To answer this question I would invite you to come with me to Moldova where an SGA team was asked recently to speak at a youth conference which was sandwiched between the two teaching blocks at the Mission School in Balti.
What an inspiration to gather on that Saturday morning with more than one hundred young people from three of the neighbouring churches, who had come together to spend from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm, considering the subject of “Prayer”. The enthusiasm with which they approached this subject was a delight to see. They had requested that the team give two messages outlining the Biblical and practical aspects of prayer, and from there the scene was set for a time of blessing in the presence of the Lord.
Time was given to testimonies of answered prayer and this was a real encouragement to us all as we heard what God had been |
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pleased to do in answer to believing prayer. It was also very moving to hear the young people share their prayer requests for families and contemporaries. It was evident that they were conscious that it was not what they could do which would bring change in their homes and villages, but what God could, and would, do. As far as they were concerned their responsibility was to petition the Lord that He would move by His Spirit in salvation blessing.
We met against the backdrop of a break-in at the church the previous night when the equipment, which the young people used in their open-air ministry, had been stolen. Naturally they were disappointed but not in despair, believing that it was a clear attack of Satan because of the penetration of the Gospel into this bastion of the Orthodox Church.
After such a time of blessing at the conference it was to be |
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expected that there would be more reaction from the Devil, and it did come. The night following the conference the Church was attacked and many windows were broken. The reaction of Pastor Nikolai Malai was, “We must be doing something right when the Devil sees fit to attack us.”
In answer to the question posed at the beginning – yes, there are young people in the village churches in Eastern Europe, and they are concerned enough about their villages and nation to spend a day in prayer for the salvation of their people.
The church in Riscani where the youth conference was held |
The large group of young people who attended the conference on “Prayer” in Riscani
