Russia-June 2010

This free picture slideshow created with Smilebox

It's Amazing What You Can Pack into 30 Days!

Dear Loved Ones,

We are overwhelmed by God's grace, His hand of protection, and steadfast love for us. We have so enjoyed the past 4 weeks and look forward to what He will do in the next 8 weeks!

We are attaching some pictures of recent activities that will give you a brief glimpse of great times with those we hold so dear...

Tom and Andrei went to Tarzhok for a weekend to help a local evangelical church with a work project. Some of the older students that have graduated from the orphanage in Bezhetsk were there to help out also. It was fun to see them and we were encouraged to see that they are attending church and growing in their personal relationship with the Lord.

We were able to attend 'Last Bell' (the last day of school) at the facility that was formerly the

Moscow Training Center. Though it is a military cadet academy now, there were a few familiar faces with some staff members as well as students. It was a bittersweet experience, as Sarah puts it, to walk down memory lane. It was a joy and honor to be invited by Egor L. who has for 11 years been like a son to us. Please pray for the Lord's hand to guide him as he seeks to find a university to attend in the fall.

We are planning a reunion, reaching out to any former students, staff, or friends from the Training Center. Please pray for good weather (rain is forecasted) and a good time of fellowship as we gather. We are planning to meet at a local park this Saturday. Our desire is to encourage each one according to their need and simply share the love of Jesus.

Tom had the blessing of teaching a group of about 20 young leaders that will be working at the summer camp in Elna next month. His message encouraged them to allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through them to effectively share the love of Christ with the children. It was a good group. Many who attended the camp in years past are now grown up and investing in other children's lives as was done for them.

Andrei and one of our pastor's sons, Ilya, sang a beautiful duet in church on Sunday. It was a blessing to hear them sing of the joy that comes from fellowship with the Lord.

Sarah has been busy helping to pack and repack, distribute, and serve wherever needed. She has such a heart to reach out to her many friends here. She is constantly on the phone planning, encouraging, and seeking ways to help. I grabbed the shot of her on the phone one day while taking a break to admire God's beauty all around us in our yard. Our phone coverage is poor, at best, so she can often be seen 'out the window' trying to catch or keep a signal! From haircuts, to cooking, to planning, and to reaching out, she has a full schedule, to say the least!

We recently made a quick trip to Elna to meet with Pastor Sava and his family. They are looking forward to the upcoming camp. We are planning to help them set up and prepare for around 100 children at the end of June. They have recently sold their apartment to buy a house that is large enough for their family as well as orphaned children. It is a dilapidated structure and in great need of renovating. It has incredible potential and we are encouraged by the desire to deny their own comfort in order to minister to the fatherless. We are trusting the Lord to provide us with the time and energy to help them start working on the building as soon as they get all their documents together. Please pray for the Lord's will to be done and for them to have favor in the eyes of the officials.

Last but not least, we are in awe of God's beauty all around us. It is with amazement that we study His handiwork and we are in awe when we realize how vast His love is for us, how tender His mercies are toward us, and how small we are in comparison to Him.. If you haven't seen it already, the dvd by Louie Gigilo, "Indescribable" is a phenomenal reminder of how great is our God.

We are so very grateful for His love and care for us shown through so many of you. We trust He will bless you with His presence, His provision, and His peace, as you seek and serve Him there in your mission field. May the Lord bless and keep each one.

Greetings from Moscow, dear family and friends! It has been a long time since we have updated our blog. As most of you know, we were in the US for 8 months. It was the longest visit since we joined the work in Moscow almost 11 years ago. Though it was not our choosing, God used that time for our good and for His perfect purpose. We were able to spend some extended time with family and friends, take care of some medical check-ups, and attend to a few projects that had been moved to the back burner.

The Lord has been prompting me over the past few years write a book recording the many things He has done in and through over lives over the past 15 years or so. Actually, the events of the book had already been written on our hearts and minds. Our job was to simply write it down as His Spirit brought it to mind. The body of the book was completed a few weeks prior to our return to Russia. There is still much to be done with editing. What a blessing and encouragement it has been for us to put down on paper the many lessons we have learned and the miracles of God we have witnessed. Even if it never gets published, the legacy of it all will be passed on to future generations in our family and the lives of those whose stories are shared in the book. To God be the glory.

