The latest from Khabarovsk
September 11, 2008
Dear Partners,
It is amazing how time flies over here. Our time seems so precious.
It has now been 6 weeks since we arrived and we must fly out three
weeks from tomorrow. We sat down this afternoon and filled in our
calendars for the next 6 weeks (which includes the 3 weeks in
talked with so many people, had individual meetings in our home, done
counseling and continue to build on existing relationships while
meeting new people. Life is never dull and boring and always filled
with unexpected challenges and unexpected blessings.
Since we arrived Steve has continued working with all of his regular
pastors and preaching at the churches.
The Women's Group has continued meeting and is doing great!
Two teams from
called them. One from
orphanage work they have been doing for several years and work with
Pastor Roma and the new
Diego worked with an orphanage in Vladivostok, the Sister City
program and other things there before coming up here and working with
several churches here including providing crafts, games and support
for a 4 day VBS at the Red River Church. Yeah! They also left
almost two suitcases full of craft materials for the church in
I have met with Anya several times including a home visit we made to
Dima's (one of her friends with Cerebral Palsy) and
an awesome
American team member, Dorothy. Anya also arranged a group meeting
with some of her other friends at a cafeteria with our San Diego
American team. This meeting was the first time Dima
had been out of
his house since the team that came to visit in March!!
We have attended the Far Eastern United Methodist Summer Camp in the
mountains above
six people signed up for the camp and 40 showed up!! It all went
extremely well with wonderful activities, workshops, worship
services, skits and free time to explore the beautiful mountains that
reminded us of
I went to the Sinda UMC Group Service one Sunday with
some American
team members for Sunday services with Pastor Maxim and it was an
amazing experience as always. Steve went with other team members to
the
We have turned in our papers to the government requesting a new
Letter of Invitation to get a one year visa (we can return on Sept
25th to either receive an LOI or be told it was denied
– please pray
that it is granted).
We have been in contact with Emma, the Heartbeat of Khabarovsk
Pregnancy Crisis Center Director, who is currently in
to raise some funds. One of the members, Doug Rider, of the
Diego
people who might help her before she returns here. She really needs
funding. Please pray for this program.
We have attended the beautiful wedding of the lead singer, Natasha,
of Pastor Yuri's church last week. Earlier this year Steve counseled
with Natasha several times because she was despairing of ever
finding a "Godly man" to marry and was thinking that maybe God wanted
her to just be single forever. Steve prayed with her and he
continued to pray daily. At the wedding Steve reminded Natasha of
this. She told him that she was shocked at how "fast" God answered
her despairing prayer!
We are in the midst of the paperwork process to obtain a Letter of
Invitation for a visa to
Steve and I were invited to a monthly pastors meeting and met 9
Russian new pastors from various churches around town and have been
invited to become regular attendees! This is an exciting
breakthrough to new ministry possibilities.
We will be going out to meet and pray with people at the Old Folks
Home in a village on the edge of the city next week.
Steve just fixed our toilet - again. One of the American team
members replaced all the insides and fixed one other problem a couple
of weeks ago (Of course it broke when we had 10 guests in the
house!). It started flooding the bathroom in the middle of the night
last night again. This time it had a new problem so Steve was off to
the Central Bazaar to find a new hose first thing this morning.
We returned from a weekend in
of showers to find no hot water in our apartment. We waited all day
Tuesday for it to come on but late in the day Claudia called to let
us know that the hot water will be off until the 19th of September.
They are probably getting the pipes, etc. ready for the winter. Good
thing I have a big pot and we are now used to the drill of pouring
stove heated water over our heads . J At least we have
running
water which is more than the houses in any of the villages have!
There are so many more things to share, but these are the highlight
events even if I did not do such a good job of "taking you there."
The original email included much more personal detail but was four
pages long. If anyone is interested in reading it, please let me
know and I will be happy to send it to you. J
Probably the most important new thing that happened this month was
the meeting with all the new pastors. They meet to support each
other and discuss things that impact them all the last Monday of each
month. The key item this time was the failure of the government to
grant them approval to use the big hockey stadium for a big Billy
Graham team evangelism festival this month and the overall problem of
non-approval for public gatherings of any kind for religious
organizations. Things are getting progressively tougher for
protestant churches here in
such a wonderful group of pastors want to start building personal
relationships with us.
The biggest adventure this summer was the summer camp which included
so many university age young people who invited non-believing
friends. That part turned out partially great and partially a
failure as a couple left after the first couple of days. We were
proud of them for trying.
One of the most personally interesting and enjoyable parts for us was
meeting the American team from the
Sieck are people we have met and begun a relationship
with on the
phone and through the internet over the last year. They have been
active in the Russian Initiative forever, coming to
times since 2002 and having, at retirement age with grown children,
adopted three teenage Russian girls. They helped Pastor Maxim go to
the states last November to attend the Russian Initiative meeting in
meet people at his sponsoring church in
This time we actually met Larry and Terry in person in
the weekend before they came up here. Then we were able to spend
evenings together and do lots of other things together during the
week. Two of the people they brought with them were Steve and
Dorothy Davis. We fell in love with them also and they have a great
heart for handicapped ministry. They are also considering adoption
of a Russian child. Please pray for them that God would clearly show
them His will in the adoption possibility and if He would have them
make a commitment to full-time mission work with physically and
mentally challenged people. Larry and Terry also brought their 16
year old daughter, Julia, who had a ball hearing Russian spoken on
the street, meeting with old friends at the orphanage in
and petting and feeding every stray cat and dog she could get her
hands on here in
that I wanted to steal but she is quite in love with her new Mama!
Can you believe this is the "short" version! I need to give you more
smaller updates. Please know that we think of all of you often amidst
all our activities, pray for you at our table and are ever so
grateful for the opportunity you allow us to serve and be blessed
over here. Thank you once again.
Grace and Peace, Blessings and hugs,
Pastor Steve and Carol