I wanted to bring you up to the present news here in our church in Yoshkar-Ola Russia as well as what just happened one hour ago as I write President Yeltsin has resigned and Mr. Putin is now the new president.  I believe this will help Russia as he is a strong leader. On the Christmas day here we had a celebration with about 250 people in attendance! We had a great time here. There was such a spirit of joy and this celebration, was maybe kind of like the angels that announced to the shepherds the good news and great joy of the birth of Jesus. Yes we may be classified as lower people in that we have many gypsies in our church as well as educated people, but Jesus loves them and so do we!!!! It is so refreshing spiritually to see people fall in love with Jesus.

Oh yes the pictures!!!    As you can see our church  building in the back ground does need some work! But there is much remodeling going on, on the inside and  once spring hits we will work on the outside.             ( that sounds spiritual, do the inside first!)  That is me on the right with Genaddi next to me. He is the administrator of the church and very committed to the work of God here.   The girl on the left is Nina. She is the book keeper and also very committed. On the lower right is Alla she is the praise and worship leader.  All 3 plus myself as the senior pastor work full time in the church.   It always amazes me the price that many people here have to pay to be a Christian. These 3 that are standing with me are also elders in the church plus one more who is not in the picture. The picture of the children and I was taken at the Christmas party in the church a few days ago.

Update!!    Greetings in Jesus' name from Yoshkar-Ola Russia!    GOOD NEWS !!!!        Today the government here in the Mari-el rupublic of  Russia has officially recognized our church as a legal registered church of Russia !  This gives us the same authority as the Russian Orthodox Church.  This is a great blessing for our church and the people of God here. If a church was not registered by December31,1999 the church could be closed or have real problems with the government.   They told us a few weeks ago that they WERE NOT going to register us.  So that would mean that we would have to cease to exist as an organization.   BUT....things have changed and it all turned around the last 2 days!   I just want to thank all of you who have been praying for us on behalf of this need.  Praise the Lord!!!   Rejoice with us!!!   We love you. 

God bless all of you,

Dana Carbone

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