News From the Far East
February 1, 2009
Dear Partners,
I can hardly believe that the month of January has disappeared. I am
sorry that you have not heard from us since Christmas!! This has been
an eventful month for us.
We arrived back here from
right back into our ministry. We quickly scheduled all our weekends
with pastors and churches and renewed contact with other friends and
partners in ministry. We arrived knowing that we would be leaving the
beginning of March to attend an important Mission Society conference
in
time was limited to two months instead of three. We considered coming
back after the conference for the last three or so weeks we are
allowed to be here but the cost made the choice not reasonable. We
are truly enjoying and making the most of our two months here!! It is
such a joy to serve in this place with these people. We are blessed.
However, as you know we have been struggling this
entire past year
with this new Russian visa law that has us in and out of the country
every 90 days for 90 days. We thought the solution was to fill in the
90 days in
fall and will be again this spring, it is clearly not the long term
answer we are hoping for. When we returned here this time, we found
that we cannot even apply for our next visa until June!! Then go
through the process and not be able to return – even with full visa
approval – until sometime the end of July or August. We cannot
justify paying for this apartment while we are out of the city for
this length of time. We have prayed, considered a million options for
visas and living here and after feedback from The Mission Society and
our Bishop we have made the decision to close down this apartment when
we head back to the
It has been a hard decision but it is the right one. We do not know
if the Lord will bring us back here later – if the visa law were to
change it could happen – or if he has another plan altogether. We are
in the midst of saying goodbye to everyone here for now not knowing
whether we will or will not return in the future. It has been a
difficult last couple of weeks. We have three more churches to visit
and say goodbye to over the next three weekends. We have been
reassured over and over again that the time we have spent here has
been valuable to Pastors, people and the church as a whole. We are at
peace with that.
We will return to the
in the process for this so please pray for them! During our time in
Kaz we will be praying; reaching out to explore and
learn about
options; and listening carefully to hear God's will for our future.
Steve will also be working as before with the Kaz
team and the new
Field Leader, Douglas. Please pray for
he is trying to tackle. Steve will be preparing materials for a team
retreat that he will lead May. We will definitely be spending time in
prayer and listening to what God has to share with us the entire time
we are there.
In August we will be back in the states for our missionary furlough of
about 9 months. During that time we are to relax, take a deep breath,
seeks God's will for our future (we pray he will have shown it to us
by then) and travel around to share with our supporting churches and
people. We are truly looking forward to seeing many of you during
that time!! We will begin sometime late this spring to set up a
travel schedule and we will be seeking your input as to convenient
times for us to come and share with your church and with as many of
you as possible during that 9 month period.
We are prepared to go where ever God leads us in the spring of 2010.
God already knows where that is, of course, but we must do our part to
try find the answer He has for us. We are quite happy
that He is the
one in charge and not us. We have no doubt that in the next several
months He will make his will known to us.
Meantime, we are not finished with our work here. We are now fairly
well packed, kno where most of the "stuff"
in our apartment will go
and we can just relax and do the work that God puts before us until we
have to leave. It is a precious time with precious people.
I am especially excited that this past week I have two pastors
wives
who have agreed to meet together, just the two of them, for mutual
support and encouragement. They have also decided to begin together
to build a Pastor's wife support group within this city. I shared
with them that almost all the Pastor's that Steve met with last Monday
in a Pastor's group (about 15 of them), have wives that are just as
isolated in many ways by their role as my friends are. They are
excited about the possibilities and I am thrilled. They want Claudia
to help us keep in contact through email where ever we are. This is
absolutely possible!! Email is a huge blessing!
Last Saturday, while we were in
Valentina, Anya held her first bible study at her
home for her
handicapped friends!! Some of them had family members choose to come
with them who wanted to learn about the bible as well. God is so
busy! The group is off to a great start and I know that Anya will
continue to keep it going. It is her passion. She reached out to her
Pastor and asked him to be a backup information system for her. After
the group meetings she can call him for answers to questions that come
up which she does not feel confident to answer. Anya is a strong and
knowledgeable Christian and will do very well with this Christianity
101 group. Praise the Lord for answer to prayer!
Oh! Another wonderful blessing. When we returned Anya
told me she
could hardly wait for me to come to her house see what had happened to
her. There was a miracle healing and she can now bend her knees and
ride the exercise bicycle that has been sitting in her room for
several years! She does not know when it happened or how. The whole
family is in amazement and thankful to God knowing that it is His
doing. I find it impressively God's work that while most Cerebral
Palsy patients deteriorate, our Anya gets better. She is a special
miracle herself.
Many other prayers are being answered during these last weeks and our
schedule is filling up fast with people who want that last time of
dinner, discussions, cooking lessons, mentoring, general advice and
parties!, etc. before we leave. We will not be bored, will
undoubtedly be blessed and we pray that we will be a blessing to
others as well.
Thanks to each and every one of you for sticking with us during these
hard times. You are a huge blessing to us and to the ministry that we
pray we provide on behalf of our Lord. We would ask you to pray with
us and for us about where God would have us serve in the future. We
already know where there are needs that we could help fulfill but
sincerely want the final destination to be God's choice.
Personally, I, Carol, would love for God to drop me that rock with
directions written on it that I am always asking for. However, since
God did not choose to write on the huge boulder outside our front door
in
will find some other way to let us know. We have absolutely learned
that God always gives us clear direction in His time, not ours. He
has always been faithful and will again. We are blessed by such a
faithful God!
If you have any questions, or would like to offer us some feedback, we
would love to hear from you. You can respond to us at this email
address, or Steve at Luv2russ@securenym.
Grandmafrogs@
Grace and Peace, Blessings and Hugs,
Pastor Steve and Carol
To contact us:
Physical address in the
Steve cell in the
Carol cell in the
The Mission Society,