Howard Frost

In Fall 2023, students went to a village in the Gagauzia region to serve the local church by leading the service, worship, and preaching God’s Word.  Save the Orphans returned in December to orphanage Internat #3 in Chisinau. STO currently visits the orphanage twice a year, usually with the assistance of a team of students from UDG. This year the UDG students and friends from a Chisinau church engaged the children with a Christmas program involving music, Bible stories, skits, and other activities related to the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  Slavic and Alla reported that they had been able to work more often on marriage activties in Rezina and Nova Zazuleni, as their refugee work had subsided somewhat.

In Summer 2023 as the school said goodbye in June to its graduates, it warmly welcomed pastors, church planters, and youth leaders from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Moldova to a special program on equipping church leaders. Couples from National Presbyterian Church (Washington, DC) and other churches led 30 families through an intensive, practical course on family ministry.  Slavic and Alla have presented Marriage Courses include ones in Buzdugani in western Moldova and Rezina in northeast Moldova near the Transdnester border. Ukrainian refugees participated in the Rezina course.

In June 2023, Save The Orphans founder Sylvia Mader returned to Moldova for the first time since the COVID outbreak and met with Serghei Mihailov, Executive Director of Beginning of Life (BOL), a Moldova-based Christian organization focusing on the problems facing adolescents deprived of parental care and orphans. BOL shields these children from human sex-trafficking while addressing their physical and emotional needs through therapy. Save the Orphans sponsored Computer and Robotics weekly training courses for orphans and poor children in Chisinau taught by Ion Gardarenco.  STO partner Pastor Vasile of Isus Salvatorul in Soldanesti with Sylvia oversaw and participated in STO-funded food distributions for destitute families in three villages. Sylvia also visited STO’s sponsored foster family Elena Babei’s family of 13 children (four of whom she adopted) in Cricova.

In early Summer 2023, UDG graduated a new class and prepared for missions outreach in Turkey. UDG also prepared for its June “Equipping Christian Leaders” conference. Slavic and Alla continued Marriage Ministry activities in two towns where they started courses last year — Falesti and New Zazuleni. After a Marriage Course in Falesti, area churches invited Slavic and Ala to do a Marriage Course for couples from “family-type” foster homes.

Slavic and his wife Ala traveled to Washington in early 2023 after enjoying Christmas with relatives in North Carolina to talk with supporters and friends about recent ministry work. While Slavic and Ala continued to encourage married couples with the Alpha Marriage Course and to hold evangelistic village tent meetings for couples and children, much of their work continued to be in support of suffering refugees from Ukraine. In January UDG’s academic team had its first meeting with the representatives of the European Council for Theological Education, responsible for UDG’s accreditation process.