Baltic Church Planting

I already wrote that I have very good relations with the director of the local orphanage. Sometimes I call in to them find out how they are doing, simply to support our relations. So once I went to see them, and while we were talking I asked whether I could meet with the children from the orphanage, and to spend time with them regularly To what, the director answered that she does not only agree, but will also help me in this work with the kids. So the next time we met, we were discussing what we are going to do with the children, and what kind of activities we are going to plan, so that it is interesting for them..

 We have chosen the most convenient day which is Friday from 4p.m. till 7p.m. On this day all children come to the orphanage from those places where they study to spend their weekend there. For that reason I was given a room, and all the necessary facilities and the director promised to buy all the necessary tools. So I began coming to the orphanage on Fridays. We do not only repair bicycles, but also play games, or just simply talk. I have got acquainted with many boys and girls. All of them are very open, thirsting love; all their destinies have been broken. I have suggested them being in a team, where  we all support, and help each other, we shall prepare for a summer, when we will have  a trip with the bicycles that we are repairing right now. I talked about this with the director and now we just have to think about the details, for example, about the dates, and the place, and so on.

To our meetings from 5 up to 10 children come. There are children from different age groups: basically these are children of 10-14 years. I have invited children to our Saturday activities for children in the church. Guys have responded, and once 9 people came, and then they said that it was very pleasant for them, and that they will come again. The tutors from the orphanage also told me that the children liked it very much, and they had told their tutors what they did here. I plan to develop work in the orphanage, for this purpose I shall allocate time in my working days. I cannot tell the exact day yet, but I know that I need to have some more working hours, because I see the necessity of the work with children. It is simply a wonderful opportunity to reach children. In one evening I communicated with one teacher of the group of boys. She invited me to a cup of coffee, and we in such friendly conditions communicated. She asked me many questions about me and my family, my belief, our church. Conversation with this teacher was the first conversation with the adult person in the orphanage.

There has come the time to change the way our Sunday school activities are carried out. We have come to this kind of conclusion after we had analyzed the results of our Sunday school. When children become teenagers they leave the church. They do not like the way we work with children, they do not like songs we sing, games we play and so on. They do not feel comfortable during our activities with children. They are passive, and everything they do says that they are not children any longer. So, we decided to separate children starting from 12 from those younger ones, teenagers still will meet on Saturdays but not at 12 p.m. as children do, but at 4p.m. We have already had two of those kinds of meetings, and everything was very good. At our first meeting there were 17 people, at the second one -22, of course, it is too early to conclude anything, but we noticed the advantages of the separate meeting with the teenagers. I invited all the teenagers to our youth Bible studies on Tuesdays at 6p.m.

 This way I want to work with those who want to be closer to God. At our first meeting there were only 4 people: Olesja, Vasiliy, Dima(the nephew of my whife) and me. I hope, that we will see a lot of young people looking for God.

Once to our drama club one girl came, her name is Elvita, and she is Latvian. As there was nobody else that day, we just sat down and talked. In this conversation I found out that she is 17 years old, that from the age of 10 she had been attending the church of mormons, and she and her mother with her sister had been baptized there. She had been attending the church actively for 6 years, but she didn’t attend it during last year, but still there are mormons that visit her at home. Elvita has a dream to go to study to the US, and she says that she has friends mormons there. She does not drink coffee, tea, coca-cola, but she smokes and drinks alcohol. That was our only conversation unfortunately, but I tried to tell her about Christ as much as I managed to do it. I told that Jesus helps to get freedom from our sins and illnesses. Elvita did not agree with everything, but we still decided that she will attend our Bible lessons on Tuesdays, and will also help to organize a youth cafe. She came only to one teenagers’ meeting on Saturday, we exchanged our telephone numbers, but she disappeared, when I am calling her, nobody answers. I pray that this is the beginning of her trip to Christ that she will get to know Christ, and will be free.

I lead all services during a week, including Sunday service. Especially I want to pay attention to the way the members of the church attend Thursday Bible lessons. Our analyses pass very actively. Practically everyone participates in responding to all the verses we have studied. The quantity of people attending these meetings has increased.

I also want to mention that there are changes in our sisters’ meetings. They started dedicating that time to prayer. Olya tells that sisters are very blessed through those meetings on Fridays. I am also satisfied to hear that. We have more sisters in our church than brothers. That is why I am so very happy that we have sisters’ meetings again.

The plan for March: the development of service of children and teenagers, work in the orphanage, preparation for summer programs.

We are grateful to God for all the material supprt that He sends to us through His faithful children. We are grateful to everyone who financially supports our ministry.