Church Planting - Russia

During the conference mentioned in our last post we hosted a young couple Slava and Ksenya in our home. Slava was a 20 year old drug addict when he gave his life to Christ and entered a rehab center. After rehab he joined a missionary team and went to the city of Tomsk, in Siberia. The team began a church and several rehab centers and Slava served as an assistant pastor and rehab pastor for several years.

Slava met Ksenya at a conference after she graduated from a similar rehab program. Three years ago they married and they now have a young son.

Two and a half years ago they joined a missionary team of ten people who came to Nizhny Novgorod to start this Cornerstone church. Slava and Ksenya served here for 3 months while attending the first Cornerstone missionary training school. After school they took a team of five and moved to the city of Samara, about 500 miles south of Nizhny Novgorod. They have now been there nearly two years.

During these two years this young couple has started a church which has an average attendance of 80 people, a drug rehabilitation center and a social center for homeless men. In addition to this they have sent a team from this new church to begin another church. The new church was started in January and now has about 18 people attending. In September they will send a new team to missionary training school and that team will be sent to another city in January 2009 to begin a new church.

We are privileged to know these young pioneer church planters. They have invited us to visit their church to preach and teach. We plan to do so sometime this spring.