December 12, 2008

December 2008

Dear Friends!

Thanks to all of you for your continued prayers, friendship and financial giving to our ministry!

“For God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them” (Hebrews 6:10)

Christmas is near and we are determined to make the most of the wonderful opportunities it provides to preach the Gospel!

Besides the preparations for our annual Christmas Feed-in, the students of the School of Ministry are finding needy families outside the church to help in practical ways, thus sharing the love of God, and using these opportunities to explain the real meaning of Christmas. We are going to student's dorms, to the trains, sharing personal testimonies, praying for healing and giving out Gospel literature. We are also going to the streets where there are drug addicts/prostitutes, offering them hot tea, sandwiches and giving small Christmas presents that our students made for them as well as sharing information about drug rehab centers. Please pray for divine appointments, for God to send the hungry and receptive people our way and for fruitful winter evangelism for us.

Christmas Feed-In

Our thirteenth annual Christmas feed-in is quickly approaching and we still desperately need funding for it. This is the time of year that we celebrate Christmas by inviting the poor, the halt and the lame, as well as delivered, saved, set free former heroin addicts and prostitutes to come together to worship Christ, pray for the coming year's harvest of souls, thank God for His goodness and have a wonderful Christmas meal and fellowship.

So far we have 450 confirmed that are attending, our largest number ever. However, we are still in need of $5,200.00 for food and renting of a hall. Please help in any way you can with this, as this is our most important and fruitful event every year. If there is anyone who could help with the entire $5,200.00 it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Healing Testimony

A School of Ministry graduate and one of the key children’s ministers in church, Sveta Moroz shares a story of God’s intervention at her workplace – she is a nurse in the children’s intensive care unit:

“During my shift a 6 month old girl was rushed in. She and her 3-year-old brother who were playing without supervision, pulled the TV cord and the large TV set fell and smashed her skull. Her skull was broken and her brain damaged. Half a year ago here in the hospital where I work, a child died with a similar injury in our intensive care unit despite of all our efforts. When I saw this new situation, I realized that unless God intervenes here and now, we would lose this girl too. As I did my work as a nurse, I also began praying against death. As soon as I had a spare moment, I sent cell phone messages to many of our church members to join me in this prayer. We called the surgeon. He got up in the middle of the night, left his family and came in for an urgent operation. At first, I could not see much hope because the baby lost a lot of blood and was obviously partially paralyzed as a result of the injury plus anesthesia. However, to my great joy, in two days I discovered that her blood balance was back to normal and she began moving all of her little body. The process of recovery went smooth, and in one week, she was transferred out of the intensive care unit. Such an outcome was a big surprise for all my colleagues because usually children so little do not survive such injuries, and even if somehow they do, they have permanent damage and stay at least a month minimum in the intensive care. God’s wonderful intervention was undeniable! And we praised Him for His mercy!”

Evangelism

Arkady Ledkov and Gosha Korovushkin head up evangelism in our church. They target the student dorms and continued with that effort all last year but saw very little response among the students. However, we did not give up and continued to intercede, to visit our contacts from time to time, and kept making new contacts and believing for a breakthrough. Recently we were glad to see two girls from this dorm in our church! Katya and Katya visited several times. Fellowshipping with one Katya after service, Gosha discovered that the Holy Spirit was touching her. She took close to her heart the message of salvation and repentance and returning to the dorm in the evening kneeled at her bed and accepted Jesus. Some of her friends followed suit. Now they have many questions about the Bible, they are reading on a regular basis and invited Gosha and Arkady and the School of Ministry students to come to their dorm weekly and conduct worship, prayer and Bible studies. Please pray with us for this new home group and for more students to be saved and added to the church (in the pictures you see the students in the dorms reading with interest our evangelism magazine, "One Way Out".)

We are continuing to feature a different student each month in our “Student Spotlight.”

Student Spotlight: Kirill Borodichuk

Kirill is currently in his second year at the School of Ministry. He is one of our office staff, majoring in graphic design, also actively contributing to our worship team, prophetic ministry, evangelism efforts and is a great blessing as an intercessor. Here is his story:

“Love… love… love… What is love?

