Dear Friends!
Thank you so much for continuing to stand with us in prayer, friendship and financial giving. We are a big blessing and we are grateful to the Lord for each of you.
We are starting a new school year and have nine new first year students here at our school of ministry in St Petersburg.
We had a wedding in St Petersburg of two of our gifted musicians this past month.
Sergei and Christina Tovstopiat, leaders of our drug rehab program in Russia had twin baby girls in September.
Two more young men were sent from Tallinn to Finland for drug rehabilitation.
Lots of exciting things are happening in women’s prison in Estonia. The prison chaplain told us that more than half of the inmates are now attending services. This has never happened in the history of the prison. The chaplain went on vacation and asked us to take her counseling work while gone. More women are repenting and getting filled with the Holy Spirit each week. We are prayer targeting the “toughest” women in regular prayer. Two are already saved. We are happy for progress, but we want to see all of them loving Jesus fervently.
Olga Riyazhkih one of our evangelists, ministered in Sweden this past month at prisons, in churches and on the street, taking some of the local Swedish brethren out with her to confront the enemy head on. There were salvations and deliverance. One of the Swedes said about Olga, “most people go on vacation to relax. Olga saves her money all year so she can go somewhere and preach the gospel”.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our 14th annual Christmas Feed-In is coming up in St Petersburg, and we are having one in Tallinn. Our worship team from St Petersburg will be joining us in Tallinn for this. We need $5,000 for each of these two events. Please help us if you can. These events are very important, bringing unity, hope, faith and encouragement to hundreds each year who have turned from lives of drug addiction to serving Jesus. Besides our monthly worship and intercession nights for the churches of St Petersburg, the Feed-In is a landmark event with tremendous fruit each year with the 15 Christian centers that participate. If you could also spread our need to as many as possible, it would be a wonderful blessing!
Below are more details of the exciting things that Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit are doing among us here in Russia, Sweden and Estonia:
NEWS FROM ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
These past four months we have been witnessing on the street with our evangelism team and band, working also with teams from four other churches. We witnessed not only many salvations but also the strengthening of unity of believers in our city!
Thank you so much for continuing to stand with us in prayer, friendship and financial giving. We are a big blessing and we are grateful to the Lord for each of you.
We are starting a new school year and have nine new first year students here at our school of ministry in St Petersburg.
We had a wedding in St Petersburg of two of our gifted musicians this past month.
Sergei and Christina Tovstopiat, leaders of our drug rehab program in Russia had twin baby girls in September.
Two more young men were sent from Tallinn to Finland for drug rehabilitation.
Lots of exciting things are happening in women’s prison in Estonia. The prison chaplain told us that more than half of the inmates are now attending services. This has never happened in the history of the prison. The chaplain went on vacation and asked us to take her counseling work while gone. More women are repenting and getting filled with the Holy Spirit each week. We are prayer targeting the “toughest” women in regular prayer. Two are already saved. We are happy for progress, but we want to see all of them loving Jesus fervently.
Olga Riyazhkih one of our evangelists, ministered in Sweden this past month at prisons, in churches and on the street, taking some of the local Swedish brethren out with her to confront the enemy head on. There were salvations and deliverance. One of the Swedes said about Olga, “most people go on vacation to relax. Olga saves her money all year so she can go somewhere and preach the gospel”.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Our 14th annual Christmas Feed-In is coming up in St Petersburg, and we are having one in Tallinn. Our worship team from St Petersburg will be joining us in Tallinn for this. We need $5,000 for each of these two events. Please help us if you can. These events are very important, bringing unity, hope, faith and encouragement to hundreds each year who have turned from lives of drug addiction to serving Jesus. Besides our monthly worship and intercession nights for the churches of St Petersburg, the Feed-In is a landmark event with tremendous fruit each year with the 15 Christian centers that participate. If you could also spread our need to as many as possible, it would be a wonderful blessing!
Below are more details of the exciting things that Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit are doing among us here in Russia, Sweden and Estonia:
NEWS FROM ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
These past four months we have been witnessing on the street with our evangelism team and band, working also with teams from four other churches. We witnessed not only many salvations but also the strengthening of unity of believers in our city!
More than twenty united street evangelism concerts, indoor and outdoor drama performances, and evangelism coffeehouse events were conducted, and as a result hundreds of people heard the Gospel and many of them were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit and added to the different churches in St. Petersburg and in other cities of Russia.
A couple weeks ago the school year began in our School of Ministry (you can see our 1st year class in the photo on the left). This year we have nine new students from six different cities, from various churches and ministries. Two came from Christian drug rehab centers in order to equip them for ministry. They previously finished at least 12 months of rehabilitation from heroin addiction and showed a great desire to dedicate the rest of their lives to serving the Lord and helping others. Four others came from different cities because they are interested to learn more about effective evangelism, worship and prophetic ministry. We are anticipating a good year of hungering after God’s presence and His power to transform hearts and lives, releasing the gifts of the Holy Spirit and giving us many chances to be a blessing and make a difference in the suffering world around us by immediately putting in practice what we learn in class.Sergei and Kristina Tovstopiat who for the past several years have been leading our drug rehab program are happy to announce the birth of their two daughters Dasha and Ksyusha. Born on September, 18 – two months premature. Mom and daughters are doing great! They were in different hospitals after birth due to Christina’s ongoing illness. Now she is reunited with the daughters and helps the doctors to take care of them, but they are sill in the hospital due to their premature birth. It really is a huge miracle for Sergei and Christina who both have long-term illness to give birth to healthy twins and we are praising the Lord together for giving life!
