Learn a little more about Straightway Baptist Church by getting to know some of our church members!

Peter and Zydre Mladineo City and State you and your spouse were reared: I was reared in NJ, grew up in East Windsor, h.s. in Princeton (Day School). A Jersey boy, bonafide, summers in Belmar.  Zydre's a little different: Born in Lithuania (Vilkaviskis), schooled in Vilnius (el capital), which is where, eventually, we would meet. Name and age of child: Johan 5 months How long have you been members of Straightway Baptist Church? Since Nov 2006 Who invited you to join our church, or what interested you in joining our church? I joined right in time for the charter, so I felt that God had been moving me there. Pastor and his family and early church members (Osterhoudts, Riveras, Bruce & Sally, Dionysius the Areopagite, encouraged them.) Zydre also played a huge part: This was the first of several non-Catholic churches that I attended that she liked

Comments about Pastor Guarneri:
His enthusiasm is unmatched this side of the Great Gate. Hard preaching, right living, bursting at the seams with energy -- who could ask for a better instructor on the Way besides the voices from holy writ? Pastor Lou is one of the few fundamentalists that could have corralled a wild one like me into a suit & tie for services.

Interesting story, incident, or answer to prayer:
As many of you know, Zydre and I are expecting a visit from the Stork very soon. Last summer I was staying at the RUI School of Discipleship in Rockford, IL. I had just become a "prayer captain," and had a small group of men with whom I prayed every night. Every night we made a list of prayers to God and we'd spend time recounting how God was answering our prayers. There were a few very fervent sessions, with tear stained Bibles and earnest petitions made to the Almighty in the highest confidence. That's when I began pleading for God to bring my wife & I a child. My group and I prayed a lot of prayers, and quite honestly, over time I had forgotten all about my "stork" prayer. Then we'd all graduated and went home to our families, our churches, our lives. A few months later, I returned to Rockford for the RUI annual conference. Some of the men in that prayer group were there. Indeed, after I had begun to announce to my friends there that my wife Zydre was pregnant, my buddy Eddie, a fellow Prayer Group 2 alumnus, reminded me of one answered prayer in particular. "Pete, you were praying for a child before you even left the school," he said. Yowzer, this baby was an answered prayer, big time! 

Give us your salvation testimony.
I had always been a seeker, although I didn't find the Lord until age 35, after a few decades of very "prodigal" living. At one point, I found a "higher power," which was in reality nothing more than a reflection of myself with a false halo around him. Then, my brother and my mother got saved, and a few other Christian family members began witnessing to me through the years. Eventually, after some rough waters, I began to read the Bible. I instantly connected, and it was around that time, Good Friday of 2003, that I began to pray once again, although this time not to an idealized and nameless higher power, but to the True and Just God, Jesus Christ. I was a Catholic at first, the unpracticed religion of my childhood, but always a Bible believer, and that belief led me to get scripturally baptized in 2004 (and again in 2005), and to join Straightway Baptist (2006).

My wife, Zydre, started going to church in Lithuania during Soviet times, when church attendance was a risky affair. Her blind faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and his blood redemption began in childhood and has pretty much continued unabated since. 

Of what ministries are you a part of?
I teach teen boys Sunday school; van ministry; prison ministry; soulwinning; and spirit-blogging. Stay tuned for more.
Zydre is a member of the choir.  

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