I write to share the news about our church life and how the Lord faithfully helps us. And I also want to ask you to pray for our needs; but first of all I would like to thank you for your prayers already. We desperately need your prayers, and we know the power of the prayer. The power of prayer is obvious for us when we get an answer from the Lord.
One of the recent answers to prayer we received was a new family who moved to our church – Alexey and Tatyana. They inherited an apartment from their parents and moved to the apartment for permanent residence. They live not far from our church building now and after visiting for some time, they decided to join our church. This is such an answer to prayer because Alexey and Tatyana genuinely love the Lord and the church and have a desire to serve in the church for His glory. They will be able to help with Sunday school teaching, singing, media and computer help with the sermons and resources, and even maintenance and work on the church building.
Until now, many of our church members were elderly and disabled folk, but now I will have more help with many different aspects of the church’s needs. When we share the work and everybody takes some responsibility, then we will have order and comfort. Praise the Lord!
I also thank you for prayers for the preaching in our church. By God’s grace Nikolay and I continue preaching on Sundays. Brother Nikolay is preaching through the Gospel of John and I am preaching through the first chapters of Romans. My last sermon was about justification from the passage of Romans 3:21-26 (especially verse 24). I ask you to pray for our preaching to be edifying and spirit-empowered so that the believers may grow and the lost be saved.
We also continue to meet together on Fridays for prayer meetings where we also study the book of Genesis. It is after this meeting that I sometimes get upset because not many believers attend. This is something I am burdened about in prayer and I also ask you to pray for the church members to have more zeal for the Lord’s house, to pray and keep watching.
We also started meeting together after the morning service every Sunday. After a tea break, we explain the Gospel and other subjects, we have fellowship to get to know each other better, share prayer needs, and pray for each other. I ask you to pray for the church members to not be lazy in growing spiritually but to be thirsty to know God and to read the Word of God and visit Bible studies regularly.
Since we have many elderly and weak people who cannot regularly attend church services because of their bad health, I visit them often – among whom are Vera, Ivan, and others. They tell me about their life, we have fellowship, pray together and have Lord’s Table. From time to time some of these have to stay in the hospital for a while, so some of us from the church visit them there. And there we also have an opportunity to share the Good News and give away New Testaments to others in the hospital. When I see my brothers and sisters sharing the Word of God at the hospital it encourages me greatly!
Once more, I say thank you for your love, support, and prayers! Please pray all the more for our church in the areas mentioned above. We also thank God for you and pray for you.
