December 2010

Dear Friends,

Please forgive the delay in our newsletter! We love you all and thank God for your prayers and assistance! We have had a busy, fruitful and exciting two months since our last newsletter!

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

Our annual free Christmas feed-ins in Estonia and Russia are again scheduled for this year. We are expecting to feed 300 needy people in Tallinn and 250 in St. Petersburg. Besides these events, we will be having a Christmas celebration in Harku women’s prison for the entire prison population of 150. We will be bringing musicians and helpers from Russia for these events as well as working with the local Estonian church and musicians. We need to purchase food, rent equipment, rent a hall, pay for visas and transportation and purchase Christmas gifts for the women. We need $7,500.00 for all of these events and would appreciate your prayers and generous support for them. These events are always our favorites of the year, as we sense such a strong presence of God during worship, and see people commit their lives to Jesus and see new people getting free from their addictions. So far we have received one gift of $500.00 from Elim church in Sweden. Please do help if you are able!

NEWS FROM ESTONIA

We received visits from StreetCry church members in St. Petersburg who came for fellowship and to help us minister. Roman and Irina Kurshonkov (see picture on the right), a young married couple who were both saved from lives of misery, each had friends who died from the drug lifestyle they were involved in. Both are very gifted evangelists and musicians whose hearts are broken for the lost. They stayed in our home in Tallinn for a few days and ministered in the women’s prison with us. Roman lead worship, and Ira shared a message and her personal experience of coming to the Lord, then going away from Him because of the influence of her old friends, ending it with a story of how the Lord saw her in a different way then people, and spoke to her about committing her whole life to Him. A big part in her return to the Lord was played by her believing mother who stood in prayer for her soul. Some of the women in prison said that they were amazed that Ira, being so young, knew the Lord and the word of God so well and was preaching it.

We were also very blessed to have with us our dear friends and fellow graduates of StreetCry School of ministry from St. Petersburg Sergey and Zhenya Abezin (you can see their picture on the left). Being invited to preach in prison, Zhenya spoke about God’s ability to keep us away from sin when we don’t rely on ourselves but when we sustain close relationship with Him. The message was an encouragement for the inmates to continue their walk with the Lord. One of the new girls, Juliana, decided to give her life to Jesus and to forsake her old life, after the message.

After their visit to prison Sergey and Zhenya were very excited and amazed at the hunger of the girls that come to the meetings. They mentioned that it is very rare now in St. Petersburg to meet people who are so hungry to know more about the Lord.

On November 12th Zhenya gave birth to a baby girl, Lera. Zhenya had a safe delivery and she is now recuperating.

Recently we have sent another young man (Sasha) to Betel drug rehabilitation in Finland, where Marco and Vera Saba are leaders and caretakers of the boys. We met him while ministering to addicts at a methadone center. Sara shares about Sasha:

"As Natasha was looking out of the window at the center, she saw a young man coming towards the building. He had great difficulty walking and keeping himself stable, as he was partially paralyzed. Natasha’s heart was moved with compassion as she watched him struggle to walk. As he came in we asked his name and started talking to him about the Lord and His love for Him. Sasha showed no outward interest in hearing what we had to say. He came to the building with only one goal: to get drugs. We gave him some literature with personal testimonies of former drug addicts and prayed for him. He took the tracts just because he wanted to be polite to us. For some reason he was not able to get methadone that day. As he was leaving the building it started to rain hard. He asked us if we could call a taxi for him. We offered him a ride home instead. He looked surprised, but would not turn our offer down. On the way home we found out a little bit more about his life and told him about God’s power to save, heal and restore everything that the enemy has stolen from him.

It turned out that his older brother was also a drug addict and was the one who introduced Sasha to drugs. He was just EIGHT YEARS OLD when his brother shot heroin into his veins! He is now twenty seven. During those years of addiction Sasha and his brother injected bad drugs and it started the process of both of them becoming crippled. Sasha’s nervous system is now damaged; Sasha drags his feet as he walks, he slurs his words and one must listen carefully as he speaks very quietly and not too clearly. As Natasha and I took him home that day, something happened to us from meeting this young man. All the way back we interceded for his soul and his healing. We were a little bit sad that he was not interested in receiving the help he so desperately needed. From that day on he was on our hearts daily. We could just sense God’s strong fatherly love for him and his pain. Our hearts were broken for him and we prayed for him every day.

After a few days I received an SMS saying, “Sara, please help me. I cannot and do not want to live like this any more. We immediately called him back and said that we can come and see him. The next day we came to his house. He was having withdrawals, he was sweating and shaking. His mom made us some tea and we talked about God’s love and what Jesus has already done and can do in his life. He broke down crying several times during our conversation. He was very touched by the Lord, I think realizing that somebody can love him was too much for him. That night he received the Lord into his heart. Amazingly he had no trouble clearly speaking a prayer of repentance after me. He pronounced every word perfectly well. God’s presence and His grace were already there to help him. (of course, the Lord had ALWAYS been there, just waiting for Sasha).

