Bringing Christmas spirit.

Three weeks ago we asked people in God's Design to help us make this Christmas brighter for the kids in the orphanage. Our goal was to collect Christmas decorations and put the up in the kids bed-rooms and their play-room. Many people were very generous. They brought lights, little Christmas trees and Santa-Clause statues and everything else.

On Thursday our team took all the boxes with Christmas decorations to the orphanage and spent 3 hours with the kids and their teachers. They had an incredible time. See for yourself.

The new series and six screens.

Three weeks ago we started a new series on Sunday nights. We are talking about the invisible spiritual world that impacts the visible one. We got the whole idea from Andy's Stanley series TWISTED that he did at North Point Community Church. We are talking about how this invisible world twists the truths about life, pain and relationships in order to push people away from God. It's been great so far. People seem excited and challenged.

We came up with a pretty cool idea for the stage. We made six screens, put them up in the back of the stage and projected video on them via one projector. Basically, when you look at the stage you think that there are six different screens that work independently. At one time each screen will show a part of the same video and at other times all different images. We had people ask us: Did you buy six plasma screens? It was pretty cool and impressive. The idea was to get a look of the headquarters of the organization that watches the world where we live and twists the truth. I think it turned out pretty good.

Two new bands at Metro.

Last Saturday we had our youth event Metro. We invited two bands to play and they were awesome! They invited so many friends - the place was packed even an hour before the concert started. We had about 180 people there. The show was great - the technical support was really good, girls who served coffee and tea were smiling and welcoming, and the performance was the best ever! 

But the most wonderful thing was that after the concert was over our church people were at every table - though it wasn't coming from the organization, it was their own initiative. I was really proud of our people, cause they understand that in the end it's not about show - it's all about building relationships. 

Now I feel free to organize any event or a show, knowing that our people will do their part - build relationships.

Fall celebration at the orphanage.

About two month ago we hired Yulya Liberda to organize people of God's Design to help the community around us. It was her passion that started all this and I am so excited that many of our people got involved right away. Here's her story:

Probably every person wants to have their own place they can come back to and feel that someone cares about them, love them, needs them. But at the same time a person also learns how to give the same things to others. And it's a pity that our world can be divided into two parts: people who do have that special place and those who only dream of finding it.

Not long ago our BabyLand team visited an orphanage. There are about 100 kids and babies starting in that institution. Some are a month old, others are 7 years old. These kids are the ones who don't have that special place in this world. The diligence and efforts of the mentors and tutors will never be able to substitute a mother's sincere love. But the desire those mentors have and the desire of other people to help those kids will fill the hearts of the little ones with joy and will bring a smile on their little faces.

I can assure you that our team has succeeded in helping those kids experience joy. And I am sincerely grateful to them for that! Our team has prepared a special program with contests, a clown show, and the most important part - they talked to the kids. We are planning to continue working with the kids, maybe make some shows, entertaining programs, just taking the kids out to some place and spendeing time with them. There is something that will never leave us and that is the desire to be with those little kids.

Yulya Liberda.

Auditorium rent.

It has been a while since we had to shut down some of our environments. 

We managed to rent a space for café, storage room and a room for our Kids environment directly from school administration. We had been renting from the school for several years and starting this January conditions have changed.

Today we can't use anything but the main auditorium. There is a law that requires us to go through a process in order to receive a permission from City administration to rent from a public school. This process could take up to one year. A month ago we discovered that our fate is in hands of one clerk. He has to sign the papers that will allow us to gain allour environments back. It should happen this week. I know that God has it all in His hands. Nevertheless it has been a difficult period for our church: knowing that we could do more and not being able to physically accomplish our goals. 

The pictures show how the Baby Land used to attract many kids in good old day. We are hoping for the best!

A move to interaction.

About a month ago we decided to try something different at our Sunday events. For years we pretty much did the same thing. People would listen to some songs (or sing long) and then would sit and listen to a 40 minute speech. We always assumed that we had something to say so they needed to listen.

