Jonah preaches to the Orphans

Saturday the November 12th Svetta and I were able to visit the orphanages in Suda and Krievets with the Light of Hope team. It was a blessed time! There is already fruit from our monthly trips to these orphanages. Coming regularly has caused many of the kids to become more responsive and warm towards us. They long for the affection that we give them and I do believe that what we are saying is becoming interesting to several of them. There are a few kids that don’t participate, but we continue to love them and to pray that the Lord would open their hearts to the gospel.

Our topic was Jonah and obedience to the Lord. We watched a cartoon of Jonah and the big fish, and then Abner led a short discussion of the story from the Bible encouraging the kids to be obedient to the Lord and His word. The team had prepared a craft for the kids. We cut out and colored fish and wrote 1 John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,” on the back. We pray that this verse and the story of Jonah would plant seeds in their hearts and that they would land on good soil. We believe that these seeds will one day produce the fruit of repentance and new life.

We plan to continue to go to the orphanages every month. Our next trip will be for the New Year and Christmas celebration. Please pray that the Lord would now be preparing their hearts to hear the gospel message and that we would be filled with the Spirit as we tell them of the love of Jesus.

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IBS Seminar in Izhevsk

Alexey and I went to Izhevsk to do an IBS seminar from Oct. 29th to Nov. 4th. The seminar was at a seminary at the Business of Faith Church. On Sunday Alexey preached about Cain and Abel at their three services, and I introduced myself at each of the services. Unfortunately, Svetta was not able to come on this trip, so I spoke in Russian. It went really well.

We had five morning and evening sessions from Monday through Friday. The beginning of the seminar is always a mixture of confusion and excitement. The first assignment leads them through Mark 2, the healing of the paralytic and gets them digging into the word finding things they have never seen before. This gets them excited. However, it usually takes a while for them to get the hang of outlining and charting on their own. Most of them are not used to digging for themselves or thinking about the scriptures on their own. By the time we got done with the second assignment they were getting it. By the end of the seminar the students were tired, but they caught the idea and many expressed their intentions to continue using this method to study the scriptures at home.

Alexey and I were most encouraged by a message Alexey received on Vkontakte (the Russian Facebook) the week after the seminar. A woman wrote to thank Alexey because before the seminar her husband did not take an active role as spiritual leader of their family and didn’t read the Bible claiming it was uninteresting and not understandable. However, after our seminar he was encouraged to study the word and has been gathering his family to study the Bible. This is a great example of how giving people this study method can change the lives of Christians, setting on fire those that were previous in a lukewarm stupor.

Alexey and I were also invited to speak at two different home groups. Alexey went to a group with business men and politicians and I was invited to a home group for the leaders of the youth ministry. Alexey taught from Romans 13 and encouraged the men to change the way they do business if they really want to make an impact in Russia for good. I taught from 1 Samuel 3 about the calling of Samuel. This was the first time I have tried to lead a Bible study in Russian. It went rather well. I still have a long way to go, and would not teach a study on my own in a larger group, but it is till encouraging to see that I am that much closer to being able to preach and do seminars in Russian without a translator.

This trip has opened to doors to come back and do more seminars in some of the smaller churches of the area, as well as to go to a different church farther east. The Lord is moving us forward. We are excited to see what the Lord is doing!

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