romanian… How can I preach to kids or train leaders in this country?

As I think those thoughts, I feel God’s comfort and He gently reminds me, that I can do all things through HIM.
So…. With HIs help, I have planned the lesson, I have shared with the volunteers how it should work, and the rest of this week will be spent preparing some games for our opening session this Saturday. Thursday night we will meet again with our team after church, and Saturday morning will be our first children’s church service for Moldovan children..
This is our heart. To minister to kids. To see their lives changed. To see churches view children as more than a burden. To equip leaders.
Thanks for your prayers and emails. It is so nice to know our family and friends are praying for us and with us. Please pray that Saturday goes well. Pray that we are able to get settled in our new apartment (and that they will install the kitchen soon!) Pray that we would learn the language quickly. Pray that God would provide financially. There are so many needs here and we wish we could help them all.

A building team from New Life Church in Princeton MN.

Last week a team was here from Princeton MN. We had a great week together building a church in the city of Bubeiech. The church has been meeting in a home but has outgrown it. They had a family donate a small plot of land to them which was very swampy. Their original thought was to use the land to raise and harvest fish. God gave Pastor Sahsa the idea to bring in a bunch of dirt and fill in the swamp. Now this land is where we are building a church.

It was very hot out and sunny this week and I would come home each night with a sweat drenched shirt and muddy pants. We had a lot of traditional Moldovan food this week as the pastor’s wife cooked up a ton of food for the missions team. From Monday to Friday we were able to build eight rows of wall, pour a concrete floor, two concrete patios and did a lot of other small stuff for the church. The pastor was overjoyed at our progess. Two groups come in October who will help to continue the building process.

Also, the second weekend of October, we will do a large outreach here with food bags for adults, music groups performing, carnival games for children, children’s gospel presentations, free haircuts, free eye exams…. Anything we can do to share Christ with the people of this village. Please pray that this outreach would be a HUGE success!

First day of school for Donna and her students

We are here safe in Moldova.  We left for the airport on Monday with my mother in law Joyce and sister in law Diana coming with us.  We left around 5:45am and arrived in Columbus around 7:45.  
 
We said goodbye to Joyce and Diana and got our confirmed seats and boarded the plane pretty quickly.  From there we flew to JFK and had a five hour layover.    
The eight and a half hour plane ride went by fast.   The meal was nice, I watched two movies while Donna slept, and there was a galley in the back with snacks.  Our flight into Romania arrived an hour early so we had a long wait for our driver to come get us.  We would take turns walking along the “sign row” looking for our driver.  One time I got creative and started commenting on the signs.  I pointed at one sign that was very large and nicely made and was attempting to tell the driver in English how much I liked his sign.  He of course did not speak a word of english and assumed that I was the one for whom he was waiting.  he could not understand why I would not go with him.  It was a funny moment which reminded me I’m no longer in the USA.  
 
Our driver arrived around 1100am and we got in the van and were on our way.  He did speak some english and managed to teach us some phrases in Romanian.  Some important ones that I needed to know were “How much is this”  “That’s too much”  “How much less will you take”   I figure those phrases will be useful at the local markets.   He also taught us our numbers and alpahbet.  He was a nice man with many stories and he enjoyed practicing his english.    We had a brief hickup at security when the soldier opened our bin and found some cans of “powder.”  They are our nutritional supplements which we brought with us.  He was afraid it may be drugs and took it for a little while.   Meanwhile our driver is explaining that it is vitamins that make you strong and help you lose weight.   The boarder guard took one look at the two of us and started motioning about how strong we looked.   After a few more minutes he let us through.  We were blessed by the quick stop there.  Our missionaires told us they have once spent seven hours at that boarder. 
 
We stopped once on our way to Moldova for a break.  It was there that we got our first experience with “squatty potties”  Pretty easy for me, not so easy for Donna.  When we were close to home, the driver stopped at a roadside stand and bought us two Moldovan Melons.  (Very tasty and cost about thirty cents total)  
 
We made our way to our missionaries home and met another missionary couple and we all had a nice Spagetti dinner.  We also got our first taste of Moldovan strawberries, pears, grapes, and watermelon.  We cut up the melons that we bought and ate those too.  Friends… Moldovan fruit is like nothing you have EVER TASTED!  There is so much flavor to it.  And the watermelon… FANTASTIC.   After dinner, we stayed up visiting for a while and then tried to fall asleep. 
 
On Wednesday we went to present our documents to the local government and gave a local lawyer power of attorney.  This is needed so that we can rent an apartment, open a bank account here… stuff like that.   This took most of the morning.  We also got a quick tour of the capitol city.  We met the missionary’s wife in town to look at an apartment.   The apt cost 300 euros, or 450 dollars a month, did not include utilities and was a real dump.  Now, we can live anywhere, but even the missionary’s wife said this would not do.   The only plus to the apartment was that it was right downtown which would make taking the bus easy.  After this we went to a couple of supermarkets and got a lesson in what brands of things taste good and what things not to buy.  Then we came back to the mission house and Donna started to set up the school classroom.   She seemed a bit overwhelmed and apprehensive about the first day of school, but it went fine.   That night we had some sausages and grilled eggplant and a nice salad for diner with the imssionary family.    We were all pooped and went to bed after staying up for as long as we could to get to know each other better. 
 
