str. Tudor Vladimirescu nr. 376
1742 Berzovia
jud. Caras-Severin
Romania

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

Dear Pastors and Churches,
    Greetings to all in the Name above every name, that of the LORD Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who gave Himself for the sheep!  What a privilege it is to be one of God's "sheep" and to know it!  How greatly God has blessed us "with all spiritual blessings" in Christ!  My prayer, as I write, is that this may find all of you well and most importantly of all, enjoying the blessing of God in your lives.
    April has been a busy month and a different one.  The first part of the month was filled with language school, preaching, translation work (literature) and getting ready for our first visitors. As we use borrowed furniture in our bedroom, it was necessary to buy some used stuff for a guest room as we expect guests from time to time now. Everything, even shopping, is a difficult thing here, but we were able to buy locally without having to pay for transportation. Our younger daughter, Anna, and husband Mark and their baby, Bethia Hope, recently emigrated from New Zealand to the U.S. as you may remember.  In obtaining the open ticket they required for this move, it was cheaper to buy tickets to London, England than just to the States.  As they had accumulated some free air miles, it was possible for them to fly on to visit us before permanently locating in the United States.  God perfectly worked things out so that their trip here coincided with a break in language classes.  Our language teacher and her family traveled to England where her husband was in some meetings for about 3 weeks and during this time our "kids" have visited us.  We had not seen Mark and Anna for almost two years and  had never seen our only granddaughter of 7 months, so this has been really special.  They will return to the U.S. on the 19th of May.  It goes without saying that we shall miss them greatly.  Please pray for us in this regard, and for them, that God will guide them to the place of His choice for their life and service.
    We continue to wait upon the Lord with regard to a vehicle.  I obtain a local newspaper nearly every Saturday and look for suitable used ones, but most are "well used" and do not meet the "Euro 2" emission standards.  I believe at present God has supplied us with almost 9 and a half thousand dollars in the car fund.  To buy a new vehicle with 4 wheel drive we need about $20,000 more.  Please pray for us as we need to know what God would have us do in this matter.
    I had hoped to have news of THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION by C.D. Cole in Romanian by now, but have not been able to contact the printer this week.  It should be finished by now and we are anxious to get it and begin distribution.  We hope to have it and THE TRAIL OF BLOOD as well as THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD by A.W. Pink and some tracts - all in the Romanian language - ready for distribution in the summer.  July and August we expect to be out of language school and involved in distributing these books across Romania.  Of course we will give these things to all who are interested in the truth, but hope to target Romanian Baptist pastors.  This will be difficult and time consuming as there does  not exist any list of names and addresses of Romanian Baptist pastors as far as we have been able to learn.  (I have been told that the SBC sent a man here sometime back to compile a "Romanian Baptist Database", but that after 6 months he gave up and returned to the States.  Perhaps for two reasons Romanian Baptists do not want their pastors and churches to be listed on anyone's database: one, they are independent minded and, two, there is still the fear of government persecution and such a list could be used to locate and trouble them.)
    At present the efforts of the Romanian Orthodox Church to be given legal status as the official state church has been stalled due to "outside pressure" - we believe in answer to prayer and the efforts of some of you in contacting various governmental agencies.  For this we thank God!  However, we need continued prayer as we understand that the Orthodox Church continues her design and even now the Romanian flag flies from every Romanian Orthodox Church building. National elections are not too far distant and there is much concern here that those who hold communistic views will regain power.  Romanians remember only too well how the Romanian Orthodox Church worked hand in glove with the Communists for 40 years. Some have asked what we will do in the event of a return of communist power to the government.  We expect to remain here in Romania as long as we are able, but should we be forced to leave (we think this unlikely) we can establish our residency in a neighboring country (Hungary, for instance) and legally continue to work in Romania for up to 30 days at a time.
    Along with THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD by A.W. Pink and some other smaller things in Romanian, I was able to put HALLEY'S BIBLE HANDBOOK in Romanian into the hands of one young preacher during April.  He was very happy to receive these things as books are scarce and expensive to Romanians. This young man is from a poor family. I have only found one copy of Halley's Bible Handbook in Romanian and had to buy it at a retail bookstore, but believed it would be a help to this young preacher.  Please pray for the preachers with whom we have contact.  I list some names which you may wish to take to the throne of grace.  Some older preachers are Ilie (Elijah), Silviu, David, and Gitsa.  Younger men are Radu, "GG", Edmund, Tica, and Emie.
    During April I continued to preach in the usual places, but also was allowed of God to preach twice in a new village called Tirol.  It is in a fruit and grape growing area just south of our house - by road a distance of about 30 minutes travel time.  Twenty people were there both times - mostly adults - the meeting place is old with a packed dirt floor.  God was there to help in the preaching and I believe some of His sheep were fed the Word of God.
    I must close for now, but want to thank you for your interest, prayers and financial help.
    Pray for the Pughs, please!
    In the cause of God and truth,
    Curtis and Janet Pugh
     curtis@rdslink.ro