Ion Gireda and his wife, Elena, serve in the village of Tereblecia, Ukraine. Thery have faithfully ministereed to the Romanian people who live just inside the border in various Ukrainian villages. Recently, while in Romania at the Heartcry Conference in Bran, Jon related the wonderful door of opportunity that he has in reaching a community of people who are very open to the gospel. The following is the what he shared during an interview about the region of Transcarpatia:
The Lord is moving in Transcarpathia where a special Romanian group lives. This village of approximately one thousand adults had never heard the gospel before Ion began going there to preach about six years ago. Nehemiah, a ministry that Ion voluntarily leads, built a chapel which will seat about three hundred people. Ion oversaw the project, helping them to save approximately $25,000. This brought the actual cost down from $150,000 to $125,000. In the last six years many have come to Christ and been baptized. Some have come from Pentecostal churches, and while others have come from other villages. Each family has six or more children, so they have about eighty children regularly attending. Sometimes they will conduct children’s meetings in which over one thousand children attend. For the last forty years no child has been educated. None of the fathers or mothers know how to read or write. The village is entirely illiterate. So the missionaries there have begun to teach them. Nehemiah has requested that Brother Ion take part in the ministry in this village once a week for six months. The village is about three hundred miles from his home. He is asking if it would be permissible to reconstruct his time in order to take one week each month to work at that church. Would it be ok for him to divide his time between the three areas? He already travels to Odessa, which is about 350 miles from his home, three or four times each year for four days. He always travels in teams of four. Sometimes Elena goes with him when she’s not working. They conduct three days of training for the missionaries and preach in the churches. The ministry in Odessa is supported by Nehemiah, but the ministry in Transcarpathia does not currently have enough support. He would like to commit to six weeks over the next six months to work with the church in Transcarpathia, if HeartCry approves. I (Don) asked if he felt that he could do this, take care of the churches he shepherds, minister to Elena, care for his health, and not neglect his personal time with the Lord. He replied that he would never cut into his time with the Lord and that his health is good. He stated that as long as he is in good health he wants to preach the gospel.
Please pray for Ion and Elena. And pray for the tremdous gospel opportunity in Transcarpatia.
Don is serving as the HeartCry Coordinator for Eastern Europe. As an itinerant evangelist, his pulpit ministry is directed toward preaching on the inner life of the believer and the spiritual need of the lost. With HeartCry, his ministry includes organizing Bible conferences and corresponding with the HeartCry missionaries in Europe. He and his lovely wife Cindy live in Tuscumbia, AL.
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