We were blessed beyond our wildest dreams to be given a home in the Blue Ridge Smokey Mountain area. Some very dear friends allowed us to stay there as a result of the Lord moving in their hearts to offer it to us. God used their generosity in a powerful way to minister to our family by providing a beautiful, peaceful atmosphere for getting some much needed rest and solitude. Other wonderful and gracious provisions were made as we traveled to different areas visiting with family and friends. We are grateful for each and every one of you who opened your home to us to meet not only a physical need but the need for fellowship and rest. God is so good to us! We returned to the US very weary but the Lord faithfully renewed our strength through many of you and equipped us for our return to Moscow.

We were only able to obtain 3 month visas, allowing us to be in Moscow until July 30th. We enjoyed a good and safe flight over. At the airport in Moscow, we were met by Egor L. as well as friends from Golgotha, our church here. Andrei S., a brother from Golgotha whom we work alongside in the orphan outreach, brought our van to the airport so we could go straight home from there. What a blessing that was. We hit the ground running! Misha H. met up with us that same day and he and Egor helped us shift boxes out of 'Drei's room where we had stored them for the 8 months.

We praise God for the time He has already given us with several of our Russian young people. It has been a true source of encouragement to see how some are serving the Lord and ministering to others, including children in orphanages. We were able to make a trip to the orphanage in Bezhetsk and stayed there for 3 days. There were about 18 of us from our church and other churches in Moscow that were able to make the trip. Arseni S. and Galya K. were among those that went with us. What a blessing and joy it was for us to see the children again and to witness the love and sacrifice displayed by the young people who accompanied us on the trip. God is alive and working all things together for good for His people.

We had a great time over this past weekend sharing time with Galya K., Arseni, Egor L., Misha H., Kostya, Sasha G., and his friend Jaana. We made a Mexican meal at Sasha's request and we enjoyed getting caught up with each one. Please pray for those who need to make changes in their lives based on Truth. They know what's right in their heads but need to transfer it to their heart. Pray they will desire to do what is right above all else. Obedience is not always convenient and usually not the easy thing to do, but it is always the right thing to do.

Our prayer request is simply that we would make the best use of our short time here. May the Lord find us faithful in sharing His love and Good News with everyone He brings across our path. May we walk out our faith, knowing that faith is not what we believe but what we do as a result of that belief. We desire that every decision we make in these next 3 months be consistent with what we believe. May the Lord find us faithful followers of Him.

We are so very grateful for the many ways the Lord reveals Himself to us. We are grateful for His faithful provision through many of you, for His hand of protection upon us, and for the blessing of fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. May the hand of the Lord be upon you as you seek and serve Him wherever He places you for His purpose and glory.

HE IS RISEN!!

PSALM 113:3 From the rising of the sun

unto the going down of the same

the name of the Lord is to be praised!

We praise God for the resurrected life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! He has blessed us richly, beyond what any of us deserve. He gave His all for us, have we surrendered all for Him?

CHRIST IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

HAPPY EASTER!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Make a Smilebox greeting

A Quick Update...from not so far!

Our last evening in Moscow was spent at Red Square with loved ones!















Greetings from a little closer... at least for those of you in the US! Our last few weeks in Russia went by in a flash! With packing, preparing our dacha for our lengthy furlough, seeing as many people as possible in Moscow and beyond, the time was gone before we knew it. We were blessed to be able to make a day trip back to the orphanage in Bezhetsk a week before we flew out. The children were disappointed that we had only come for the day, however, all-in-all, it was well worth the trip to give hugs and share the Lord's love with them one more time! We also had the joy of having 15 of our young friends over for a final gathering at our place. We had a cookout and a time of fellowship as we shared with them our love but most importantly, God's faithfulness to and love for them.

