This has been an amazing four years. Wow, I can hardly believe I just typed that. Four years have already passed since we launched River of Leland. Is that even possible? September 18, 2010 I only had a concept of what River might become. We knew that we wanted to reach Leland. That would mean both “new” […]
Read more "Humbled. River Church – Four years and counting!"We’d been traveling slowly north east for about two hours when two train attendants came by our cabin. They seemed very confused about the fact that only three of us occupied a space for which we purchased four tickets. They came, asked questions in Romanian and Russian, looked confused and left at least twice. Within […]
Read more "Passport. Step out of the cabin!"It is 5:30 Monday evening and we boarded our train a bit ago. Quite the Soviet era throwback. I can almost see the faces of the thousands who have traveled this rout for decades. Chisinau, Moldova – Bucharest, Romania and beyond. Our ride should take much of the night, about fourteen hours with stops. We’ll […]
Read more "A real first!"We have just seen the other 20 North Carolinians off at the airport. Now, begins the second leg of our trip. Jim, Bill and I will be taking Sergei and his bride Connie to lunch then we’re off to the train station. Sergei manages the IMB mission house and his bride manages an orphan ministry […]
Read more "Second leg begins now"We traveled to Transnistria today. It’s a country within a country which probably isn’t much larger than New Hanover, Columbus and Brunswick Counties combined. It lies on the Nistra River which separates all of Moldova from Ukraine. This tiny little “nation” declared it’s independence in the early 90’s and still holds to it’s belief that […]
Read more "A nation which isn’t"We met with pastors from the north today. In fact, we were less than a mile from the Ukrainian border. Wow, unmatched passion and action plan. I’m seriously blown away. These guys have their act together! We heard specific needs and hopes for partnership. These gents have faithfully planted churches across the region since the […]
Read more "Wow, what passion!"We’ve been traveling north since 10 this morning on some of the roughest roads yet. It’s now 2 in the afternoon and our driver just told us we have 29 kilometers to our destination of Onaci in the Northern District. Since leaving Chisinau, we have passed through Belti Region, where we spent yesterday, and passed […]
Read more "Onaci – North District"We’ve spent today in the Balti (Baltzi) Region just north of Chisinau. What a stark contrast to yesterday. The Balti Region has six counties with 416 villages. 294 of those have no local evangelical presence and there are only 54 pastors serving the entire region. After driving about two hours north from the hotel, we […]
Read more "Balti Region"What a day. It’s 7 pm and we’re 2 hours south of the hotel. We’ve just had the second amazing meal of the day prepared by the sweetest ladies of a church in Antonesti. in fact, as dinner came to a close, we presented these three hostesses with afghans knitted by our own Carolyn Walls. […]
Read more "What a day for Vision"It’s Wednesday morning. We’ve had a great night of sleep and I think I’ve caught up on the 7 hours of sleep we lost. Today, we head south about two hours from Chisinau (quiche now) to Kaushany region. As I type we’ve just passed through “The Gates” of Chisinau – a Stallin era public housing […]
Read more "Kaushany"