As always, time keeps running in its fast-moving and imperceptible fashion. The Lord continues performing his mighty works among his people here in Siberia. God’s children continue to pray and worship the Lord, as well as to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to this perishing world. I continue to preach the Word of God.
And as always in our ministry, God sends us both joy and sorrow. Several joyful events happened this month. We accepted as a member of our local church one more sister, who came to us from a charismatic church. Her mane is Larisa, and she has been attending our church for several months. Also another man began to attend our services regularly, he came to us from the criminal world. He is a former bandit. And looking at him, it is amazing to see how God is working in him, how He is changing this man’s heart, and how his character, his whole worldview, his attitude to God and to sin are being changed. Indeed, God is great and marvelous in his deeds. Glory to God.
Another joyful event for us is that the situation with the believers in Tulun is finally resolved. Holden, Maxim Manakov and I have already written to you that for a long time there was a difficult situation in a local Baptist church. The local pastor practically stopped serving in that church, he became obsessed with business, making money, and he left his sheep. And so God has brought it to the point where most members of this church left him. Now they are meeting as a group of believers in the home of one of the sisters. This month they invited me to fellowship and to preach the Word of God, and I had the opportunity to visit them. We had a wonderful time together. We prayed, read the Scripture, and fellowshipped together. Pray for this group of people. They are God’s people, and they need our prayer support. And it seems that visiting them will become our good tradition, until they stand firmly on their feet. God be praised.
During last two years, it became visible how God is widening His fields around Irkutsk. There are new groups of believers, who wish to have fellowship with us. There is a city of Bratsk (it is about 600 kilometers away from Irkutsk). There too, a group of believers has begun to meet who want our help. Their leader will come soon to Irkutsk to fellowship and to discuss this matter. I have known this brother for a long time as zealous for God, whose heart aches for the work of God. May God bless him.
As for trouble, it is usually the same old thing. The devil is trying in different ways to belittle our service to God, to make it insignificant, to compromise it somehow. Again and again he puts worthless and rotten people on our way, who try to defame us. Interesting fact though, these people know neither us, nor our ministry. The Apostle Paul’s words can be addressed to us in this situation:
“For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries”
1 Cor. 16:9
Therefore, pray for us that God would bless his servants here to be steadfast and firm in the faith, and that we would be able to overcome all hardships, and to endure and remain faithful to God and His Word. May God have mercy on us.
Also just this month God blessed us once again with an opportunity to visit the group in Primorsky village and the church in Ust’-Uda. May God give you the strength to be steadfast in the faith and also to stand firm for the truth of God.