Pre-Christmas Update

Wow, it's Sunday night December 23 and it is only only 3 degrees F here tonight!

We have finally turned the corner on long winter nights. Today the sun came up at 8:30 AM and it was dark by 3:45 PM. From here on out we gain about 6 minutes of daylight every day. Only 3 more months to spring!

Speaking of spring, Cornerstone Church will begin a building project at the village land they purchased in the fall. The plan is to build a two story wood home to house a larger rehab center and then later possibly build a brick home. The church has decided to take a monthly building fund offering to help with the costs. If you would be interested in investing financially in this vital work which disciples new believers please let us know via email at Missionarycouple@Comcast.net

Today we saw 5 people pray to receive Christ at church, and we also saw one of the guys graduate from the first three months of rehab. The church is continuing to grow with new conversions every week. Attendance is over 125 each week now which is almost 3 times what attendance was last year at this time. This Sunday Pastor Dmitry announced that we will be going to two services after the New Years holidays. Tomorrow Karen and I will meet with Dmitry to just share a meal and talk about ministry plans for next year.

This new growth is being contested by the enemy. this week we found out that one of the rehab leaders, a good friend of ours and a great guy, had slipped back into drug use. If you think of it pray for this (unnamed) brother. Pray that he will repent quickly and be restored back into relationship with the Lord and the church.

Leadership Retreat

It's Monday evening December 17, and we are packed for an overnight retreat for leaders of Cornerstone Church. As we teach at the rehab center and are part of the church leadership we were invited.

We are looking forward to the fun and the relationship building. As we will be without a translator it will also help to stretch our language skills. Every time we go away our language teacher tells us that our language has improved.

We will probably have some fun, go the banya and while together talk about plans for next year. The church is growing rapidly. Since February it has grown from 50+ people to 125+ people on Sunday. Most of the growth is through conversion and discipleship.

Hopefully we will get a few good photographs and post them here later this week.

Mike and Karen

Trip to Siberia

On Tuesday evening the 4th we returned from a 10 day trip to Siberia. We were in the city of Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia and one of the 5 largest cities in Russia.

Our purpose in Siberia was to attend the regional leaders’ conference of the Association of Cornerstone Churches of Russia. The attendance at the conference was strong, at nearly 1000 people. As with most of Cornerstones’ conferences at least half of the attendees are former drug addicts, convicts and homeless people who have had their lives transformed by the good news of the Gospel.

We made the trip to Novosibirsk by train, with our friend and pastor, Dmitry Zaborski. The trip took over 44 hours, which is a long time to ride the train. We enjoyed our time, however, as Karen and I were together and we were with a good friend.

Here is Karen on the train playing a hand held game

Upon arriving in Novosibirsk we were given a one room apartment to stay in and then the next morning we where whisked off to a large boarding house on the edge of town for a pre-conference day with senior pastors and leaders. The day was spent just having fun, talking, worshiping and praying together, and eating. We arrived back at our apartment after midnight.

Young Russian Pastors

This is what young Russian pastors and old missionaries
do for relaxation

The next three days were spent in conference meetings. At each session there was wonderful praise and worship, with a world class worship leader and band. The main speaker for the conference was actually a pastor/missionary from Norway who spoke in English so we had the privilege of hearing preaching in English, a rare treat for us. The teaching and preaching was excellent and directed toward those in leadership in local churches and drug rehab centers.

Another feature of the conference was a Missions video showing a recent exploratory trip to China by leaders of the Cornerstone Movement. They are moving slowly but deliberately toward becoming a missionary sending church. They have plans to have missionaries planting the first trans-national church in China within two years. This is an amazing feat for a movement less than 8 years old! They are outward focused and determined to reach not only Russia, but other countries with the Gospel.

At the Conference

Worship Dance

Eating dinner with our friends

These chickens and a turkey were actually in the restaurant to give it a village ambiance. Where's the board of health?!!

Our return trip to Nizhny Novgorod was enjoyable as we were in the company of ten of our friends who had attended the conference. The long trip was made pleasurable with good conversation, lots of laughter, playing chess and eating meals together during the 44 hour return trip.

View from the train

While in Novosibirsk we received several invitations to visit other cities to teach new believers and input into the lives of local leaders. Because most of the pastors and leaders are still in their 20s, we are looked upon as spiritual parents by many of them. It is humbling and fulfilling to be able to speak into the lives of these dedicated young men and women. Whether they realize it or not they teach us much more than we teach them.

Karen Goes To The Banya

Wow! Are we ever glad to have a Russian made jeep! Recently we were asked to help transport 2 new drug rehabilitants to a center located 70 kilometers from the city. It was an adventure we will not soon forget.

Once we had crossed the Volga and passed beyond the city limits of Bor we drove for what seemed forever in uninhabited country. It had gotten dark out and as I (Karen) was cruising along through the falling snow and pine forest at about 50 MPH, suddenly, one of the guys in the back seat leans forward and barks, “Karen, stop! Stop!” We’d been traveling endlessly with almost no other signs of habitation and I couldn’t understand why I was to suddenly stop, but I did. Thank goodness. The paved road came to an abrupt end. How Ivan could tell we had reached that point in the trip I have no idea because as far as I could see there were no landmarks. Where the road ended, a 2 rut track into the forest began.