In September I read a book by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper called "Jim and Casper go to church", which caused me to rethink a bit what we do on Sundays and how we do it. Casper is an atheist that goes to different churches and writes down what he sees. One of the thing that he thought we should do more in church is listen to people. That got me thinking.

I decided that since we don't have a whole lot of people yet, we might try another way of communicating - discussion. I made up some questions on the topic of the series we were going through and asked people on Sunday to think about the question, discuss it at their table and there share their opinion with the whole group. It went great. People got so engaged. They were talking (in church), laughing and most important - they were thinking.

On Sunday, October 12th, we decided to only do Q and A time. We got people to ask me questions about church or why we do (or don't do) something. It was incredible. People asked questions for two and a half hours. We did not get to answer all of them that night. It was a great lesson for me. I used to be afraid that if people start talking, then we will never get the the subject. It turned out that it wasn't people that would get me off track, but I would do that myself.

So, it was a great change. We've done it for five weeks now and we are going to continue to play with it to see how we can do that better.

Live at Metro.

Here is a song we recorded on October 4th at our Saturday night Metro concert. The sound in this video is from one of the cameras, so the quality is not all that great. On the other side you can get the feel of what you would hear in the auditorium. It's pretty cool to hear the kids sing along.

We will have the "sound board" version soon and will upload it then on youtube.

This song was written by Jenya Uvarova, the keyboard player. She is also our home group director.

Enjoy.

MetroLive at National Festival

Well, today our band METROLIVE performed at a big festival near Chisinau. I came to only one conclusion - next festival should be hosted by us! First of all, we couldn't find it, then it started late, it was really cold and not whole lot of people!

We were the fifth band. The bands before us were good, but of course they don't have a lot of practice, so they looked worried and nervous. So, when we came on stage, we didn't care how it would sound (and the equipment was not good, neither the people who worked on the sound) we just wanted to have a great time. And we did!

We saw many people who attend Metro or used to come, they were really excited - we got so much support, they screamed and sang along. We performed well and after that there was a crowd of people waiting to take some pictures with us or just talk!

We are really glad that it came out this way, because that way we can stay in touch with people who know us but they don't go to church. They asked when is our next event and we gave them our web site and phone numbers, and we met new people who really liked our performance. One thing is when you play in your own club or place, but another thing is when you take part in something big, something community does and appreciates when you support it.

Here is a picture of the festival.

Learning about rewards.

This week we invited Bob Bryant, a pastor from Marshall, TX to teach a course to our leaders. The seminars went for five nights, from 5pm to 9pm. We studied the rewards that God promised to give to the faithful Christians. I personally was looking forward to this study, because I wanted to know more about this topic. I tried several times to study the rewards on my own, but still had many questions. So, it was great to talk about it read lots of passages.

There were about 50 people attending the seminars. Most of them were home groups leaders and others might be starting one soon. Everybody got into the subject, asked tons of questions, and every time we had a break people gathered in small groups to continue discussing the passages. It was great! Bob Bryant did a great job by providing all the passages that talk about rewards and commenting them in a way that got people thinking.

I know that it was a good time for our guys to learn and be challenged. I'm thankful to Cypress Valley Bible Church in Marshall, TX that made it possible for this to happen. They not only provided for Bob and his wife to come to Moldova, but also covered all the expenses of the seminars. We would not be able to do it on our own.

The blogging starts.

Those of you that know me, remember that I've always had hard time keeping you updated about the progress of God's Design ministry. There are always a lof of things going on in our ministry. Some are exciting and some are challenging. Every time that I wanted to e-mail an update, something else came up. So, I hope that having this blog will help us keep you up to date with everything that happens here at God's Design.

I also asked Lesha, Alyona and Jenya to help me keep this blog fresh and interesting. So, we will see what happens.

I hope you will be back to learn more the ministry of God's Design in Moldova. You can also subscribe to receive the updates automatically in your inbox (see the link at the bottom).

Welcome to our blog!