Recently, HeartCry has provided the necessary funds for Eugene, and his church in Isil’kul, Siberia, to rent an adequate meeting space that will enable them to conduct evangelistic meetings for the people in their city. In the following report, Eugene thanks HeartCry for such help. He also shares about the recent training on evangelism that he finished with the church and how the Lord miraculously provided opportunities for him to share Christ with the lost.
Eugene writes:
Greetings to you, dear brothers and sisters!
First of all I would like to thank HeartCry for your help and support concerning the rented meeting space for our church outreach. I am so grateful for everything you do for us, for the financial provision for my family and for your prayers about our church. It is extremely important for us to realize that we are not alone – we have friends who share in our love for the Lord and service to Him!
We have finished our training on evangelism this past month. I would like to say that those who shared the Gospel have had their skills improved. It is a little more difficult for the women of our church. Some ladies share the Gospel when they are at the store or other public places. Others have acquired a deeper and clearer knowledge of the Gospel, however, they become shy and uneasy when it comes to practice. In situations like that, I can only encourage them, pray for them, and set the pattern with my own life. Of course, I wish all members of our congregation were active evangelists, but we are all different. Everyone has their own skills and gifts. After gaining some experience it usually becomes easier for them to share the Gospel. Please pray that we would be zealous in sharing about Christ, and that God would help us to be a church full of Gospel witnesses.
At the beginning of January, something interesting happened to me. One night while I was at home, I thought about a friend of mine. He is one of those people I maintain a relationship with to share the Gospel and point him to Christ. I have been praying about Sasha for six years now. I remembered him and how he started using drugs actively. It is twice as dangerous for him, since he is HIV positive. As these things were going through my mind concerning Sasha, I spent some time in prayer for him. I asked God to keep him alive and allow us to meet again so that I could point him to the Savior once more. I went to bed with this prayer in mind, but I couldn’t fall asleep. Suddenly the phone rang. I picked up the phone and to my astonishment, I realized that it was the person I had just prayed about! He said, ‘I apologize for the late phone call. Did I wake you up?’ ‘No, you haven’t. I have been praying for you’, I answered.
He then explained to me that he went to buy drugs in another village, which is more than 100 km away, but instead of getting the drugs he got into a lot of trouble. Some robbers beat him and tried to steal his car from him. They were drunk and drove into a ditch off the road. When they couldn’t get the car out, they threw the car keys and left. Sasha needed my help to pull his car out and tow it home. By that time of night, the weather was 28 degrees below 0, and I didn’t have the right engine oil in my car for such temperatures but to my surprise, my car started up right away! When I thought about it later I could clearly see the hand of God through all of the events that night.
I took enough money with me for fuel to get to the place where Sasha was and back, but I didn’t take into consideration that I would need more fuel since I had to tow his car behind mine. I almost ran out of fuel when I got to the gas station and used the rest of the money to put some more fuel in the tank. It was just enough for two of us to get home. I prayed that we wouldn’t be stranded in the cold or have an accident. Praise God, He kept us safe. All of this enabled me to have a serious conversation with Sasha. I shared the Gospel with him again, and told him that he needed help with his addiction. He then spent ten days at a Christian rehab center, and is keeping in regular contact with me. Though he hasn’t fully come to Christ yet, I believe that this situation was a good testimony for him and pray that the Lord would use it to bring him to true repentance. God used this event to also give me an opportunity to meet Sasha’s parents and share the Gospel with them. Now they are among those people whom I pray for and try to build relationships with. Please pray for the salvation of Sasha and his parents.
I thank God for the other people He has placed in my life recently. One lady, who came to our Christmas service, has started attending our church services regularly. I also started visiting a woman who was rescued by a neighbor when she tried to commit suicide. Together with her husband we study the Bible. I don’t know how long they will have a desire to meet with me, but they haven’t driven me out yet. The husband doesn’t want to be the leader of their family so the woman is the one who leads. Here in Russia, such a family model is most common. Pray that the Lord would bless these new relationships He has given, and that lives would be changed as a result. Pray specifically for my meetings with the woman and her husband, that the Lord would reveal Himself to them both and save them.