Bath Maine Foursquare Church

Downtown Bath Maine

On Sunday December 7 we were in Bath Maine speaking at the Bath Foursquare Gospel church pastored by Charles and Avis Nace. We drove from Nashua to Bath early in the morning. There was a lot of ice and snow on the road and we saw over 30 cars off the road during our trip! We had a great visit with this small but friendly church. Bath Foursquare has been one of our faithful supporters since 2004.

CrossPoint Foursquare Church - Hooksett, New Hampshire

Today Karen and I visited and preached at CrossPoint Foursquare Church in Hooksett New Hampshire. This young church is pastored by Peter and Debra Shepherd (a great name for pastors). We love this small but growing and friendly congregation. They have a great desire to reach their community and the world with the good news of the Gospel.

This church was planted a little over one year ago and is now meeting in a local CineMagic theater. CrossPoint is a daughter church of Grace Capital Church, in Concord New Hampshire. CrossPoint is one of a group of churches which regularly supports our work in Russia.

We had a wonderful morning of seeing old friends and making some new friends as well.

Skowhegan Maine

We spent our weekend in beautiful Skowhegan Maine, a town of about 9000 people situated on the Kennebec river in central Maine.

Karen in front of the Church

We were the guests of the Central Maine Christian Center pastored by Jeff and Laura Gurney. This church is always fun to visit. They are also very special to us as they were the first church to invite us to speak as intinerating missionaries, and the first to commit monthly support to our work.

Karen Speaking in the Service

Children in Church

Counting the Cost

Karen and our youngest grandchild

Kenzie Mariah McDonald

Karen and I love being missionaries!

We love Russia. We love the Russian people and we feel very much at home in Russia. We miss our friends and our apartment and our daily life in Russia whenever we are in the U.S.

With that said there are some costs to being a missionary:

• Cultural Stress
• Loneliness at times
• Feeling different almost all the time
• Being misunderstood in a foreign culture
• Being misunderstood at times by those who support you and send you
• Felling inadequate for the task

For us, however, it is a big thing to leave our families behind. We see our children and grandchildren at best once a year. I have family in Indiana that I haven't seen in four years. We have one grandson that we have not seen in two years.

We are not complaining. We would not trade our work for anything. We don't want to be living in America at this point in our lives. We have counted the cost and we think IT IS WORTH THE PRICE!

The Bible says in Luke 18:29-30

So He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life."

We see people come to Christ nearly every week. We see lives changed by the power of the Gospel. We see people who make good decisions when we give them counsel. We are enjoying being spiritual parents to so many young, new believers.

We believe that the best thing we can do for our children and grandchildren is to wholeheartedly serve the Lord in the ministry that He has called us to. We are leaving them a rich spiritual heritage by our obedience to the call of God on our lives. The price is small compared to the rewards we reap now and we will continue to reap for generations and into eternity.

We want to say thank you to all of you who pray for us and support us as we live and minister in Russia. we couldn't do it without you.

Visit to Charlestown New Hampshire Foursquare Church

Karen and I drove to Charlestown, New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon to be the guests of Life Fellowship, the Foursquare Church of Charlestown. . We love driving through the northern New England countryside. On Saturday evening we had dinner with several couples from the church, including Mike and Carol Gibson who lead the Missions ministry of the church. We then spent the night at the "Dutch Treat" bed and breakfast.

On Sunday we spoke at both the 8:30 and 10:30 morning services of Life Fellowship. We love visiting this congregation. They are a fun, friendly church and they have a great vision for reaching their community and for being involved in world missions. Pastors Dave and Cindy Grasso have a great team of people and the church has experienced significant growth in the last several years.

After the morning services we had lunch and a question and answer time with the missions fellowship of the church. Later we dropped by the home of our new friends Moe and Faya. Faya was a Russian immigrant who has lived in America for 8 years and has her American citizenship now. They were wonderful hosts and Faya treated us to a wonderful snack of Blini (Russian pancakes). As the sun began to set we got into our car and began the two hour drive back to Massachusetts. All in all in was a great weekend. Next weekend we will be in Skowhegan, Maine.