As I write this there are bright flashes of light against a backdrop of dark black clouds in the sky. This is one of those infamous Moscow summer storms when it dumps buckets of water with lightening and a thunderstorm to entertain you. We will get a couple of days of warm sunshine (in the 80’s) followed by a couple of days of these storms. The weather changes quickly and we never are sure what to expect when we leave the apartment. We have leaved to follow the Boy Scout motto: BE PREPARED!
Visa Update
After making four visa trips out of the country this past year, we now have visas that will last us until next year. We appreciate your prayers concerning our visas. The amount of time and energy these trips require affects our family and our ministry. It seems each year there are new twists and turns in the visa laws and what is required of us. We are thankful to not have to plan a visa trip until next year. Now we can totally focus on the ministry God has given to us here in Moscow.
Family
--Michael and Timothy are having a good summer. They have been able to get rested up and are now looking forward (somewhat) to school. We have been able to spend time playing games, talking, visiting some of the sites in Moscow, and watching movies together. Thank you for praying for us this summer.
--Lisa had a great visit with Benjamin and her parents in July. Her schedule was packed with visits, shopping for school clothes, and getting into the eye doctor and dentist in her two weeks in the States.
--Pray for Benjamin. July found him needing to move out of the place where he was living and being let go from the landscaping job he was working due to the financial crisis. He is learning to trust in God through these times. God has provided another place for him to live and just today he was able to find another job where he can work until the start of college in September.
--Pray for Michael and Timothy as they leave August 23 for Black Forest Academy in Germany. Pray for a smooth transition to the dorms and school. Michael will be a junior and Timothy will be a freshmen. Pray especially for their health as the German community is concerned about the swine flu with students and staff traveling to the school from all over the world.
Tyumen
--Pray for Pastor Sasha and his family as they vacation with relatives in the southern part of Russia. They will return the end of August to Tyumen. Pray for their safety on the roads as they will be driving three days (without stopping) to get back to Tyumen.
--Pray for a women’s outreach that the church will be holding in September. A group from Smokey Point Community Church will be coming to help with this evangelistic event. The church is praying for 30 unbelievers to invite to attend this event.
Moscow
--The new Moscow church plant is under way. Jenya, the church planter, has been taking prayer walks on his neighborhood as well as gathering information about the Bytovo region. He has found that over 600,000 people live in the region (double the number we originally thought!). There is no evangelical church established here. Pray for an openness to the Gospel. One evening Jenya was sitting outside his apartment building while one of his daughters played on the swings. Another girl began to play with her while her grandmother watched her. Jenya invited the grandmother and granddaughter to his apartment. They accepted his invitation and for the next several hours Jenya was able to share with her from the Bible. The grandmother was very open and asked a lot of questions. Pray for Galina and for more divine encounters like this for our new church plant.
--Jenya’s wife, Delara, is still looking for a job. Pray that she would be able to find one near their apartment. She has applied at a Russian preschool. Pray for her interview on August 14th.
Thank you for regular prayer support and giving to the Great Commission Fund, which is what keeps us here and keeps the C&MA operating. If you’d like to support our ministry gifts can be sent through your local Alliance church or to the Christian & Missionary Alliance at: The C&MA, P.O. Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935. Or, you can give online by going to www.cmalliance.org and select “Support”.
To fund our specific ministries here in Moscow and Tobolsk you can write “Merrill Work Special” or “Tobolsk Rehab Center” on the memo line.
