“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life…” – John 14:6
Greetings dear brothers and sisters! We would like to thank you all for your prayers about our trip to Cambodia. We saw how our Lord was with us in a country where 97% of the people are Buddhists. Yet, praise be to our God, for there was a small church in on every step of the way and how He blessed us in the Siem Reap city with who we were blessed to take part in ministry. God blessed us to be part of their prison ministry, as well as to visit poor villages and an orphanage, but I would like to share with you most of all about the opportunity God gave us to visit the prison’s rehab, where there are many men and women who suffer from drug and/or alcohol addiction.
We had only men come due to the time limit we were given, but we were still blessed to share our testimonies. Pastor Alexander and our sister Evgeniya shared how they came to Christ and how He set them free from their addictions. They shared that Jesus is the only way and the only Truth that can set us free, and He is Life – the real life in which we now live free from addictions (“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”-John 8:32). Even though we had a dual translation; Russian to English, English to Khmer (Cambodian), the people understood us nonetheless and we saw how the Holy Spirit worked, praise God!
There were two groups we testified to; both had about 30 men and among them, we even saw boys of ages around 13 or so. With each group, we spent about an hour and at the end of each group, we called to pray a prayer of repentance those who want to. In the first group, we saw individuals who were crying when we prayed, and at the end of the second group, we had half the room come forward and kneel on their knees, holding to each other and praying to God. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, For we were overjoyed to see how He touched hearts. We were also amazed how people of Buddhist religion wholeheartedly listened about Jesus, Praise God! Please, dear brothers and sisters, continue together with us to pray for the people of Cambodia, for them turn away from their false gods and turn to Jesus! Thank you, and may our Lord bless you all abundantly.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”-Matt.5:11
Happy New 2020 Year dear brothers and sisters! I would like to thank everyone who prayed for us and would like to share the testimony of our very last days before this new year.
We thank God for blessing us with almost ten months of hospital ministry on Sundays, where we gave sweets and Bible verse cards with Psalm 30:3 to patients and visitors. Yet, the last Sunday of this past year, a doctor came in and yanked the card out of a patient’s hand who just received it from us and she called us into her office. After questioning us she called the security who took us outside and called the religious police. As the police officials came we saw that they had a pack of our cards already which they have collected somewhere before and actually been watching us. They loaded us into the police jeep and took us to the police station. Praise God that though our hearts were beating fast, God still sent us total peace and joy and we were singing hymns while all this was happening “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”-Philip.4:7
At the police station, more government officials arrived, took photos of all four of us and began demanding that we hand over all of our Bible tracts or they will be forced to search us. Then came a Vietnamese government official, Mr. Juan, who spoke Russian and he was furiously yelling at our pastor, Alexander, during the interrogation. The rest of us started to pray that God gives these people a merciful heart. Then they all started inspecting the tracks we handed over which had written on them Bible verses; John 3:16, Psalm 30:3, Acts 16:31, and others in the Vietnamese, Russian, and English languages. There were about 15 officials in the room who read all those verses and Mr. Juan translated the Russian ones while they all listened closely (photo above). We were rejoicing that the word of God now reached the police department as well! Then we noticed how Mr. Juan began talking nicer to us and explained that we are not allowed to spread religious propaganda outside religious temples. We were told to write that we have been warned and won’t break the law again. They said if we get caught again, we will be deported from Vietnam. After we signed the documents, the religious police took those documents, and praise God we were let go! This was a great joy and blessing for us to have been persecuted for God’s word (Matt.5:12), as well as to see His work within the government officials.
Dear brothers and sisters, please continue praying that God gives us clear leadership of His Holy Spirit to further evangelize to the people of Vietnam.
“In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.” ~Psalms 71:1
Dear brothers and sisters, we would like to thank you all very much for supporting us in prayer about our children’s ministry here in Vietnam. Our Lord is working wonders but not only in the hearts of the children; I have been noticing how God at the same time is greatly working within me and strengthening my faith in Him!
Glory be to our dear Lord Jesus Christ for showing His works and blessing, to serve the children on the cemetery every Saturday at around 4:00pm. We do craft that is related to a verse from the Bible which they are able to take home and then share that word of God with their families. Praise God, they have also begun to pray with us every time we are with them even though they don’t understand our language.
On the other hand, I would like to share how God with His awesome mercy blessed me this past Saturday when I woke up with a terrible headache, swollen tonsil, and a high fever. I realized it was physically impossible for me to lead the children’s ministry that day. What was worse, is that it was raining heavily outside. I had a thought to cancel the children’s ministry for that day, but I remembered that we promised them last Saturday that we will come and they probably will be waiting. Not knowing what to do, I just began to pray to God that if it is His will for us to go and do the children’s ministry, for Him to let my illness go away by 3:00 PM without me needing to take any medication because it has an impact on my driving ability, as well as the rain to stop by that same time. As I waited for 3:00 PM and the hours past one by one, my pain and illness progressed and the rain became worse, which made me begin to doubt the possibility of doing the children’s ministry today. However, this was that amazing moment when God was teaching me to put my full trust in Him and have faith that He will never let me be put to confusion; because at 3:00 PM my swollen tonsil, fever, and headache miraculously went away and the sun came out without any rain in sight! In addition, when we came to the cemetery the kids kept on coming and coming. We had to use all of our craft materials and even a few new kids came! God blessed the children’s ministry even more that day! I’m so thankful to Him for showing me to never doubt when I put my trust in Him. Praise God, for doing great miracles and working within my heart too! May our Lord bless all of you and your lives as well with the wonderful miracles through our faith in Him!
