March-April 2024

Each month holds a different event at the Baptist College International, and I am going to enjoy posting about them with each new semester. In March, we had a modular course about Baptist History in Europe and specifically Romania. It was interesting to see that the same waves of persecution that brought the Pilgrims to America also brought Anabaptists and Baptist groups to Eastern Europe. Our teacher for this course, Petru Beltechi is a Romanian pastor who can trace his heritage back to these groups. I was so appreciative of his story and other modern day pastors who have come out of the Baptist Union, as well as those Christians before us who were willing to suffer persecution or leave everything they knew to gain freedom of religion.

Our choir tour in April was to four churches in Romania. I loved being able to see a part of this beautiful country that I had not explored before, but the greatest joy was hearing that God used these services to bring at least one soul to salvation!

At the end of April, this past week, the college hosted a youth conference with around 85 in attendance. This was a great first youth conference to be a part of and seeing a few churches from around Romania get together for fellowship and learning from God’s Word together. This year’s theme was “Finding Balance in an Unbalanced World” with messages from our speaker, Gib Wood, a missionary in Germany. With this topic, I wasn’t expecting some of the titles he brought, but I am so thankful for the underlying topic that we must personally know the principles from scripture and use them as our foundation for everything, even loving other Christians.

God has been answering some prayers with the ministries at the church in Timisoara. We have been able to work out a smoother program with our children’s club that helps with the many languages represented; if you could continue to pray for growth in this area. We have also started small groups held every other Sunday night. I am so happy to be co-teaching the young ladies group with the assistant pastor’s wife, Arezoo Nibbe. 

English clubs have also been put into a better groove now that I have settled on a curriculum to use. One of my sweetest times during the week is a Saturday adult English Club. Numbers have dwindled down, but there are two Ukrainian ladies that my roommate, Sarah Sager, and I get to teach. We have seen them become more faithful to church and are praying for their salvation.

Summer ministries are just around the corner, and I have a few prayer requests for upcoming events: 

• The ending of the college semester

• The BIMI European Conference in Croatia (mid May)

• Wisdom if I should take an ESL certificate in Bucharest during the whole month of August.

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayer!

In Christ,

Olivia West