Thursday morning Donna woke up early to finish classroom preparations.  Today was also the birthday of one of our missionary children.  We got her a present in the US before we left (Diana did this for us…  We had a special breakfast all together of cinnamon rolls, eggs and toast.   They also had some exotic juices here which were very yummy.  After Breakfast the girls had “first day of school pics” and then went off to school with Donna.   I spent the day with a man named George, who is an employee of the mission.  We picked up the cook from the Home of Hope for trafficked women, and we headed out to “METRO” Moldova’s version of a Sam’s club.  This was very very cool.  They had everything from food to office supplies to clothing.  They had a wide variety of American food as well and believe it or not, the prices were very reasonable.  A king size snicker bar was around seventy cents!   They have a whole aisle for Mayo with different flavors and textures.  They also had a ton of cheeses and produce.    When we finished shopping there, we drove to a meat market that sold the best sausages in the city.  We purchased a bunch of them which we will eat Friday night at a BBQ in honor of the birthday girl.   Then we went on to the farmer’s market in town.  This was a wonderful experience.  It reminded me of Pike’s market in Seattle.  You could buy any fruit or vegetable you wanted.   Two highlights were the small cucumbers.  Very tasty.  Moldovans feel that if you let a cucumber grow to more than an inch in diamerter you have overgrown it.  They had a sweet flavor to them, as did the carrots.  The best thing was the HUMONGOUS eggplants which you could buy for about fifty cents each. 

After the market we ran some more errants and headed back to the mission home.  When I got there, Donna was gone.  She had taken the girls to buy presents for their sister.  She was also able to stop in and see an amazing apartment.  It won’t be ready for two weeks, but apparantly it was three times as large as the one we saw yesterday, and is BRAND NEW.  It has two large bedrooms, an open kitchen, lots of windows, and everything is brand new, completely remodeled.   Our missionary floated a price at them and we don’t know yet if they will take it.  They have to check with the owner I guess.   But, pray this one works out for us.  Donna has fallen in love with the apartment.  It is less than a mile from the missioanry’s home where she teaches everyday so that is a plus as well.
 
Tonight we ate chicken pot pie at the request of the birthday girl and we had a traditional Moldavian salad complete with goat cheese and bread.  It was a great meal!  We followed it up with Birthday cake and watched Lauren open up her presents.  Later that evening we visited more with our missionary hosts and played some music on the piano.  Donna is all prepped for her teaching tomorrow and I get the morning off tomorrow which is why I have the chance to write this update to everybody.
 
We’re having a lot of fun and so far we are enjoying our new surroundings.  Tomorrow afternoon I will begin cataloging what “stuff” already exists for children’s ministry and I will begin compiling a lsit of what things we need.  Part of our budget which we raised includes some money to purchase supplies for the children’s area at the mission.
  
Oh, Donna wanted me to mention that the highlight so far of her experience was when the Nancy Raatz drove us by the “Home of Hope” and we got to meet the girl “Victoria” from the story we have shared in our support raising.  Victoria is the woman who watched her mom die, has the three year old with issues, etc.  It was a blessing to see her happy, her little girl happy and both are very healthy.  PTL!

Hi friends,

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support!  This morning we woke up at 4:30, got ready and loaded the jeep.  My mother in law Joyce, sister in law Diana, and the two of us headed to Columbus to the airport.  When we arrived at the airport we learned that we would have to pay $200 for our extra checked bag.  Ugh…  We knew we would have to pay something, but hoped it would not be that much.  In addition, the gate agent was very strict on our weight and so we had to rearrange some things and put them in our carry-ons instead of under the plane.   Meanwhile, Joyce is making circles around the airport to avoid TSA until we are finally through the long process of checking our bags.   Next we get our carry -ons up to the counter only to learn that one is too large…  I know I was warned of this, but it worked out!  There was a different agent at the ticketing counter and she gate checked our bag for us and did not charge us any more money.  She didn’t even mind that it was a little overweight.  Praise the LORD!  So, that brings our total for the trip up to $347 which is still much cheaper than any other way we could have gotten to Moldova. 

I am a little “worried” about meeting our transportation driver once we reach Bucharest.  He will not speak English and will be holding a sign with our names on it.  We don’t pay him until we arrive in Moldova at our missionaries home.  Seven hours in the van (depending on how long the boarder check takes) with a driver with whom we can not communicate.  Fun!   The missions experience has officially begun!