About us
What We Do
Central Eastern European Ministries (CEEM) is a Christian charity that focusses on: relieving financial hardship, to advance education, to promote and protect good health and relieve sickness by providing practical, financial and spiritual help and support to pastoral churches and humanitarian aid in central and eastern Europe including all former soviet-block countries.
CEEM have also introduced horticultural seminars where locals and UK speakers imparted vegetable information and donated seed was distributed. The aims of the exercise were to improve the varieties of existing crops and introduce new crops. Lettuce has been the most successful in the latter category as Moldovan salads were mainly based on cabbage, radish, tomato and cucumber whereas lettuce was not well known before.
The Meal Deal
In Moldova, at least a quarter of the population live and work abroad at any given time to send cash to families back home. Children are often left with elderly relatives or friends who sometimes struggle to look after them.
Thus, most of CEEM’s money is used to support “Meal Deal” operations in Burlacu, Hirtop and Leova. At the churches there, kids receive after-school care including a meal, help with homework and Bible lessons, x5 days a week.
Meet the Pastors
Pastor Andrei in Burlacu
The Meal Deal in Burlacu serves 50 children five days a week. At the height of the Covid pandemic, Pastor Andrei had to resort to delivering food parcels, but since October 2020 the kids can be served on site again in a Covid-secure manner.
Pastor Andrei regularly runs Bible study groups, marriage counselling and occasional Evangelistic plays. With the help of a German charity, an orphanage was also built on the church grounds. Youth workers Ghenadie and Ana live there and have been looking after three children since June 2020. Their ministry also includes summer camps and sports programmes with teens.
Pastor Oleg in Hirtop
The Meal Deal in Hirtop looks after 20 children five days a week. Pastor Oleg also organizes camps in the summer, usually attracting up to 50 kids. The church is growing and has an enthusiastic mandolin orchestra.
Pastor Oleg has two 1000 m2 polytunnels. He grows 5000 plants there (mainly tomatoes and cucumbers), but also trials other seed samples and discusses the outcome with us. We share the results in agricultural seminars as well.
Pastor Illie in Leova
Pastor Illie has a large 180x7 m polytunnel where he produces promising crops of radish and tomatoes. His pastoral work includes outreach events in local schools and missions trips to Sinti and Roma communities in Romania.
Pastor Illie’s son Samuel and his wife Svetlana were married in October 2020 and have started a youth group that meets every Saturday. The young people are keen to pray together and attend church services in both Leova and Sîrma, where Svetlana is from. Samuel also involves them in practical work, like chopping and drying fire wood or painting benches in the city park.
Pastor Eugeniu in Leova
Pastor Eugeniu is known for his faithful ministry to Leova prison, where up to 50 of the 400 inmates attend the services he regularly holds. He and his wife Aliona have distributed food and Bibles there in the past, but recently access has been restricted due to the Covid pandemic. The couple’s nine children are growing up well and Pastor Eugeniu works as a gas fitter alongside his pastoral ministry to boost the family income.
Pastor Ghenadie
Ppastor Ghenadie and his wife Ana are both from Burlacu, but their paths as
young adults only crossed in Chișinău, where Ghenadie was studying at the
Baptist College and Ana got a degree in food processing.
They run the Meal Deal at the church in Burlacu from Monday to Friday as well as
a youth club on Sunday nights. Ghenadie has a reputation for training young
people on how to organise youth events and summer camps. They serve as
leaders all over the country.
Ana is also employed by the Moldovan Ministry of Social Affairs in a programme
called «Teacher Parents». The programme provides funding for two orphans,
Pavel and Viorel. They are very much part of the family!
Ana is currently studying for her Masters in Biblical Counselling and Ghenadie is
gaining a Masters of Theology through distance learning.