At the beginning of autumn, our traditional meetings of children and teenagers continued in the children’s Christian club “Joy”. The children are waiting for new biblical stories, interesting meetings, fun games, and exciting creative activities. The group of children has slightly changed including the leadership. Inspired by the possibilities for the development of the ministry with children, with new forces we began to fulfill the plan of God for each child: “Do not prevent children from coming to Jesus.”
In addition to meetings at the Christian club, we visit children at home, bringing them humanitarian aid. This is mainly food and essentials. We are already planning and praying for the Christmas performance for the kids of the club and their parents. This year, we wish to involve the children in the Christmas performance. The idea is to involve children in order for their parents to be as motivated as possible, to attend the play and service of the Church.
We started a fundraiser, for the purchase of Christmas gifts in the amount of 50 pieces. Thank you for participating in the life of our church. May God reward and bless you!
Greetings from Eugene and Rita and their baby Alex who is doing better. He received a laser treatment on the tumor. The first time Rita came with him to Omsk and told us about the situation in which they found themselves was the following: “Alex is not an ordinary child. We arrived at the meeting in a small village for the first time in our life. We were found by a woman and begged us to take an abandoned, exhausted, six-month-old baby. We agreed to adopt him, and he was given to us without any documents, we examined him and treated him for allergies. Two months later, we learned that Alex has cancer in both eyes and that most likely he will die, and at best he will be blind.
We prayed that God would open the hearts of the doctors and now we are at the clinic in Moscow. Many people united in order to help us, brothers and sisters from overseas prayed for him and started to collect money for treatment. Who is this boy? I have the answer: “He is my salvation, he taught me not to think about myself, but to trust God and to appreciate life, he is very special.” Brothers and sisters, thank you for your participation and prayers!”
We are waiting for the tests that will show the size of the tumor in the left eye. Further treatment depends on the results. The best case would be that this observation would take place until he is five years old. But it is necessary to replace the artificial right eye regularly since his head is growing. I sincerely thank you for your prayers and financial participation in Alex’s life! This is a long-term treatment and there are high expenses associated with it, we really need your help and care! I believe he is our common blessing!
Christmas is coming soon, and we are preparing a holiday for the children. Today I spoke with the head of the department, we were allowed to donate children’s bibles. There will also be gifts and a Christmas show, where we will, even more, get socialize with the children and their parents!
It’s Thursday again, which means we are with our “special friends”. We already know someone for a long time, and someone recently came here and within five minutes we already know each other. We talked about everything like home, toys, pets, favorite dishes like we were old friends, it was great. It was like happening outside in a sandbox, at school, on the street, but in no way within the walls of the hospital. As if this terrible diagnosis doesn’t exist. This is how it should be.
“Masha, next week we will play board games!” “I’m already being discharged! I’m going home! We won’t see each other!” And I thought to myself: “May God help us not to meet in this place ever again!”
Thank you for supporting our ministry! Thank you for participating in the lives of these children and their parents!
I met Eugene and Rita in 2017 when we moved the ministry in Omsk. They were one of the first married couples with whom I started the premarital counseling. Eugene came to God not long ago from a very unfavorable environment. Rita visited the Sunday Services since childhood but was never able to put her trust in God. As a result, her first marriage collapsed, and she lost her twins during pregnancy. The doctor had to cut them out with the uterus. In her second marriage, Rita survived violence and miraculously escaped from it. She almost all her bones fractured. And now Rita and Eugene are getting married in the church for the third time.
We worked hard and as a reward God blessed us, we became friends. Since they could not have children, they began to pray for adoption. One day they were offered at the hospital to take an abandoned and sick child. The boy Alex had a head injury. He was six months old, but Alex is a very beautiful and cheerful child, and quickly entered their heart. A month after adoption, they learned that he had cancer in both eyes, and metastases from the right eye had spread and the child could die at any moment. The doctors could not decide what to do, and Eugene and I started knocking on all the doors. We called the elders for prayer.
There was one person in the administration who was able to send quickly him to Moscow and get an urgent surgery, their right eye had to be removed and they are fighting to save the left. He already did a chemotherapy, but it did not have a positive impact. They are now in Moscow now, and need our prayers and, of course, material assistance.
In the near future I will fly to them with support. Rita cannot imagine losing another child. I believe that God loves them and has mercy and glory!
One of the problems that orphans have after leaving the orphanage is that they are not able to live independently. 70% of orphans cannot survive outside the walls of the orphanage. Therefore, we decided to take patronage over children of an orphanage in the village Petropavlovka, which is 155miles away from the city.
The director of the orphanage gave us permission to take care for the children in the city after they leave the orphanage, this was a breakthrough for us. But we could not even imagine how events would develop further. There is a family in our team that couldn’t have children for a long time. They started visiting the boarding school with us and they liked one girl very much. They thought, prayed and decided to adopt her. When they talked about it to the director, they learned that the girl has a younger sister and by law, they cannot be separated. So, Dmitry and Eugenia decided to adopt both girls. This is the best ministry we could have been doing.
Here is a brief testimony from Evgenia: “We are full of joy, that we want to scream! God gave us two girls. We still cannot believe it! I am so happy that my head is spinning, and my thoughts are everywhere!”
When you are reading this then two lovely little girls sleep in their own beds now. And in the morning, they run to their new parents, to hug and kiss them. These kids now have a future! Thank God! Thank you for your support!
The church “Word of Truth” is being developed and built. This year, the summer began with organizing play time hours on playgrounds, which were visited by over 100 children. In addition to the games, we conducted spiritual and moral lessons based on the Bible. After that, some children, who were allowed by their parents, went to our Christian camp. In early July, we baptized three more reborn Christians and they joined our church.
After rehabilitation and adaptation to the new circumstances, two of the children returned home as completely new people. One sister in Christ was baptized with them, she became a believer through the testimony of her daughter, who was baptized a year ago.
My joy increased thanks to a friend of mine. His name is Vladimir, he repented 9 years ago, but the path to God was long and difficult for him. Back then, after he repented, he returned to his family that was destroyed by their sin. His wife repented and became part of our “Word of Truth” community after hearing his testimony and she was baptized in 2011, but he didn’t dare such a step.
For Vladimir, it was a big problem to completely put his life in God’s hands, he is a strong man, a hard worker, and a highly qualified specialist. He is used to solving his problems on his own. But now the moment of truth came, and he fully submitted to Jesus Christ, completely trusting in His infinite love by being baptized.
With the start of the summer, we resumed the construction of our multifunctional house of prayer. Currently, the basement has been completed and the walls of the House have been built. Seeing how much work has already been done makes us rejoice.
The community has grown quite a bit over the years, 40-50 people attend the congregation regularly now. Many ministries have evolved like the family and premarital counseling and a children’s Christian club. Our prison ministry is also growing. And these are not all ministries that our church is involved in.
For now, we organize our services and meetings in a temporary building, we call it the “Tabernacle”. It is very tight in there. Many who came for the first time, were faced with such inconvenience so they no longer return.
To solve this problem there is only one way, to complete the construction of the House of Prayer. This year, before the winter starts, it is important to insert windows, doors, build the roof and install the heater. We believe that through this, the church will have many more opportunities to spread the Word of God in our community.
