“City in the cemetery” – that’s how we called the place of our evangelism. This place is located in the city of Nha Trang, and if a person doesn’t know one would not even think it’s possible that people can live like this among the luxury of the tourism industry and in the age of modern technologies.
Since May 2018, we have been carrying the Gospel there, organized play hours, and participated in material assistance. People turn to the Lord. And, it would seem for us that we are used to all this, and nothing can surprise us, but the Lord shows us such things that we cannot look at it without having tears in our eyes.
Recently, we were introduced to a family. They are an elderly couple who collects cardboard and bottles, take them back for recycling and receive a few pennies for it. They finance their lively hood for themselves and raise 4 grandchildren (2 girls, 2 boys) this way. Their father is in prison, the mother is dying in the hospital. We came to their “home” and were heartbroken from what we saw. Directly in the cemetery, among the many graves, is their shed. In the middle of it are two beds, they cook food on the fire. We began to pray and sing hymns with them, praising Jesus Christ. Then we went and bought food for this family. We thank God that we can share the good news with these suffering people!
For the past year, we have been working in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Just recently two teams visited us, and we went to kindergartens and boarding schools together! We had the question of where to place our missionary guests. My wife Irina and I lived in an apartment which was 45 square meters (484 sf) We had everything we needed. The inconvenience was that at 11 PM in the doors to our house get locked and open up only at 6 in the morning.
Recently, we and a team of missionaries returned from the ministry at 0:15 am, and we didn’t know where to spend the night. We were able to find a place, but we were also in situations when it was necessary to leave before 6 am and again we had an inconvenience.
The owners of the apartment are watching us, they see all the guests coming and going. We cannot organize a home group or sing a hymn together. The Lord himself helped us to and gave us a large, comfortable house. Rent is only $150 more expensive, but it does open up other opportunities for our ministry. It can host the church, the school and visitors but also it is our base of operation.
Thank you for your prayers and heartily ask you to support us so that the “Father’s House” will be open for ministry!
One of our goals is it to reach out to children from ethnic minorities. Vietnam has 54 tribes and nationalities. Some of them are so far away from infrastructure and civilization that they have no schools, and this leaves them undereducated.
In some areas of the mountains, people are living very primitive because electricity doesn’t exist there.
This is the reason for the boarding school that has been founded by the government. We were able to establish a friendly relationship with them and now are spreading Gods Word in those schools. Recently we visited with a group of missionaries and we were preaching, testifying and glorified Jesus with singing. We also played games and blessed them with toys that they won’t forget and brought them bread, something they also needed.
This boarding school is around 25 miles away from us has 40 girls and 25 boys, we have a friendly relationship with them and when we visit, we use mopeds to get there.
After their graduation, we as a church, want to stay in contact with them and participate in their lives further. In order to do this, we are renting a house for our ministry work and have also a place for guests to stay. We believe by helping these young children practically, we are able to point out the truth of Jesus Christ to them.
May the Lord help us. Please support us in prayers, together we can do more.
“City in the cemetery” – displays the realities of a part of the population in Vietnam. These people have no choice but to settle between graves. People built their houses there, and in some cases, the graves are inside the homes itself. But here they have peace. The children play quietly, sleep, people who love to sing – sing. We know five families there, so we packed food for them and went there. When we bless the needy, we saw that there are no obstacles to preaching!
We prayed and planned to hold an evangelistic service and a playground in this place. After we arrived, we began to play games with children, set up biblical sketches, stories, and sang hymns. Parents began to approach. Some were listening carefully.
One young lady, her name is Nguyen, turned to the Lord in a prayer and repented. We exchanged our contact information with her. Her father has constant demands, her husband is an alcoholic. Her mother recently died, for the family, this is another reason to drink. She is tired.
We explained to her how the Lord saved her, and she prayed to receive Christ, hallelujah. The children were blessed, and we gave them sweets and souvenirs. We also distributed the Gospel in the Vietnamese language. Thank God.
With all my heart and soul, we thank you for your prayers and financial assistance.
We wish you peace our brothers and sisters. We continue to sow of the Word of God, in teens and to children with disabilities. We are talking about Christ to the poor, tourists, and also, with the help of an interpreter, to the locals.
We organize Sunday meetings in a cafe where my wife Irina is working. We started meeting there around 2 months ago. On August 12, we invited several people to join us in prayer and people came: Pavel, who enjoys yoga, lives here with his wife and son. He is a former drug addict and also Vera, she is an alcoholic after her husband died, she started to numb her pain with drinking. We also had five other people present, our brother Shawn, our interpreter, with his brother and his family, as well as another minister from a local Protestant church. We prayed and praised God and talked about our Lord Jesus Christ.
We always have different people come to join us in our Sunday meetings. Sometimes we have up to 10 people come and join us. Sometimes it is only my wife and I who are present on Sundays. Yesterday, it was only us two there, we began to sing “Amazing Grace” and when we finished singing, we were nine people. Thank God for His mercy.
Every 3 months we need to travel to a neighboring country to extend the Vietnamese visa. This costs us at least $200 but we could just get a visa for a year which costs around $700. We also need help in paying for a medical examination in order to obtain a driver’s license, it costs $200. If you could help us with prayers and financially, we would be very grateful. Thank you for participating in our ministry!
We visited 7 prisons in May and prayed and talked with 13 prisoners who are all from different countries. One hundred visitors are permitted at the same time to make a visit and approximately one hundred prisoners are between us the bars. Guards are always watching. We came to visit two girls, one is from Russia and the other one from Uzbekistan. When we saw that they had a visitor already and didn’t have time for us, we were a little upset.
The visit is limited to 40 minutes, so we stepped aside and prayed. Later Zhenya wrote a note: “Jesus Christ loves you, He forgives all your sins and rose for your redemption.” and we passed the note to one of the guards. He looked at her and it was clear that he didn’t understand what was happening. He knew that he is breaking the rules and asked, ‘for whom’? Zhenya pointed at Leila, the girl from Uzbekistan, and he gave it to her. She read the note and tears started to run from her eyes, the person next to her also started to cry. I prayed for them out loud, it was a great experience. We were inspired by the Lord.
We also visited a guy who is sentenced for 25 years. He came to Christ in prison. The Lord formed through him a community with people from different countries. He preaches in English on Sundays. He was encouraged by our visit. Dear friends, brothers and sisters, we are grateful for your support in God’s work which we are doing together with you through prayers and financial support for the ministry. May God reward you.