I was only 12 years old but in spite of such young age I had a lot of reasons to think about the meaning of the word “LOVE”
I was born and brought up in Chelyabinsk – city of metallurgists in the Ural Mountains. People in our city were generally very tough. Most of them worked in steel production – under dangerous working conditions but with meager paychecks, including my Mom who made the equivalent of $73.00 a month there. As for my Dad, I could figure out only one thing about him: I did not have a Dad.

So either due to a lack of love, care and supervision, or maybe because luxuries like candies, chocolates or chewing gum were unaffordable in my family, I started stealing beginning in kindergarten. In school, I regularly stole my classmate’s and teacher’s money and several times was taken to the police station. I smoked my first cigarette at the age of 6. I started drinking beer at 7 and at 9 I tried vodka for the 1st time. My Mom and I lived in a communal flat (a 4 bedroom apartment where each room was occupied by a whole family, with one kitchen and bathroom/shower for all 4 families to share) so I had no lack of people who were more than willing to keep company with me, drinking, smoking, etc… Then came sex, which I started having at 12 with a girl who was 18.

At first I thought: this is it! LOVE! Somebody loves you and you love this person. Only until the first betrayal that made me feel like a toy in other people’s hands, you know this feeling of being used and thrown away. I continued having sex with other girls, then with guys, too. I tried to escape reality in order to just somehow get on with life.

One day I visited an acquaintance of mine and invited him to go with me to the lake. He agreed but mentioned that he would come with friends. I was surprised because previously he did not have friends to the best of my knowledge. I stepped into his room and found ten young people sitting around the table having tea. They greeted me joyfully which made we want to run away, because I hated gatherings of unknown people. But they did not let me run away, instead they hugged me and offered tea, sandwiches, cookies and began asking questions about my life… the evening was filled with joy; it was very interesting to fellowship with these people. I was amazed - how could people be so genuinely happy without alcohol?! Explaining their secret, they told me that they were Christians and invited me to come to their church.

I accepted this invitation first thing during that week. In church, there were more than 600 people. Some came on stage and began playing instruments and singing. I did not understand much of what was going on but the music overwhelmed me. Then a man spoke from stage for a while. I remember his last words: “God can forgive you. He can change your life and give you LOVE!” “He can give me LOVE?” – I thought to myself – “I want it!” I went forward as this man lead us in prayer. Thus, I repented of my sins.

From that day on my life turned upside down. Or would it be better to say it turned right side up? I felt clean and did not want anything to ruin this inside of me. I found myself hating cigarettes and vodka, curse words disappeared from my mouth, without regrets, I broke up all the relationships that before I considered love. Compared to what God was pouring out on me, I realized that it was all garbage!

But Jesus gave me LOVE. His LOVE – PURE AND PERFECT. I realized that no man can give so much LOVE and my newly found FATHER – GOD! He proved His love by actions: He gave His only Son Jesus on the cross for my sins! Now Jesus is my best Friend and I can’t help but tell everybody around me about Him and share His wonderful gift of LOVE!”


Prayer Points for December:
  • Please pray for finances for the Christmas Feed-in
  • For fruitful evangelism during the Christmas season - we want to make the most of all the opportunities to touch as many lives as possible with the Gospel
  • For the new home group to develop in the student dorm
  • Spiritual growth of the girls currently in rehab and the Lord’s grace and anointing for the staff to effectively minister to them and to further develop our rehabilitation program
  • Please pray for righteousness, peace, and joy for everyone in our church; physical and spiritual protection for the entire ministry
  • Unity, love and wisdom for the leadership team
  • For direction, anointing and grace in the pioneering work in the neighboring nation of Estonia
  • For the breakthrough with an abundant supply of finances for the advancement of the Kingdom of God

Thank you again so very much for your prayers and continued support of our work here! If you are not doing so already we would like to ask you to prayerfully consider helping us on a regular basis for the year 2009. Your help is urgently needed.

God bless and keep you all,

Your StreetCry family