January 27, 2011

Church and Bible Lessons

Everyone in the church has been very faithful lately, including Vladamir. Now that Vladamir has gotten his affairs in order after the death of his wife, he has been to every service. Alina has not been allowed to ocme back since that first time. Be praying that God will work in this family. A man named Valodia, who lives here inthe village, has also been coming to every service for the past month. He is not interested in Bible lessons at the moment, but continues to come.

Not only have Yuri and Christina been faithful to church, but they have also come with us on evagelism to pass out tracts. We are very excited at how they have been growing.

Baba Nora, our elderly neighbor is still very friendly. Since she didn't seem very open to studying the Bible with me, Jessica is planning on having her over for tea and seeing if she will come over for weekly tea and bible lessons.

I visited with Ruselan a couple of times since our last prayer letter. We were told on the first visit that there was a minister's room where we could meet in to do Bible lessons with him that was never used, but before we left they told us that we would need to get permission to do this. When we went to ask about getting permission, they said that there were enough ministers with permission to the prison and it would be hard for us to get one. They also said that they would have to send someone to evaluate our church again. Because of this, we have decided against trying to get permission. We will continue to send him the Bible lessons through the mail then we will talk about it when we meet, we just won't be able to meet in a private room like I had wanted.

We have been looking at buildings in the village again and found one property that we were really interested in, but at the moment the owners do not have their paperwork in order for us to be able to purchase it. Please be praying that God's will be done.

We had a New Year's meeting at Yuri and Christina's house and Lina's husband Dema came. We continue to pray that God will work upon his heart that he will be saved.

It seems like God has really been working in Pasha's life, but Pasha keeps hardening. He understands the gospel perfectly and can explain it better than some Christians, but still refuses to believe in God. We pray that God will soften his heart.

Family and Health

Our prayer for our children has always been that as soon as they understand the gospel that they would accept Christ as their Saviour. During our regular morning devotions a few days before Christmas, Anna asked to pray and asked Jesus to clean and come into her heart. We were shocked at her understanding of the scriptures and praise the Lord that He has answered our prayer for Anna much sooner than we expected.

Since our last prayer letter, we have had a few more bouts with the Giardia. For the last month we have been taking a pill against parasites. We just went off of it on Sunday and are praying that we have finally seen the last of it. Please pray for us. We are still not sure that we are through with this problem.