We also celebrated a wedding in our church! Roma Kurshonkov - evangelist and drummer in our worship team (click to see his testimonies in the May and June 2009 issues of our news) and Irina Smirnova, musician, journalist for TBN and a volunteer children’s worker in a hospital for kids dying of cancer (click to see her testimony in June 2007 issue of our newsletter) were married! Two are better than one and we expect God to do ten times more through their union than what He was able to do through them separately!NEWS FROM SWEDEN
Olga Ryazhskih, our School of Ministry graduate and one of the leading evangelists and healing ministers in St. Petersburg decided to dedicate her summer holidays to visiting and helping Anna and Victor Avdyakovy in Sweden and John and Sara Russell in Estonia.
She loves to witness when she travels and God is faithful in giving her such opportunities. So on the way to Sweden by ferry, her one night Finnish roommate Sabina commended Olga’s good English and asked where she learned. Olga gave God the glory, sharing her life story of little education, in and out of prison numerous times, heroin addiction and new life in Christ and gift to learn languages. She continued to share the gospel, His power to deliver and transform life through the blood of Jesus, which really touched Sabina.
In Sweden Olga had many chances to share her testimony in church services and home group meetings (photo on the left), actively participated in downtown night witnessing to the subculture youth a local ministry.Two times, she ministered in men’s prisons. Both times young men came up to her after hearing her testimony wanting to repent of their sins and give their lives to Jesus. One was a man from the Czech Republic and the other a Russian who immigrated to Sweden many years ago but never really assimilated into society there, but was consumed with the drugs and crime scene.
She also went to a government run social care center for alcoholics and drug addicts and received permission to speak to the needy there. One woman in particular drew Olga’s attention. They started to talk and it came out that she was a fallen Christian and it was her birthday. She viewed Olga and her message as a sign from God of His unfailing love and rededicated her life to Jesus in prayer of repentance (photo on the right).NEWS FROM TALLINN, ESTONIA
We continue to go to the methadone center 3 times a week offering drug addicts a cup of coffee and sharing with them the Good News of salvation and deliverance though Jesus.
Several weeks ago, we met a young man named Dima (photo on the left). He was fresh out of prison and already back on drugs. He overdosed 10 times in September. One time an ambulance took him in order to save his life but as soon as he regained consciousness, he ran away. He applied for methadone because had no strength to continue in the lifestyle of stealing and heroin use.Initially he heard Gosha’s testimony but told us that he did not need Jesus. However, when a situation with him losing his passport hit him and Gosha offered prayer he agreed. As a result, Dima’s passport was found and he experienced the reality of God answering prayers. He then made the decision to go to a rehabilitation center.
We helped him to get to the Betel center in Finland. The Spirit of God touched him in such a powerful way in one of the first services that he wept, repented, and gave his heart to Jesus. Now he is continuing his rehabilitation process with three other young men that we sent to Betel Finland from Estonia over the past few months.
On the day Dima was leaving for rehab, he met an old friend Alexei (photo on the right). Alexei had attempted to go through a rehab program in one of the Estonian centers but failed. His father died leaving him an inheritance and he decided to leave the center prematurely in order to put his life together himself the way he wanted to rather than trusting God. That quickly led back to drugs. However, when Dima told Alexei that he is going to rehab in Finland, hope was ignited in Alexei’s heart that he might try again. So he called us expressing the desire to go to rehabilitation and we helped him to get to Betel Finland, too. Praise God!We also had a fantastic visit from Victor and Anna from Sweden, along with five other members of their church. Together we went out on the street, and to the methadone center preaching and praying for the sick, and Anna was also able to minister with us at the women's prison. Thanks guys for the wonderful fellowship!
PRAYER POINTS FOR OCTOBER:
• For us to be able to find a new building for our church in St. Petersburg – the one we are currently in is now put for sale by the owners
• For finances for our two Christmas feed-ins in St Pete and Tallinn. We need $5000 for each of these
• For a building for rehab and a building for street ministry in Tallinn
• For monthly financial supply for the work in St Petersburg and Tallinn. We need more regular support. We actually went into the red briefly with our StreetCry account. 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. Thank you for your continued help!
• For the new believers who came to the Lord as a result of summer evangelism – to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ and personal relationship with God; to have grace and strength to overcome the fear of men and temptations that often attack them during the first steps they are taking on the path of following Jesus; for more hunger for the Word of God; for finding their place in the body of Christ
• For the students in our School of Ministry in St. Petersburg – for growing hunger for God’s constant presence and power to transform the hearts and lives; for releasing the gifts of the Spirit; for discovering the callings and destinies God has for them; for immediately putting in practice all we learn in classrooms and for open doors for them to minister
• 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 tobacco- drug- and other addictions, 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 physical and spiritual protection for our church and ministry, divine health and strength for all of us during the cold, wet and dark autumn and winter season, especially for protection from all kinds of flu
• Unity, love and wisdom for the leadership team
• For a breakthrough with an abundant supply of finances for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. We have debt, but are continuing to press on in spite of the difficulties. Please pray for a release of $37,500 to cover debt. Thanks so much!
Thank you again so very much for your prayers and continued support of our work! If you are not doing so already we would like to ask if you would prayerfully consider helping us on a regular basis. Your help is much needed and highly appreciated!
God bless and keep you all,
John and Sara Russell and your StreetCry family
