----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas A. Martin
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 7:34 AM
Subject: Easter Update

Easter greetings from Romania!

Every Easter Christians greet each other with a particular phrase:
"Christos a inviat" which means "Christ arose"
. . . to which the person receiving the greeting responds by saying,
"Adevarat a inviat" meaning, "truly He arose"

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The Martin family has kept very busy since the beginning of the new year.
In January, we organized a "Curriculum Design Conference".
We invited pastors and teachers from all across Romania to help us in the development of our courses & curriculum for our Church Ministries Institute (CMI). And, John Taylor, CMI - Odessa, Ukraine president, led us through the Curriculum Design process.

We were privileged to have in attendance 4 men from the Bucharest Seminary including the academic dean and the president among others.
It was a great time of interaction and very beneficial for our team as we met men with whom we had no prior relationship. As a result, we have been invited by pastor, Aurel Gacea[top row, 3rd from left], to partner with him and his church in training leaders. Pastor Gacea pastors a church in the city of Tulcea (near the border with Ukraine). It's a church of over 200 with a large number of young people in their 20's. We are thrilled about this new opportunity. Sharon and I have already made an initial visit. Pray for me as I will be returning to Tulcea at the end of April to discuss in more detail how our team can help this church in the area of 'leadership training'.

In Feb, Sharon and I had the privilege of taking the girls basketball team from the Bucharest Christian Academy (BCA) to a weekend tournament in Budapest. The girls took 3rd place in the tournament. They worked very hard. We were also very proud of our daughter Michelle (far left) who also played on the team. Though young, she definitely is an athlete! As a 7th grader, she was one of the best defensive players on our entire team.

Coming up in April:
14th - 16th: Our family will be traveling back to Targu Mures for several meetings.
19th - 21st: Doug will be leading a session on "Master Planning" in Bucharest
23rd - 24th: Doug Travels to Tulcea to meet with Pastor Gacea
26th - 27th: Romania Team Meetings every morning (Targu Mures)
28th: Haag Christian Academy School board meeting (AM)
26th-29th: Doug teaching course on "Evangelism" every evening for the CMI (in Bahnea)
30th - May1: Evangelistic outreach in Bahnea with group of 25 young adults from our church here in Bucharest)
** Please be praying especially for this outreach event at the end of April.

As you can see, the rest of the month will be a busy one for us.
Please keep our family in your prayers.


because He lives,
Doug & Sharon Martin
ABWE/Romania