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Mr & Mrs Chris & Suzy Crocket
ROMANIA

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Sending Church:
Nepean Baptist Church

For information about
getting behind the Crockets
Prayerfully and/or Financially,
you can call Pastor David Kemplay-Hill:

From within Australia:
(02) 47363556 or (02)47218958.

International Callers:
(612) 47363556.
Or (612 47218958

Or by Clicking HERE

SKYPE Chris & Suzy if you are on Broadband
at "thecrockets" or you can call them direct through SKYPE a lot cheaper
than Long Distance Call expense.

Phone the Crockets on +40 350 427 115

Our Mailing Address is:

• Str. Republicii, Nr 15,
• Bl R26. sc.C, et.P, ap. 1
• RM-Valcea
• Jud. Valcea
• ROMANIA

Chris & Suzy can be contacted by Clicking HERE

Recent photo of the Crockets!

Click Crocket Family 2010

The Crocket Family Prayer Letter- April, 2012

Dear Pastors and Churches
Though we had a very harsh winter this year, we praise the Lord that despite the cold, our evangelistic meetings in both Râmnicu Vâlcea and Babeni, and Babeni’s Missions Conference were still well attended.

• Bro. Joseph Offenberger preached some excellent gospel messages over the two evenings to several visitors, and even though no-one made a profession of faith, there was a strong sense of the Holy Spirit’s working in the hearts of the unsaved and saved alike.
• We were particularly thrilled to see several of the people we personally invited come to the meetings.
• Florin (the very poor sick man that we give food to most days), came on both evenings, but sadly did not trust Christ. He became very ill in March, even to the point that he thought he might die, and when Chris shared the gospel with him, he began to get teary.
• We thought he might get saved at those meetings, but something is holding him back. Please continue to pray for him and for all the visitors who attended the evangelistic meetings.

Also in February, our church in Babeni had its first Missions Conference.

It was very "low-key", with no guest preachers.

• Chris gave some solid teaching about Missions (especially Personal Evangelism and Home Missions) and about Faith Promise giving.
• The Lord increased our faith when we collected their promise cards and we found that our little church of about 15 people has promised to give 500 Lei ($140) over the next year to help support a missionary.
• That may not seem like much to most of you, but most of these people have salaries or pensions of less than $100 a month, and some have no income at all.
• And of course, this is on top of their tithes and offerings, which, for the first time in January, were enough to cover the cost of the rent.
• It is a very encouraging milestone for the church, and the church is excited about being one step closer to being financially autonomous and able to provide for a pastor.
• We know that there is still a long way to go before that happens, but we are encouraged just the same. The Lord is good.

Pastor Mondoc travelled to the Republic of Moldova late in February for 10 days to teach in a Bible Institute over there and to meet a Missionary that our church has been supporting for the past year.

There were about 20 preachers there devouring up the teaching, and Pastor Mondoc has returned again this month for another week to teach a course on Eschatology.

Please be in prayer for him as he teaches in the Bible Institute and preaches in several churches in the capital, Chi?inau.

We are very much enjoying the warmer spring weather now, and we have once again launched back into our *Soul-winning programme.

(We don’t do any door-knocking over the winter months as most people do not want to stand at their door and let the freezing air into their homes while we talk to them at length.
In the winter time we send out invitations etc through the post).

MORe ON our *Soul Winning Programme as above:

• Those of you who try to keep up to date with our letters will remember that we begin:
• by taking a survey
• and then we visit the good contacts.
• We have done 2 weeks of surveying
• and this week begins our second week of visiting contacts.
• Please pray for our Soul-Winning Team to be Spirit-filled, and that the Spirit of God would be at work convicting and drawing the lost to the Lord Jesus.
• We long to see people saved, baptised and discipled.

In March, a young man named Vasile came to church in Babeni and remained behind after the service desiring to be saved.

