Akhtubinsk seminars in pictures...

Equipping the saint in Akhtubinsk, Russia

Dear Friends and Partners,

I hope all is going well for all of you! This last month has been a full month for Olga, myself and our missions team. I am very excited to share it with you! Please read this letter and keep up with my blog because there will be more frequent updates now that I am back from our missions trip to Israel. When you read this, chances are I will have already left for St. Pete with my mom for a check up. This one is to check if there are cancer cells there in her esophagus. In July she will have to go through chemo therapy. I would ask that you keep the trip in your mind and prayers.

Each month Jesus gives us ministry opportunities to glorify God's Word. Using our time well, exercising the gifts the Holy Spirit has given to us, and making wise use of the finances God has entrusted to us are only few of the many ways in which we honor God. In Akhtubinsk we were able to glorify Jesus through the Productive Bible Study seminars. We encouraged participants there to make sure that they develop close relations with the Father. Sadly, it is reported that very few pastors and small Bible study leaders spend more than 30 minutes a week to study the Word. Today we see a lot of Russian ministers having hunger for the Word and wanting to spend more time in the Bible but having no clue where to start. We sent ICM-Russia crew to Akhtubinsk to meet the spiritual need and help the people there understand IBS principles and apply them in their daily walk with the Lord. Alex and Luba Alexandroff had to travel thousands of kilometers to give IBS course at no cost for the participants. Because you sent your love gift to us, we could help the saint grow in the Lord and become mature Christians. More than 50 lay ministers took the course and got the blessing! Please help us bring this life-changing course to each and every denomination and church in the former Soviet Union and to the ends of the Earth by giving to the ministry! Thank you so very much!

Nate finally moved to Cherepovets

My friend Nate who came to Russia to help Olga and I from the States finally moved to Cherepovets, and he is more excited now than ever. I have to tell you that first he had some mixed feelings about moving here. He was a little nervous that the people would be a little more unfriendly, but so far they are just the same, if not more friendly, as in St. Petersburg. It hasn’t been what he expected at all. Nate had a fear that he would not be able to socialize and that he wouldn’t understand a darn thing people around me were saying. However, after a couple days at the Light of Hope kid’s shelter and going to a home group Bible study, he is confident that not only can he socialize now, but he will soon be able to keep up with everyone around him. At church on Sunday he didn’t quite understand everything, but he was able to get the main idea and I would say he understood a great deal more than the last time he went to church in Cherepovets with me. At the moment I am helping Nate to get commercial visa. As the director of the center Olga is the one to go to Vologda and get an invitation for a visa. The plan is to get a commercial visa from the center, and I have a contact in the Migration department who will help Nate extend it if we need to and help him go through the residency process. I believe the Lord really has his hand at work in Nate’s life right now. Everything is way beyond my understanding or control, yet somehow it keeps working out. God has very interesting plans for Nate’s life. For that, we praise the Lord!

Mom's illness

For a couple of years I have been watching and helping my mom fight that terrible cancer... we have been praying a lot believing Jesus for healing... the way she handles the sickness encourages many people who had known her for some time, she has set an example to all of us in the family, and yes, the illness changes us... it requires us to confront our mortality, illness requires us to confront lack of control of our lives, it requires for us to change the conditions in which we live, illness brings forth other issues to the forefront, including relationships, finances, and hope. Our spirituality is fully awake when we fight the sickness. SPIRITUALITY is that part of people that seeks meanings, connection, and love. Spirituality is the part of a person that yearns for hope in the midst of despair, for forgiveness in the midst of anger and hurt, and for a sense of connection and love in the midst of isolation. It seeks to answer the question of who we really are...

Astrakhan Training in Pictures

Equipping Saints in Astrakhan...

Dear partners, friends, brothers and sisters in the Lord,

It seems as though I just wrote you a praise letter - how time flies!!! This month has gone fast probably because we had so much to do as we celebrated our Lord's Resurrection. Olga and I would like to thank you all for your love gift and prayers in the month of April! We appreciate you and all you are doing to help us fulfill the task that the Lord entrusted unto us. Your support this month enabled us to continue in the ministry! Thank you again for your obedience!

As you may remember Olga and I have a strong desire to train and equip saints all over Russia and to the ends of the Earth for the work of ministry! Because you believed in us, prayed and sent your support we were able to go and fulfill the vision! At the beginning of the month we sent missionaries to Astrakhan which is about 1000km away from Cherepovets. We were invited to share in worship and teaching the Inductive Bible Study seminar at Christ the Savior Church. It was great to see more than 60 church leaders coming to the services each and every day. They were truly hungry for the Word of God! Praise the Lord! Our hearts rejoice when we know that we walk in the will of the Father, doing the things of the Kingdom! More than sixty people from Christ the Savior Church attended our program and learned how to study and teach the Scriptures inductively: verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. The Lord ministered to our hearts in a very special way at the seminar. The prophetic Word sounded as we were digging deep into the Word of God! Many were convicted, restored, and renewed in the presence of God. His Word helped many continue running with the vision. Here’s some feedback we have got from the participants:

"I thank God for this well prepared seminar. As I was doing my assignments I realized that the Bible always explains and confirms itself. I was tremendously blessed to know how to study parables and understand the prophetic texts! Thank you for coming! Instead of just reading the Bible I learned how to sit down and meditate on the Word. It was so cool when I understood in my heart that the Lord had given me both the Spirit AND brains to hear the Word, meditate on it, and understand what He has to say to me; I was surprised to see so many details in the familiar texts I had not seen before. It was eye opening to me! Thanks a lot for your ministry, folks! You are a gift from God. On top of that you came to serve us and didn't charge us a dime! Thank you for the gift and come back soon!" - Olga Kravchuk

"I would like to thank you for your services! At the seminar I have learned how to study the Word and live it in a totally different manner! Now I understand what it means to be a Christian of the Kingdom. I had lots of question and at the seminar the Lord has been answering my questions. Thank you Lord! Today I strongly believe that if I study and live the Word on a daily basis I can overcome all the strongholds in my life. Hallelujah!" - Lena Shiryaeva

"I have been tremendously blessed by the seminar. Great to have you guys in our church! I have to say this, before I came to this seminar, I had been reading the Bible as an ordinary book, like I would read any book I buy from a book store. This course helped me realize that God has the Word for me! He has the plan for my life! Isn’t that awesome! I got the message, guys! I wish I could pass this program on to others in my home Bible study. Thank you all!” - Denis Frolov

"I am very grateful for the training! Your seminars helped me realize that I want to study the Word on a regular basis, and I want to study and teach it verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and book by book. I have learned to break the Word into smaller pieces and meditate on them using the context and understanding the spirit of the passage. Thanks a lot for coming to equip us with IBS tools! It was great! I know that the application column will help me change my life and my ministry. I am a children’s minister and I am going to pass the IBS principles on to the kids so that they might know how to study the Bible and apply it into their everyday life! This year we go thru the Old Testament with the older kids, I will be using all I learned at the seminar as I prepare my Bible lessons. Please pray for me as I give our children the tools that help them go thru their lives victoriously!" - Julia Kalinina

"We have been watching people at the seminar... it was awesome to see the joy of the Lord in this room... all of us are very blessed to be here! Some of us are ministers here who have been teaching the Word for some time but we were learning something new: the new approach and IBS principles. Thanks for coming!" - Alexey Kruglov and Sasha Minaicheva

"Thank God for ICM-Russia, you guys come as a breeze from heaven and help people of God understand the calling! The Lord spoke to me during the seminar! He spoke thru you prophetically. I won’t give up, I will use my gifting to serve the Lord. I have decided to follow Jesus and His commandments all the days of my life." - Artem Pavlov

Training and Equipping Saints in Vologda, Russia

Dearest friends and partners,

Warm greetings from cold Russia! March was a packed month! ICM-Russia team went to Vorkuta and Vologda to teach church core people, Christian workers and missionaries about how to study and preach the Word of God inductively. We encouraged the students of the Word to apply what they have learned in their everyday life to help their personal spiritual hygiene too. We spoke a lot about how to raise spiritual children, ministers, and new pastors for the work of the ministry feeding them on the Word on a regular basis. It is very important to realize that IBS vision starts with the pastor! God is my witness, it was a very fruitful time! The outcome from this time of ministry is that some of the participants are going to start teaching Bible studies once a week. This is way cool and a huge blessing!!! Please pray for the participants as they prepare each week for the study. They are so hungry to learn Gods word!

Another blessing was a special time in between sessions when people could come and confess their sin that had been bringing them down and hindering them from developing relationships with the Lord for a long time. It was a miracle how the Lord started that after one of the services. One of the praise and worship people came up to me and told me that the Lord spoke to him during the service that he needs to come talk and confess his sin that drags him down on a regular basis to us. He was so down and sad! My heart went out to him. As the man started opened up and it was not easy for him, it was not that easy for me either, I saw the Lord working on his heart in a mighty way. I saw the picture in the spiritual… the Lord cleaning the yard, weeding, scrubbing the floors, washing windows of the man’s soul, pressure washing the fence, chopping the poison brush. When we finished the guy went out of the room beaming the light of hope! It was marvelous!!! Next service I encouraged participants to feel free to come and talk to us. The blessing is that the people came. You pastors know that when people trust you and come to confess, it brings joy to your heart because people of God are cleansed, refreshed and renewed! Jesus was moving in the hearts of his people in a very powerful way!

Olga and I would like to say big, big Thank You to all who have sent your prayerful and financial support to ICM-Russia this month. We do appreciate your open heart to help us harvest in the former Soviet Union and to the ends of the Earth!