We contacted our friends in Finland, in hopes of sending Sasha there. As we were waiting a couple of days for a response, Sasha’s mom told us that Sasha had overdosed on some pills the night before. When John, Sveta Moroz and I came to see him, he looked as if he was dying. Sveta who is a nurse, asked his mom to call the ambulance. He was taken to the hospital and later released. The next morning we received a phone call from Sasha’s mom saying that Sasha is ready to go to rehab center. We knew that he needs to go right away! We took him to the ferry to Finland, he was still going through withdrawals and didn’t feel well, but you could see that he was determined to try this new way of living. A week later we called the center to see how he is doing. We were told that he is very sensitive to the Lord; he plays soccer with other guys, and asks to put him on the schedule for washing dishes and clean up. Sasha has spent almost two months in rehab, but this week returned home. We are in daily contact with him and he is attending church with us. He has not returned to drugs, but we would appreciate your prayers for him (on the picture above Sasha is in the white sweater, free from his addiction).

TRIP TO SWEDEN

Sara and I had the blessing of travelling to Sweden for 5 days. We were hosted by Victor and Anna Avdiakov (former StreetCry pioneers in St. Pete) and their family. We were able to minister in their home church, Elim Church of Mantorp and had the blessing of fellowshipping with and breaking bread with a number of dear saints from their church. It is a very mission’s minded church that is involved with missions around the world. We were blessed by their gift of hospitality and their acts of love toward the body of Christ around the world. The Lord spoke to our hearts that He saw them as “persistent and consistent”, and that because of that they are reliable and dependable and that makes them trusted by others. They also generously passed on Christmas gifts for orphans and children of people in prison, and gave clothing and needed household items. We truly felt immersed in the Kingdom of God while with them.

FINLAND

Vera and Marko Saba got married on the 20th of October in Finland. It was an amazing, joyous time filled with excitement. Several brethren from Russia, Estonia and Sweden were able to attend. John conducted the ceremony.

Two days after the wedding Vera and Marko were on the way to Italy for their honeymoon. Vera shares their impressions about the trip.

What an encouragement and support and blessing and treasure you are for me (and for Marco)! We had an amazing honeymoon! To tell you the truth I felt and to a degree still really feel like I am in a dreamland: could all this actually be happening to ME?! (Ps 126:1 b) Since I can remember, I always wanted to be married and have a big family. Being born and having grown up in Togliatti, Russia (named after the head of the Italia Communist Party) I always wanted to visit Italy. So, lo and behold, here are both at once! Plus Riga! Plus Tallinn, which touched Marco very much. He keeps talking about the unique atmosphere of the Old Town and unforgettable lunch at the medieval restaurant and free spiced nuts at every corner.

In Italy, Marco’s family – his brothers and multiple in-laws, nieces, etc… were very happy to see us and stuffed us with tasty local cuisine. Besides us resting in the beauty of a resort area (Liguria), we spent a couple days in Betel-Genova where Marco first went for rehabilitation. What a joy our visit produced in the pastor and several leaders who 7 years ago helped him to take his first steps on the path of following Jesus. They haven’t seen Marco for many years since he went on serving the Lord as a missionary first to Betel-Madrid and recently to Betel-Finland and called the transformation God produced in him stunning.

Marco shared his testimony during the Sunday service in Betel - Genova to inspire about 30 men who are currently in the rehab program to get a hold of the grace God is abundantly pouring on us and to follow Jesus with all their lives. We also had quite a few very fruitful personal talks with different rehabilitants counseling, edifying and praying for them.

Our hosting family in Italy was Gianluigi and Camilla Magherini. Gianluigi is a very old acquaintance/friend of Marco. They knew each other when both were drug addicts – only then they did not fellowship much because they used different types of drugs which they bought from different dealers, yet they saw each other in places where the drug addicts hang out in the narrow streets of the center of Genova.

Soon after Gianluigi came to the saving knowledge of Christ he joined the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation in Genova – a small but very lively, open and hospitable bunch of brothers and sisters in Christ from more than 9 countries and 4 continents (Europe, Asia, Africa and South America). The church has an outreach in the historic center of Genova in a form of rescue coffee-shop named VeriAmici (RealFriends). So one day, newly saved Gianluigi met still drug addicted Marco who was living or I should better say dying in the streets after nearly 25 years of drug abuse – his family rejected him, he was weak and sick, in and out of prison many times, angry, bitter, trusting nobody, hopeless… It took months of patience on the part of Gianluigi and a couple other evangelists from the church – slowly, slowly talking about the love of God and what Jesus did on the cross over a cup of coffee and a hot meal and a chance to take a shower and get a place to spend the night melted the ice and Marco surrendered his heart and life to God and with the help of pastor Daniele Marzano applied for rehabilitation in Betel-Genova.