Pastor Mondoc shared the gospel with him very clearly, and Vasile made a profession of faith and prayed, asking for forgiveness. He has not been back to the church since. Please pray for him.

This month of course we will be celebrating Easter.

We will be sending out, through the post; hundreds of invitations to people we have met through the Soul-Winning programme, as well as to other people who have visited the church before. Our church families will be making an extra effort to invite their unsaved family members, neighbours and co-workers to church at a time when people do usually seem a little more open.

• Please be in prayer that we will have many visitors both in Rm-V and in Babeni for our Easter services, and that someone will be saved.
• Pray that God would be glorified through the special music that the choir is preparing, and also the children’s orchestra.

On April 29 the church in Rm-V will celebrate its 10-year anniversary.

The church has been through some very difficult times in those 10 short years, and so it is a real victory and something to celebrate that we have come this far.
God’s promises are true, for Jesus has built His church, and the gates of hell have not prevailed against it.

• The church will celebrate and give thanks to God, combining the Rm-V and Babeni church services,
• offering special music from the church choir and children’s choir, followed by a fellowship lunch and an early evening service right after.
• Please praise the Lord with us for His church in Râmnicu Vâlcea, and ask Him to continue to bless and guide and build the church in the years to come.
• Please pray with us also that the Lord would provide the finances necessary to purchase our own building to meet in.
• It is becoming more and more challenging to have to share a building with 2 other church groups.

The church has been saving from the beginning for it’s own building, but the prices in the city are very high, and our financial potential is very small.

But the Lord "owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the gold in every mine," and we know that there is nothing too expensive for Him.

As for the church building situation in Babeni, there is still no progress being made there.

Our lease expires in August, and we hope that God’s plan for His church there will be revealed before then.

• We appreciate your prayers about this also. We believe that we collected enough money from our love offerings while we were on furlough to buy something in Babeni, but we are waiting for the Lord to show us which building to buy (or which land, if He would have us to build).

On May 5, we will be having a John and Romans distribution day in the village of Frânce?ti.

It is a large village neighbouring Babeni, and several of our church regulars come from there.

• Please pray for dry weather, and lots of willing helpersto distribute the booklets, that they will be well received and read, and that we will see visitors at the church as a result.

Family News:

As the weather changes, we all become susceptible to lots of colds and flus. Already Chris, Elijah and Ariella have had the flu since spring arrived.

• Chris had a particularly bad case. In 15 years of marriage, we cannot remember a time when he was so sick.
• Praise God for His grace that helped Chris get through it, and for His mercy in that the whole family didn’t get sick. Please pray for our health especially during this time of change in the weather.
• Suzy is still having back problems. Thankfully this time it is not affecting the nerve, and she is able to walk and move about and fulfil most of her duties, but she has been in constant discomfort for the last 5 days, even having trouble sleeping. We appreciate your prayers for her.
• The children are all well and looking forward to Summer vacation, when their Grandmother, Suzy’s Mum will visit us.
• Ariella’s school choir just won first prize in a zone competition, and she is very excited to be going to compete in a National competition in the near future.
• March 27 marked the 5th anniversary of our arrival in Romania. We can hardly believe how quickly the time has passed.

We give God the glory for all that we have been able to achieve by his grace, and for all the lives that have been touched by the gospel, and we thank all of you who faithfully pray and give to us and the ministry here, in this needy country of Romania.
God bless you.
Your grateful missionaries,

Chris, Suzy,
Elijah, Ariella, Blake, Hosanna and Mordecai Crocket.

The Crockets Romania - February, 2012

Greetings once again from Romania!
We trust that the Lord is blessing and providing for you and your churches as He is for us and that this newsletter will be an encouragement to you all that the Lord is busy in the ministry here.

The past 6 weeks or so have been very eventful.

Click Christmas Gifts and the Gospel given out

At Christmas we distributed some 500 shoe-box Christmas packets to orphans, autistic and poor children in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Babeni, and some other nearby villages.

