The church in Pochinok was opened in 1996, it is 45 kilometers from Smolensk and has 28 members.
In our area are three boarding schools with 320 people in the villages Shatalova, Borschevka and Prudki. Some children have cerebral palsy. Our Church has access to the children in Prudka were 125 children live. Every Saturday our group visits this boarding school.
These children have parents, but they are deprived of parental rights. The administration allows us to conduct classes with children. After the boarding school, children go to study in Smolensk. In order not to lose touch with these children, we hold services every Sunday evening. There are children whom we baptized, and they have their own families now like Roma Kukhtikov who studied in Prudki, now he is a member of our Church and he continues to go to the boarding school and is responsible for physical education. Roma is married and God gave them a daughter, they named her Masha.
The Filimonovs family has 8 family members and lives in the Bubbnova, two of them come to Pochinik for the evening service from 5 – 7 PM. Millena is already playing the guitar in the church. Our church does not have enough space and we began to pray. The church was able to build a foundation of 30×16 feet on our own and we put up the walls. With your help, we were able to build the framework for the roof, and for now, we need to cover the roof with metal. The roof with the extension turned out to be 42.5 x 20 feet. We are now using money that has been donated from members to buy doors that will separate the hall from the dining room. We ask you to help our Church after that we will need to install the heating, electricity, sewers and lay tiles in the dining room. We are looking currently at total cost of $2250.
We will be happy if you visit our Church and watch our ministry in the boarding school and in the Church. We use our funds to bring children from villages to the Church and back home. Please pray for our ministry in our city. Many children remain in Smolensk after leaving the school; they also attend other churches within our union.
May God bless you.
Ministry in Pochinok – Pastor Pavel Makarenko