We bounced along for about 4 kilometers and there before us was a ravine, un-crossable except for some rickety wooden boards lying across a one lane bridge made of rotting logs with nothing on either side to keep our wheels from slipping off. We could only see the shaky boards in front of us and the darkness dropping off on either side of our car.

“Go, go forward!” Ivan told us. With my heart in my mouth, unable to even breathe, I let out the clutch and slowly rolled out onto this contraption totally convinced that we were going to die that night. Wonder of wonders, we made it across and yet all I could think about was that we were going to have to come back the same way.

Continuing along the dirt track we finally came to the rehabilitation center, a log home in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The only modern amenity in this place was electricity. They heated with wood, cooked with bottled propane and used an out house with no seat, just a hole in the floor, for the bathroom. Bathing was accomplished in - the BANYA!

When we arrived a big pot of soup was cooking so that we could all eat together and have some fellowship time. After supper we chatted and sang a few songs and then it was time for the Sunday evening banya, the traditional Russian steam bath. The girls asked me please to join them. There are times in the life of a missionary that you just can’t say no, however much your insides are screaming in rebellion. Though Michael has gone numerous times, I have never gone to a banya. All of my natural reserve, shyness, insecurity, call it what you want, made me go weak in the knees as I smiled and said, “thank you, I will.”

The girls got a towel and a robe for me and we changed into this before we went to the banya which is in a separate log hut, away from the house. It was about 30˚ outside with a dusting of snow on the ground and I was dressed only in a short sleeved, cotton summer bathrobe and rubber flip flops. We walked in the darkness for what seemed like a ¼ of a mile. I was shaking so hard from the cold I thought my bones would break out through my skin. We stepped through the door of the banya quickly so as to not let the heat out. Inside it was deliciously warm and moist and inviting, but I found out this was just the relaxing/cooling room.

The girls quickly shed what few garments they were wearing and I knew that I had to do the same. This was not a self confidence booster as I was with 2 buff, perky, 20’s something young women and ‘here comes the old granny.’

Off to the right was a half height door that we had to bend and go through in order to get into the steam room. Inside, the heat was intense and as I looked around this rough wooden room, lit by one dim bare bulb one of the girls threw a ladle full of water onto the rocks in an iron wood stove which was blazing away. The steam and atmosphere hit me like a physical assault. My lungs felt like they were seizing and I instantly started to sweat like I have never sweated in my whole life. Hot flashes are nothing compared to what I was experiencing. To make the experience more surreal, one of the girls started smacking herself with wet birch branches while the other girl started smacking me. This is to increase the health and longevity they explained and I wanted to ask them how this coincided with the fact that the average life span in Russia was under 60 years. But I didn’t.

We steamed and beat ourselves for about 10 minutes, threw ice water all over our bodies as I screamed in shock and then we went back out to the outer room to “cool off.” This process is repeated several times. At some point, someone from the house brought tea and left it in the outer room for us to enjoy during one of our cool-offs.

The girls were wishing that there was enough snow on the ground to go out and roll in, but I was gratefully and silently thanking God for the dry crusty grass that was everywhere. The last time through this process is when they actually use soap and shampoo and rinse off with buckets of warm water which just drains down through the floor boards. Then with a wet head and wrapped only in the cotton summer robe and flip flops we trooped back to the house to get fully dressed. After the extreme heat of the banya, the walk back felt delightfully cool and invigorating like a freshening breeze on a hot summer day. Before beginning the long drive home we drank more tea and sang a few more worship songs together.

Something tells me that before this winter is over, I may yet get my chance to “roll in the snow.”

Our New BAZ 21310 NIVA

Well we finally have it, our new car!

Here we are at the dealership after we had just put the license plate on the car.

Earlier this week we made a visit to a local dealer and found the car which we wanted to buy. It had the 1.8 liter motor we wanted and was in metallic blue, one of our preferred colors. We made a down payment that day and then began the process of official paperwork and financial transactions that we had to complete before we could take possession of the car.

On Saturday the 20^th, we got up early to complete everything that we needed to do, including exchanging U.S. dollars for Russian rubles, and then we went to the dealership, made the payment in cash and signed all the registration and insurance papers. All this took about 3 hours, but when it was done we drove away in our new car!

We really like the car, but it is definitely a Russian made vehicle. It is light weight and much of the interior is plastic. There is no power steering, which takes some serious adjustment, and it is much noisier than a Western or Japanese car. Being Russian made, it will be easier and less expensive to repair and to insure. All in all we are thrilled to have our own vehicle.

We want to send a great big THANK YOU to everyone who gave and prayed for this vehicle. Another big THANK YOU goes to our friend, teacher and helper Sveta Kuzmentseva and her husband Sergei. Without their help we could not have done all the things needed to purchase this car.