January 20, 2010

JANUARY, 2010

Dear Friends!

We are SO GRATEFUL to all who donated towards our Christmas Feed-ins in St. Petersburg and Tallinn!

In the midst of crisis, Jesus is glorified and His people are edified and strengthened! May God reward your faithfulness and sacrifices and bless you a hundredfold!

Our special thanks are to Victor and Anna Avdyakovy and Elim church in Sweden, the leader of the mission board Sven-Inge, for sending funding for gifts for the women in our prison ministry and gifts to many children we minister to including the ones from a couple of orphanages! You truly made the Christmas special for them and us!

And to Ruthe Brookshire for not only helping financially but also coming all the way from the USA personally to participate in the food preparations for our feed-ins in Tallinn and St. Petersburg, to teach, to encourage and strengthen us with the Word of God and prayer. Fellowship with you was so refreshing! Thank you for sharing with us the caring heart of Jesus and for giving us, the young people in Christ, a beautiful example of true servanthood!

We also want to thank Pete and Angie Field, the MacAnanny Foundation, Christ Fellowship of Indy, Times Square Church, Apple Valley Christian Center, Colleen Sherman and the many others who have helped financially with the feed-in and who have generously helped the ministry this past year! We appreciate you and thank God for you!

The Christmas and New Year season is traditionally one of the busiest times for us in evangelism. We invite people to our special services and other events as well as go to the streets, students’ dorms, public transportation and places of festive gatherings with Gospel literature; to fellowship with people about the true meaning of Christmas and to tell them who Jesus is and what did He come into this world for. As the Holy Spirit touches their hearts, we are continuing to see salvations, miraculous healings and deliverances...

Below are more details of the exciting things that God is doing in our midst in Estonia and Russia:

ESTONIA

The Christmas Feed-in truly was the main highlight of our holiday season in Tallinn, with God helping in every way! This winter the record amount of snow since 1881 covered the area and the roads were rather dangerous for travelers. As our worship team went from St. Petersburg to Tallinn, the two vehicles collided right in front of them turning upside down and leaving people badly injured. Our guys immediately called for the local analogue of 911 and got involved in administering first aid to the victims including lifting the cars and taking people from under them and away from the zone of danger. One woman was thrown out of her vehicle’s window by the impact so far that she basically got buried inside of a snow hill on the side of the road and needed to be dug out. When they found her she did not show any signs of being alive – no breathing, pulse or heartbeat, no reaction of her eyes to the light… The only thing our guys knew to do was to lay hands on her and pray. Suddenly she came back and by the time the ambulance arrived, she was already talking.

The Feed-in in Tallinn was the first event of this kind in the local Christian community and gathered representatives of most of the drug rehab centers in Estonia, one from Russia and one from Finland.

We also invited poor, needy, lonely, and hopeless people from the streets and drug addicts from the three local methadone centers so we could share the joy of Christmas in the warm family atmosphere which most of them could not experience otherwise. Altogether more than 270 people were present. It was a beautiful time of worship and fellowship, bringing unity to the different ministries in the area; time of giving hope to the needy who heard testimonies of lives transformed by the power of God. Twenty-one of them made a decision for Christ right there!

Others received information about where to come for help and rehabilitation if they would be willing to in the future.

Besides that, our ministry team had a chance to conduct the worship service in women’s prison (see the photo on the right). As a result, four women repented and opened their hearts to Jesus. The time of heart to heart fellowship with new believers followed, encouraging them to get closer to Jesus.

RUSSIA

Over the holidays, our coffeehouse in St. Petersburg hosted a series of evangelism theater events done in cooperation with several churches. The place was packed with people we invited from the streets, the students of the local universities, colleagues from different workplaces of our church members and School of Ministry students, and unsaved relatives visiting for Christmas. The Gospel touched many lives and during follow up, we were able to gain more access to different students’ dorms where friendship evangelism continues with a new strength now.

The Holy Spirit continues to move miraculously in healing. Here are some of the most recent testimonies:

Aelita Kurilina (1st year School of Ministry student):

“I came to the StreetCry School of Ministry from a conservative church where there was godliness but not much power in operation during services. So for me the whole concept of practicing divine healing was rather foreign to begin with. With time going by I classified it in my mind as possible for others but not applicable to me. Until one day, in a meeting there was a word of knowledge about me that no one could have known anything about. The fact is that all this time I suffered from a bad case of maxillary sinusitis and the treatment given and medicines prescribed by doctors did not make much difference. On the opposite, due to moving from the south of Russia to the northern cold and wet St. Petersburg my condition drastically worsened. I was rather shocked but desperate enough to come forward for prayer. Kirill Borodichuk laid hands on me, asking Jesus to heal me and within one week, I was completely healed with the symptoms never returning! Praise the Lord!”