• Along with the gifts, each child received the gospel,
• and in the orphanages and home for the autistic kids we had freedom to preach the gospel to the children and staff.
• This outreach was a great success not only in reaching some new people with the gospel, but also in raising the profile and testimony of the church.
• The devil was certainly at work though, trying to hinder us.
• On two separate occasions just before Christmas the church was burgled and many of the parcels were opened, damaged and had items stolen from them.
• Unfortunately that meant that many of the parcels could not be handed out until after Christmas, because they had to be re-filled and re-wrapped (a very big and time-consuming job).
• We do not know yet why the Lord allowed this to happen; we hoped maybe He would use the incidents to show the owners of the church manse that we want to move into, that the house needs to have tenants to offer some security to the premises.

The committee was supposed to have voted back in December about whether or not to let us rent the house, but as yet we have received no answer.

We hope this week to make the trip to Sibiu to find out their answer.

Also at Christmas we did a considerable amount of carolling in Rm-V, Babeni, Frânce?ti, Grable?ti, Câinenii Mari and Brezoi.

Once again everyone received the gospel and a calendar containing Scripture as a gift from the church.

• One man in particular that we sang for in Câinenii Mari (who was a man that we had given a lift to one day as he hitch-hiked home from Sibiu) was reduced to tears.
• He is an elderly man named Gheorghe. He is orthodox, but is very well-read in the Scriptures. He is so close to the kingdom, but not yet in it.
• Please pray for him.

We have also had some sadnesses and disappointments over the last couple of months.

At 2am the day after Christmas, one of the dear and faithful sisters of our church in Rm-V, Maria Dumitrescu was involved in a tragic car accident and killed.

• The driver, her brother-in-law and a preacher, fell asleep at the wheel careering the car into a tree in Babeni.
• His wife and 6 of his children were also in the car and were injured. Pastor Mondoc conducted the funeral service, which many unsaved people attended, including of course Maria’s two daughters and her brother which are all unsaved.
• Please be in prayer for them. Her daughters now have no parents and are also experiencing financial difficulty on top of their grief.
• The churches in Rm-V and in Babeni have taken up a collection to try to be of help to them and to show them the love of Christ.

Pray also for the driver, Petrica, who must go through a court trial.

• It is possible that he will have to go to prison, leaving his wife and 11 children without an income and a husband/father. It is also a difficult time for them financially, with the destruction of their car, medical expenses and legal representation.
• Child protective services could also take the children in the worst case scenario.

Another sister, Alexandra, from the church in Babeni, also went to be with the Lord recently.

• Alexandra was saved in the church last year, and we are thankful that the Lord was merciful to her and gave her time to repent and trust Christ before He took her.
• We did not get to go to her funeral, as we did not find out about her passing until after the funeral. Apparently she had a fall, hit her head and died.

We’ve also had 3 sisters hospitalised this past month.

• Ramona was back in hospital for follow-up tests since her surgery.
• We are praising the Lord that the chemotherapy treatment shrunk the tumour enough so that the doctors were able to remove all of the cancer by hysterectomy. So she is cancer-free, although she is told that sometime down the track she will need more surgery.
• Ramona is recovering very slowly, and we ask you to keep praying for her.

An elderly sister, Lidia, was hospitalised after a fall and some heart problems.

• She has recovered, but it became very evident that she can no longer live alone, and this week has been taken to a nursing home about an hour away.
• It will be a difficult period of change for her, having no family, and so far from the church family as well.
• Pray for her.
• Another elderly sister, Ana also had surgery last week and is still in hospital recovering. Please pray for her also.

In December, Suzy found out that her Dad, after having fully recovered from prostate cancer 5 years ago, now has lymphoma.

It is not life-threatening, we are told, but he will have to undergo treatment. Please pray for his salvation and health.

On a brighter note, we have received news that the dispute over the church property in Babeni has been resolved.

Please be in prayer for wisdom, guidance and God’s provision as we look further into the possibility of buying one or both properties.

