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October-December 2004
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Well, in characteristic fashion, it’s taken us over two months to send out another update letter. As usual, there are plenty of things to report and share about. I spent the last week of October visiting family and friends in Washington. The highlights included seeing my new great nephew, taking part in a friend’s wedding, and spending an afternoon with most of my family members. I had also wanted to pick up some documents in the States as we were considering applying for a 3-year resident visa in Russia. However, we felt it was best to continue with the 1 year religious visa at this time. Since I didn’t have to chase down documents, I was able to spend the limited time solely with the people I love. After I returned from the States, we had our yearly regional church conference. Believers from the Calvary Chapels in our region as well as those in Moscow, Perm, St. Petersburg, Ryzan, Smolensk, and from several U.S. states all spent three and a half days studying the Bible, worshipping God, sharing, and praying with and encouraging one another. The theme for the conference was “Living for God in a Hostile World.” The text was the entire book of 1 Peter. I heard many great reports about the conference. One that touched me most was from the young church in Crystal Goose. Five teenage girls from Goose were so excited and shared how they had learned a great deal and were motivated to draw closer to God and live with purpose for Him. For us personally, we were grateful that the conference was also a blessing for the children in Sunday School. At the end of the conference, Pastor Jeff announced that Pasha Baranov, our organization president and youth group leader, would be taking over as pastor. As you may remember, Jeff and his family (minus Caleb) agreed to move to Pocatello, Idaho to serve at the Calvary Chapel there. Both the Fadness family and the Castro family have since left for the States. Our church has received the change very well. For me personally, it was hard to see the Fadnesses and Castros go, but I was very happy to see Pasha chosen to step in. He has been a great blessing to me from the first day I moved here. The youth group, in its former arrangement, concluded when Jeff’s family moved. We are now praying about what organized ministry to make available to the youth. Most likely it will be an outreach-minded ministry. There is plenty of work for us to do with the Sunday School. This Friday we will have a special Christmas service that the kids will do a special song for. Olya and I co-wrote a song for the kids with the help of a few lines from a poem we found in a book. I have been working with Al and Pastor Pasha to come up with an official statement about childcare in the building as well as an official discipline policy for the classroom. The need has made itself apparent as there has been a little too much chaos with children after services and sometimes during class. We are working to create an environment where everyone is blessed and edified. Finally, we are hoping to have another seminar at the end of January or beginning of February. In talking with our teachers and observing the classrooms, we saw that there is a desire and need for all of us to grow in preparing to teach lessons as well as how to manage the time effectively during the lesson. Already, two people with a lot of teaching experience have agreed to teach sessions about those topics. Though we have many challenging moments, we see a lot of good things happening in the ministry. God is teaching us a lot and growing us into the leaders that we never thought we could be. Outside of Sunday School, things are going as usual. I taught the Harb kids a unit about electricity and now we are learning about the microscopic world thanks to a university-class compound microscope donated by my alma mater, Seattle Pacific University (Thanks again Dejah for arranging that). We are about ready to wrap up our study of the book of Ephesians in our weekly home group. Olya continues her part time teaching at the University and is nearing the mid-term exam season. She has also been teaching English to a 4 year old boy from our church twice a week. Olya has also been preparing a teenager from our church to take the entrance exam to the University this summer. I am taking Russian lessons once or twice a week which has been good, but makes my head a little cloudy. :) I will be going to London on January 12th and (prayerfully) returning to Russia on January 15th. It is that time of the year again to renew my visa. Because of her exam schedule, Olya was not able to accompany me to Riga, Latvia as we had first planned. London turned out to be the same price for me to go with the added bonus that they speak English. I also will be able to return much sooner than if I went to Latvia. I am currently waiting for the invitation to be processed. For reasons I won’t discuss here, it is very important to receive the invitation before January. This is one of our main prayer requests now. Before I close, please note the following prayer requests. Please pray:
· For Dave’s visa invitation to arrive in the next two weeks Shalom, Dave & Olya www.geocities.com/drerho (main website) Novo-Yamskoi Pereyulok 6-66 Phone: 7-0922-38-04-39 |