Kirill Borodichuk (School of Ministry graduate):

“During one of our monthly worship and intercession nights I got a word of knowledge that there is a person in the audience who is losing hearing in one ear due to a disease but as I shared it nobody came forward. Nevertheless, I prayed that God would touch and heal that person. How great was my surprise when the next day I received a phone call in our church office from a girl saying that the day before it was her first visit to our church and that in their church nothing like that ever happens, so when I named her situation out loud she was amazed and completely dumbfounded. However, the next morning she woke up hearing perfectly with no earache whatsoever! Isn’t Jesus wonderful?!”

Liza Bachi (1st year School of Ministry student and medical doctor):

“One of my elderly relatives developed a tumor on her face. No treatment helped, finally it was diagnosed cancerous and the doctors performed an operation. Besides the pain she constantly lived in, the whole process really disfigured her face and brought her a lot of suffering. But to make things even worse she discovered that the operation did not help – after a while the tumor returned! Arkady Ledkov and I decided to agree in prayer for God to intervene, do a miracle and deliver her from this sickness. We prayed for a while on a regular basis. Slowly-slowly, the tumor was shrinking until finally it disappeared altogether. Besides that God started to restore her face to looking normal!”

WOW, what a God!!!

The Christmas Feed-in in St. Petersburg was held on January 8 (Russian Christmas is celebrated on January 7 and the holiday season goes all the way to January 14).

There were 12 Christian rehab centers represented. The leaders of the rehab centers came forward and led the time of prayer. Exuberant worship led by Bethesda band and our worship team took us to God’s throne together! It is so hard to adequately describe the atmosphere in the hall where more than 300 people are gathered who know only too well that if not for Jesus they would definitely lie in the cemetery today but they are alive, loved, warmed, fed, given future and hope, ministries, gifts of the Holy Spirit, families, children… What a shout of joy, a roar of praise, a burst of dance before the Lord! What a beautiful atmosphere of sincerity and freedom! Words of encouragement based on the Parable of the Prodigal son uplifted many and strengthened the newcomers to hold on to God and His grace, which is enough for every situation in life! Several people from different rehab centers shared powerful testimonies!

One story was especially remarkable as it showed the fruit of the unity created between the rehab ministries here by events like this. Olga shared on how she met the Lord:

“… I first heard the Gospel when I sat on a curb in front of Lomonosovskaya Metro station (notorious for drug dealers and glue sniffers hanging out there) doubled over and practically gone from alcohol and drugs I had consumed that day. A young man named Gosha (our School of Ministry graduate and now an evangelist and missionary) came up to me and gave me several Gospel tracts. He talked to me about Jesus, His love for me, and His desire to change my life if I would only let Him do it. Gosha shared his own story of drug addiction, crime and transformation he experienced by the hand of God. In response, I mumbled something like “a-ha… I will think about it tomorrow…” to which Gosha firmly retorted: “Tomorrow may not come”. And he was right. The very next day I was arrested and put to prison for drug related crimes. But the Gospel literature I received from Gosha stayed with me. With hunger, I read over and over again all the tracts, telling the stories of salvation of drug addicts and slowly faith was igniting in my heart. Then evangelists from the Source of Life (a rehab ministry represented in our feed-ins) came to our prison and from them I heard the Gospel again and started taking my first steps to Jesus. They followed up on me when I was released from prison and fell back into the old life. A year ago, they brought me to this Christmas celebration fresh from the street – a newcomer to the rehab center. It was then that I dedicated my heart to the Lord fully and today I cannot help but praise Him for how He changed my life!”

We all enjoyed wonderful food and fellowship.

It was a tremendous blessing for the people who work so much and hardly ever have a chance to relax, get together, sit and talk to each other!

We made new contacts, strengthened already existing relationships, truly enjoyed Jesus and each other, sharing hearts, exchanging testimonies and plans for the coming year!

The spirit of intercession released during worship stayed with many as they returned to their centers. One of the centers continued the celebration at home with the all night prayer and the pastor shared with us the next day that he was amazed – even previously the most shy prayed so fervently there was no stopping them!

We would also like to thank you for your prayers for us to be able to find a new building for the ministry in St. Petersburg, including an office and rooms for School of Ministry because the one we rented before was put up for sale. God answered our united prayers and gave us a new hall for the services! So in addition to all the above the holiday season has been the time of moving for us, the time of transitioning in many ways, many things are changing in our church here. Please join us in prayer that all the changes would work together for good and help us grow in every way and mature.

PRAYER POINTS FOR JANUARY:

• For physical and spiritual protection for our church and ministry, divine health and strength for all of us during the cold, wet and dark winter season, especially for protection from flu
• Unity, love and wisdom for the leadership team
• For the students in our School of Ministry in St. Petersburg as we resume our studies after the Christmas break – for growing in wisdom and maturity and also 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 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. 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 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, 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 have debt, but are continuing to press on in spite of the difficulties. Please pray for a release of $40,000 to cover debt and infuse the ministry. 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. We need your help to help others! All help is much needed and highly appreciated!


God bless and keep you all,
John and Sara Russell and your StreetCry family