Click Couples Banquet

On January 20, we held a Couples Banquet at the church in Rm-V.

We also invited the married couples from the church in Babeni.

• It was very well attended and there was good food, good fellowship and good teaching aimed specifically at strengthening the marriages and by extension the church. It was encouraging to see that even 3 unsaved spouses came along. Please pray for Vasile’s wife, Georgeta; for Aurica’s husband, Ion and for Efrosina’s husband, Mihai.

This week, February 3-5, is our Missions Conference in Rm-V.

We have 2 of our 3 missionaries visiting the church to share their ministries and preach.

• Please pray that the church will be motivated afresh to give to missions as well as in their personal evangelism, and that they will be an encouragement to our missionaries.
• The third missionary that we support who is unable to attend, is our only “foreign” missionary. He is in the Republic of Moldova.
• Those of you who know your European history and geography know that Moldova was part of Romania until WWII. It remains under communist rule today.
• Pastor Mondoc will be visiting this missionary family in Moldova for a week later this month.
• Please pray for safety on the icy roads, that there will be no trouble entering and leaving Moldova and that he will be a blessing and encouragement to our missionary.

Next week, February 9-10 we will be holding evangelistic meetings in both Rm-V and in Babeni.

Ex-missionary in Romania and Moldova, Bro. Offengerger from the U.S.A, will be our speaker.

• Please pray for lots of visitors, and for the Holy Spirit to be preparing hearts and drawing lost souls to Christ.

On February 22, 26 and 29 we will be holding our first Missions Conference in Babeni.

Please pray for the preaching, and for the people to be stirred to give to missions.

• No doubt many of you have seen on the news that Romania has been experiencing some civil unrest.
• In Bucharest there has even been outbreaks of violence as revolutionaries try to overthrow the current government.
• All over the country protests continue on a daily basis, and here in Rm- V, every night there are young people protesting in the city centre, despite the freezing conditions.
• Please pray that the protests will not become violent, and for the stability of the nation.
• The people are really struggling financially after having their salaries cut by 50% and taxes going up.
• Winter is a particularly difficult time, with the extra expenses associated with keeping warm. Every day we hear people, even Christians saying how much better things were under communism, which is very disturbing for us to hear.
• We do not expect a return of communism, though, as that would surely cast Romania out of the EU. However it is very indicative of how much the people are struggling.

The winter up until January has been very mild indeed, and we didn’t get our first snow fall until mid-January.

• But winter is here with a vengeance now, and the whole country is in Code Orange due to the extreme cold.
• For a week now the temperatures here in Rm-V have plummeted to –21 degrees Celsius overnight, and we have been having average daytime high temperatures of –7 degrees.
• All of us really enjoy the cold weather normally, but this past week has been somewhat of a trial, because we’ve had no hot water for 5 days, no water at all for 2 days, and yesterday we had no heat supplied to our apartment block for 24 hours!
• The cold temperatures are causing damage to pipes, and repairs are having to be made.
• We were able to buy an oil heater to keep warm, and the heat has now come back on, so there is no need for concern,
• but please do pray, as without warning it could happen again, and it does make life difficult for us.
• And the water problem continues to be an issue.
• Lord willing it will be sorted out quickly.

Suzy has been experiencing some back problems.

• In December she was completely unable to function, and after seeing a neurologist and having an MRI,has found out that she has 3 herniated discs in her lower back.
• From time to time it pinches a nerve, causing extreme pain, and forcing her to stay bed-ridden for days at a time.
• For the moment though, she, and the rest of the family are praising the Lord for good health.

Finally, we would like to thank all of those people who sent cards and gifts to us for Christmas.

We were encouraged to know that we are loved by so many, and that we are in your prayers.

And we continue to enjoy lots of treats and the other useful gifts we received.

We appreciate your prayers,

Chris, Suzy, Elijah, Ariella, Blake, Hosanna and Mordecai Crocket.