A friend from church took us to the airport in Moscow and on the way there we picked up Egor L. and Galya. When we arrived there, we were surprised to find Arseni and another group of friends there to send us off! What an encouragement and blessing it was for us. We felt the Lord had opened the flood gates and poured out His love for us through them. Though it made our goodbyes more difficult, we were grateful to see each and every one of them! Eight months will be a long time to be away, but we are trusting the Lord to fill the gap and meet each one at their point of need in our absence.

Some dear friends, including a Russian, picked us up from the airport in Atlanta and then John-David surprised us by meeting us as soon as we arrived at another friend's home in Gainesville! We are now at Roz's dad's resting and visiting on the east coast of SC for a few more days before heading to the Charlotte area. Since we have been back in the US, we have been able to get caught up on some much needed rest. We think, though we may be mistaken, that we are almost over jet lag!

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Tom's leg. It is doing great and we are so thankful that medical attention was not necessary. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made... There was a brother in our church in Moscow that saw Tom limping during our last Sunday there and he went and got Tom two varieties of lotion and told him to use it twice a day. We found out later that the lotion is intended for horses, however, the Lord used it to give Tom much relief.

Please read our updated prayer requests to the right. Thanks to all of you who faithfully cover us in prayer regardless of which side of the ocean we are on. Thank you, too, for those who faithfully support our family financially. Our prayer is the Lord will find us faithful to Him in all of our ways.

Bezhetsk Orphanage Camp July 5-12, 2009

Our return trip to the orphanage in Bezhetsk was a phenomenal work of God. Just two weeks prior, it looked like it would be delayed or cancelled. There were not enough leaders available to pull it all together...but that was looking through man's eyes. God's ways are higher than our ways and His timing is perfect. It was decided to move forward even though there were only a few who had ever had a leadership role in camps before. It was a motley crew for sure! We realized that it was God who called us together and God who wanted to work in and through us. Our main direction was to deny our own fleshly desires and expectations and trust the Holy Spirit to love the kids through us...and love them He did. As you look at the orphans faces, you will see a reflection of the joy in their hearts.

Each day started with a leadership Bible study, prayer, and review of the day's schedule. We then marched to the children's rooms to have some fun rousing them out of bed. The kids, especially the younger ones, loved it! Our days were full of teaching, games, crafts, singing, sports, and lots of fellowship, topped off with an abundance of the love of Christ. The last 3 days we sensed the softening of the older orphans' hearts so we set up a special meeting for both the guys and the girls. This took place after the evening big group meeting. We invited the older guys to join us if they were interested in learning more about the Bible and how to pray, etc. We honestly did not know what to expect. If they came, it would be an open statement of their interest in wanting to know more about Christ. Peer pressure can be very controlling , especially in that environment. They didn't care...they came anyway. Four guys met with me and the other male leaders and talked about faith and how to pray. That same night, the girls had a very special time of fellowship as some of the leaders shared their testimonies and some of the orphan girls shared their life stories.

The next night, after the big group meeting, we asked if the kids wanted to meet again. The answer was a resounding yes! The guys, 7 of them, went until 1am sharing their backgrounds. The stories were heartbreaking. Outwardly, most seemed callous, but we could feel their pain.

The girls met again with Roz, Katya (the camp director), and some of the other leaders. They were able to share with them about God's desire for their lives and the lasting consequences for wrong choices. They shared about how God is the Father to the fatherless and that He has a perfect plan for each of them.

It proved to be a profitable time of fellowship for both groups. Two of the young men repented the next day and trusted their lives to Christ. There were also several of the young ladies whose hearts were softened toward the things of the Lord where they had been rebellious and non-interested at the beginning of the week.

The message that was filtered throughout everything we did was faith~Faith in Christ instead of self or man.

We praise God for His power, the power of His Word, and the power of His love. He is in control and working all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose!

The song that is playing during the slideshow is one of the children's favorites. Tom would take them for rides in the van and they would ask to hear this song over and over. It speaks of loving Jesus and being grateful for all He has done.

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Make a Smilebox slideshow