I always wanted see God in my life. And the desire was huge! One day my wife Irene and I shared about our desire with Igor Prokopyev and Alex Alexandroff and their hearts went out to us! Igor and Alex said that if I want to see God in action I need to act upon Matt. 28:19,20! I knew this scripture, I knew the truth! It is God's promise: "I am with you always... even to the end of this age." Jesus also says in this scripture: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations!" Igor and Alex invested into me and my wife a lot! And we thank them for that! God is amazing! He blessed us with finances, time to study and apply what we had learned in our every day life!!! And we praise God for that! One day Pastor Zhenya Shkryabin, 38, called ICM-Russia office and invited Igor to come teach the course on how to study the bible productively! I am so blessed that Igor sent me to the small town called Blagoveshensk, Russia to do the seminar. It was my first seminar I was about to do all by myself. It was exciting, you know! I wanted to see what God was going to do in that church through ICM seminar and through me so bad! When I arrived to the site I realized that the majority of the Body is poor elderly peasants.
They didn't have much but they were hungry for the Word of God! My heart went out to them! All of a sudden I loved them and that was Christ's love. I knew the Lord wanted them to learn how to abide in the scriptures and see Him, His love, His kindness, mercy and grace in His Word! I said to my God: "I am going to do my best in giving them the inductive Bible Study tools but I need your help!" And He did! When I opened my mouth God gave me words to encourage church leaders, bless and train them well! All the participants and they were 12 of them, started working hard digging deep in to the Word of God with me! 
Some of them had a very bad sight and I thought they would not be able to do assignments in writing but our God is an awesome God! He filled them up with the Holy Spirit and enabled them to do the job! I am telling you the truth, I saw miracles! Praise the Lord for that! One day I was about to interupt them and move on but they would not stop... they finished the assignment! That was powerful! The participants love the course, disscussed on God's mercy, grace, healing and redemption! Jesus Himself was there in our midst touching our hearts! Some shed the tear, some went into worship and prayer! Jesus was glorified and magnified. 
At the closing session the participants shared about what God had done during the seminar. Their testimonies were great! They said hello and sent their love to all of us in Cherepovets and all of you in the states! As for me personally, I would like to say Big Thank-You to all of you who continue to pray and support the Intensive Care Ministries Russia!
1 comment:
Avenir, Your letter brought tears of joy along with your joy to see those hungry people. It must be very satisfying to feed the Word of God to such receptive hearts & ears - May our Lord multiply the work of your hands in their hearts and continue to provide for all of the Russian teachers.
P.S. Igor and Olga's faithfulness has seen much fruit - keep pressing on!
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