Peace be with you our dear brothers and sisters! We would like to thank you all for your prayers; in Vietnam the rainy season began, and we praise the Lord for keeping us from floods. Also, we are very thankful to God for sending us brother and sisters for a week from the US, who helped us in the ministry here.
Though it rained most of the week, it was a blessing to us that God paused the raining during our children’s’ ministry since the cemetery ground is pure dirt and from the rain it would have been very muddy, but by the mercy of God, during the few hours we spent with the children there was no rain and the ground was dry! This was same even the next week, when it rained heavy all day, but during our kids’ ministry the ground was dry, and the sky was clear that the children even pointed out airplanes in the sky! We are very thankful to God for taking care of our small worries, like the rain, and turning it into miracles that the children can see and praise God for it!
In addition, by the wonderful grace of God, we had our first Sunday school in our church because a few Sundays before, a young woman Liza, repented! Now with her little children Liya and Romik, she continues to visit our church and prayer groups. We ask you to please pray with us so God would continue to work in her heart and that her children may learn to love Jesus from the beginning of their young age.
We are now very happy to have children in our church and if it is God’s will, we would like to continue Sunday school with Liya and Roma because it was very interesting for them since they never heard the word ‘God’ and were interested to know who He was and that He created everything.
We thank God that our children ministry is growing and now even in our own church! Please continue to pray for the hearts of all these children, that they be set on the right path in the very beginning of their lives as it says, “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
Greetings dear brothers and sisters! Recently we visited the neighboring country, Laos, and would like to share once again the wonderful ways that God leads. We had all the days planned out in which cities we were to minister and even printed cards with the verse John3:16 in Lao language. Yet, God had a better plan and we understood that on our second day, when it began down-pouring and we got stuck in one city.
God knew what He was doing because in that city, we found out that there is a protestant church. As we were looking for the church, our attention was caught by a man lying on the side of the road, and we thought he is drunk so we passed him. Not finding the church we returned to look again that maybe we just missed it. When we came by the man on the ground again, we stopped and to our surprise saw the small Evangelical Church in the background. From excitement, we walked passed him again and came up to the church and showed the John3:16 card to the people there and explained with signs that we are Christians too and they happily started telling us something in Lao and showed us where they live, which was few run down rooms attached to back of the small church building. As we were about to leave, we saw through a window a woman on oxygen support. We came into the room and all knelt down beside her with and Pastor Alexander prayed her. After the prayer, we blessed her husband, who we believe is the pastor of the church and helped them with a small financial support.
As we walked out of the church, we asked the Lao Christians about the man lying on the road and they showed us with signs that he is not a good man. As we came near him, we saw that he was no longer sleeping and decided to pray for him. As we prayed, he cried and when we gave him the John3:16 card, he read it so thoroughly and after every word he lifted up his eyes to the heavens, that we were surprised to see someone with so much awe toward God’s word, praise God!
Few days later, we visited the church again and and didn’t see the man that was on the road, but we saw lots of flowers and a portrait of a woman in the church. We found out that they had a funeral of the woman we prayed for the other day, and we praised God that He used us to provide financial help for the funeral! Glory to God, for His ways are above all our ways!“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” -Isaiah 55:8-9.
Greetings dear brothers and sisters! I would like to thank you all for your prayers and thank our Lord for His great works here in Vietnam. Our Lord blessed us with the opportunity to visit the city hospital almost every Sunday now, where we tell people of God’s love, give them a Bible verse of encouragement, and pray for them.
At first, we told the people in the hospital in Vietnamese that Jesus loves them and would ask them if they would like us to pray for them. Now, people start asking us on their own if we may pray for them, and we saw that as a working hand of God, praise and glory be to Him! Yet, we still come across those who ask us not to pray and to leave them alone, and I would like to share one of those moments with you.
We came into a room once and as we walked up to the beds, we asked if we may pray for the sick and couple of them agreed, so we prayed. Then as we came to the very far back corner, we saw a man in his bed who was fully immobile, and a family relative was feeding him from a spoon. When he saw us, he shook his head wildly and tried to scream so we would leave but all that came out of his mouth was whisper. Each week patients changed, this same man was always in the far back corner, lying in bed and would have his head covered with a blanket when we came and prayed for people in the beds next to him.
Over a month later, we came into this same room as usual and prayed for the people in the beds near him, but this time during our conversation with patients in that room, I heard someone whisper in a hoarse voice, “amen…amen…” and as I looked toward the sound I saw him looking at us and with all might as loud as he could, he was whispering the only word that is pronounced same in Russian, English and Vietnamese when we pray. Not knowing how to get our attention he tried as hard as he can to call us by saying ‘amen.’ We came to him and asked if he would like as to pray for him, and he nodded excitedly, and though we prayed in Russian, since we don’t speak Vietnamese yet, when we told him the phrase in Vietnamese “Chúa Giêsu yêu bạn (Jesus loves you),” he started repeating over and over again the name of Jesus: “Chúa Giêsu…Chúa Giêsu…” For us, right away came to mind the verse from Acts 2:21 “…whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” and we praise our Lord for letting us be witnesses to His great works within the hearts of others! Please continue to pray with us for this man, and may God bless you all!
