Kindergarten, Camp & an Island

Dear Friends,

we've just finished mailing out our latest newsletter. It's been posted on our web site. If you have any problems seeing it, let me know and I'll email you the pdf version. Actually the pdf version looks much better, but it also is a much larger file. So let me know if you would like it in pdf. But about the web site posting, the link is: http://hqmail.agmd.org/~tonya.eshelman/NL%202005%20July/newsletter%202005%20July.html

We've enjoyed hearing stories from so many of you all about how your daughters (and in one case grandson) have cut their hair in the past. I laughed and laughed and felt much better about what Vera did to her hair. One person who saw a picture of her wrote me and said: Vera's hair looks cut(e).

This last week we've helped a local church with starting a Christian Kindergarten. As far as we know it is the first one in the city. We assisted with cleaning out and remodeling a four room apartment and preparing it for the children. Tonya painted the ceiling in one room and came home covered with pink spots. It is a small start, but they hope to open the 1st of August, and already the sign-up list for children is full. We have our own Vera signed up to attend while Tim is in school.

Cecil has been asked to preach in a local church tomorrow while the pastor is away (Sunday 11:00 a.m. for us is Saturday 8:00 p.m. for you on the east coast). Tonya will translate. Please pray that the Lord uses us to speak to the people.

On Tuesday we will being going camping on an island in the river between Russia and China. There will be lots of boys and girls coming to play, swim, sing, make friends and learn about Jesus for five days. We will be assisting with the youngest group of boys, which will be Tim's age (talk about energy). Please pray that 1) we wear them out before they wear us out and 2) they all have life-changing encounters with the living God. Cecil has already spent one day on the island helping to set up the camp (without a translator, great practice for his Russian).

Our children have been doing well forming friendships. One thing that amazes us is the high percentage of children without fathers. Of the friends they have gotten to know in our yard and invited to our home, only one lives with their father. At least two of the kids are being raised by their grandmothers. And we live in the "good" part of town. We recently heard that there were more divorces than marriages in Khabarovsk last year (putting the divorce rate at about 110%). Coming to Russia we hoped to be involved with ministry to orphans. It turns out that any youth ministry here will be ministering to the fatherless.

Vanya is a teenager who lives in an orphanage in Khabarovsk. He often visits our home. One day he decided to bake a kind of cake called "anthill" for us. Here he is in our kitchen putting on the final touches.

Our church is adding new Sunday School classrooms, Timothy decided to lend a helping hand mixing the concrete.

Also, we recently checked out the local botanical garden.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

In His Service,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy & Vera

Reflections from Our Thailand Trip

We've been back from the Eurasia conference for two weeks now. Thailand is certainly very different than Russia. It was interesting to watch the way our kids responded to the culture of Thailand. Vera enjoyed the way Thai people put their palms together when they said thank you. She was a real hit when she would put her palms together and say thank you in the Thai language. Of course her blond hair made her stand out there. She was fascinated by the handicrafts and artwork there, specially the woodcarvers. And Tim? Well, Tim liked the elephants.

Tonya and I will never forget the response Tim and Vera had to the idol worship there. The prevalent religion of Thailand is common Buddhism which involves the worship of Buddha and Buddha idols. Our first day in Thailand we had some free time to go on a tour of Bangkok. The guide took us to a couple of temples. The kids were amazed people worshipped statues and started saying things like, "idols can't help you," and, "you should only worship the true God." Tonya and I tried to help them express this truth in ways that were a little more sensitive, but the strength of their reaction was surprising. We feel that the true God has a calling on the lives of our children.

Since we have returned to Russia Timothy has continued to be concerned about the people there that didn't know who the real god is. He even asked us if he could become a missionary to Thailand some day.

In the last two weeks Cecil has been busy trying to catch up on paperwork and get out our latest newsletter. Authoring an interesting, informative and balanced letter can be a creative challenge. And now that our mailing list is over 350 addresses it takes a while to print them. We will email you a copy soon.

The weather here in Khabarovsk has become quite warm. Today it was about 95 degrees with no clouds in the sky. That doesn't sound too hot to the folks in the Carolinas, but here it doesn't cool down until after sunset, which is about 10:30 these days.

One big problem facing churches here is difficulty with buildings. Many churches do not have buildings and must meet in rented facilities, where there is the ongoing threat of being forced to find a new meeting location with little warning. Those that manage to purchase a building usually need to expand their facilities almost constantly (most church congregations here are growing). Sunday afternoon and evening Cecil joined some of the men at a church and put some sweat into the new nursery and Sunday School rooms they are adding on the end of their building.

While he did that Tonya was inside with some ladies helping them make plans for starting a Christ centered kindergarten. They have been praying about this for a long time but it looks like they will be able to start soon. They have just rented a place in a good location and this evening Tonya will join them again as they start remodeling the place.

We want to thank you for your prayers. God has been blessing us and we are thankful for it. Our prayer for ourselves is to show true love to the people here so that they can come to know Jesus for themselves. If you would like us to pray for you, just send us an email.

In His Love,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy & Vera

Summer break begins

Dear Friends,

We are back from an important conference in Thailand and Cecil is ready to begin his summer break.

The tri-annual Eurasia meeting for AGWM was held in Thailand during the end of June. Hundreds of missionaries from Eurasia gathered to discuss a variety of issues. Some of the topics were practical, some sessions were encouraging, some meetings were strategic, some was worshipful, some was ministry to the missionaries, all of it was for building the Kingdom of God. And, of course, some of us went out to see the elephants.

Summer break has begun at the University where Cecil is studying Russian. He plans to continue independent work on the language until classes begin this fall. This should not be difficult since every trip to the store is a language practice exercise. But he will continue to hit the books too.

Tonya has gotten involved with team building for orphanage outreach. She has been partnering with a Ukrainian lady with a different organization to help orphans. They have formed a leadership team of older orphans to assist the younger ones. This has already begun to bear fruit.

Cecil continues to work on our web site, and bit by bit it keeps getting more and more interesting. If you haven't seen it, please take a look. The address is http://hqmail.agmd.org/~cecil.eshelman

Cecil is planning to host a pastor's conference for church leaders in the Russian Far East. They haven't had one for several years and many of the pastors are in great need of refreshment and encouragement. It looks like it will be the last week of September. Please pray for all the arrangements to come together, for the speaker to be inspired, and for these precious workers to be able to attend.

We have begun the process of purchasing a vehicle. It has been a bit more complicated than buying a car in the states. Please pray that the entire process continues without a hitch.

Do please pray that the Lord guide the use of our time this summer as our schedule will be quite different than during the school year.

Overall things continue to go well for us. Thank you so much for the encouraging letters and emails you all have sent. If there is anything we can pray for on your behalf, please let us know.
Because of Him,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy & Vera