Pastor Daniele was moved to tears to see us. He said that with Marco it was his first meaningful conversation since many talks when Pastor Daniele tried to convey the Gospel to Marco, yet Marco was either incoherent (on drugs) or a hardheaded rejecter of the Word of God. He also mentioned that recently he was up against a lot of opposition in the area of evangelism and heard arguments like why should we waste time and money and efforts… the lost are not interested to hear the Gospel… there is no much fruit… But after seeing Marco he said – it was and is and WILL ALWAYS BE worth it even if only one person gets saved like this and follows Jesus, yet there are more than one! He asked us to speak in his church which we did with great joy sharing our testimonies and encouraging the people. Pastor Daniele said that our visit rekindled the fire for evangelism in the church and in him personally.

We thank God for the miracle of His provision! The church took a special offering for us that covered half of our hotel bill and the second half Gianluigi and Camilla paid as a wedding present from them to us! Isn’t God good? All the time! And He definitely does exceedingly abundantly above what we ask or think (Eph 3:20)!

Since returning to Finland, we have lived in the men’s rehab center. Marco and I have a room to ourselves that we did our best to equip to be livable for a married couple . We are looking for an apartment. Over this past week we had 2 new guys who have come to the center – both alcoholics. Andrey (30 years old) came from Tallinn to Helsinki to hang out, relax and drink with Finns… But as he arrived at the central train station where the most of it happening in Helsinki he bumped into 2 Russian speaking evangelists and ended up hanging out with them instead, they told him about Jesus and about Betel. He repented and surrendered his heart to the Lord, poured alcohol out of all the bottles he brought with him and broke all the cigarettes. Then he decided to go for the rehab in Betel (picture on the left). Nevertheless after a couple of days he left the center… BUT! Returning to Helsinki’s drinking spot turned out to be a disaster – he spent the night sleeping in the street where it is getting pretty cold these days and almost got arrested by the police, so he decided to return to the center. Plus this time in Helsinki he met an old acquaintance – Vlad (37 years old) who has been in Finland for the past 4 months – drinking non-stop all this time. Andrei told Vlad about Jesus and the center and Vlad decided to give it a try. He repented at the past Sunday service we had in the home here.

Though both new guys are very young in the Lord and still very unstable – going through withdrawals due to alcoholism, we believe God for their complete deliverance and intercede for transformation of their lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Please join us in prayer for Andrei and Vlad.


SVETA MOROZ IN MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

On October 12th Sveta left for Africa for (at least) a year. She is working with 400-500 orphans with IRIS Ministries as a medical nurse. Most of the kids have “incurable” diseases such as HIV, various neurological dysfunctions, cerebral spastic infantile paralysis, blindness, and others. But she knows and walks in the power of God, besides being a nurse.

One of her prayer requests before leaving was for the Lord to get her through customs since she was bringing a lot of medicine and medical supplies for the orphanage. When she got to the customs line a young man volunteered to help her with the suitcases and they went through quickly and easily. Later Sveta said that the Lord has sent an angel because it was a miracle that she got through without any problems.

Sveta is responsible for a number of children there, and is also learning Portuguese and adjusting to a different approach to practicing medicine.
She would really appreciate your prayers for her.

Prayer points for December

• For finances for the Chritmas feed-ins - $7000.00 is still needed.

• For physical and spiritual protection for our church and ministry, divine health and strength for all of us during the cold season ahead

• Unity, love and wisdom for those in our ministry

• For Vera Abezina’s paperwork (she is applying for residency in Finland) and provision of an apartment for Vera and Marko. (ANSWERED!! – they just got an apartmet!! Thank you Jesus!)

• For the new guys in rehab, Andrei and Vlad

• For strength, wisdom, obedience to the Lord

• For Sasha and his daily right decision making

• For Zhenya Kopushu and her work with abandoned children in Tsimbalina hospital, especially for complete healing and restoration of Masha Orehova

• For the work in Estonia – more souls saved, drug addicts delivered and placed in the rehab centers, and for establishing a greater, stronger presence there

• For prison outreach in Estonia, for more salvations, deliverance from drug and other addictions, freedom from peer pressure and fear of men, for physical and emotional healing, renewing of the minds of the inmates who just got born again, for their spiritual growth and developing steadfast personal relationship with Jesus

• For a breakthrough with an abundant supply of finances for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. We need more regular support. Every single person, church and ministry that gives to us helps our ministry to preach the Gospel. Every single donation is needed and received with much gratitude.


Here are some prayer requests from Sveta in Mozambique:

• For the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit, so I can be sensitive and obedient to Him, walking in the gifts that He has placed inside of me

• For grace, love, peace, and joy for me in all areas

• To be able to make friends and be in unity with other brothers and sisters who minister there

• For wisdom how to use my knowledge and experience in medical field in Africa

• For healing and cure of sick children, and keeping them healthy

• For improvement of my English and Portuguese

• For good communication with everyone at the miistry base, for it is very vital in any relationships, for love and understanding between us

• For financial support for me personally and for the ministry here

• For the Lord to supply our daily bread

• For my safety and safety of the ministry from influences of witchcraft

• For wisdom and love in training the kids

• For evangelism on the streets, for salvations, deliverances, and healings; for the demonstration of His power and Spirit

Thank you, and may God continue to bless and keep you! Have a blessed, wonderful and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

John and Sara Russell for StreetCry