Dear Friends,
God continues to provide divine appointments. On Wednesday last week we went to speak to a group of students at a school for those with learning disabilities. This school also has an orphan division within it. We were hoping to someday gain access to the group of orphans, but one must be careful here about how you approach such things. After speaking with a class we were headed out of the front door. A lady there asked who we were and struck up a conversation. She immediately invited us to come and speak to the group of orphans. She is the assistant director of that division, and she has given us free reign to speak about whatever we want. We're scheduled to go next week. Praise the Lord.
Yesterday the Pastor's Conference began. It has been a wonderful time of worship, fellowship and hearing from God's word. Please pray that these wonderful servants of the Lord will be refreshed, encouraged and strengthened. Many of them labor in difficult fields.
We want to pass on to you a praise report. You may remember a special article Cecil wrote that was published in Russian Evangelism. It was about the Christian Adaptation center for men released from prison here. They are building their center and we hoped the article would generate some financial help for them. Demitrei, the director, had used every available resource he could find, but two weeks ago the money ran out. After church he gathered the men together and told them they still needed at least $12,000 to finish the work, but the only recourse left was prayer, so they had a prayer meeting. What he didn't know was that at that very moment we were informing his pastor that the appeal had generated over $13,000 for the center. This is the largest offering that Russian Evangelism had ever received for an article.
It's official: Russia is now the number one exporter of oil in the world, pumping more oil than even Saudi Arabia. With all that oil wealth flowing into the government coffers (and private pockets) you would think the Russian people ought to be prospering and the standard of living ought to be rising, and yet the only thing that seems to be rising is the prices.
Hey, here are a few other statistics:
Russian Population: 143.5 million
Of these:
There are 10 million drug addicts or 7 % of the Russian population. Almost half began abusing drugs at the age of 13 or 14 years old.
Forty percent of the male population of the country are alcoholics, and the average age that they begin drinking has gone down to 12 or 13 years old.
There are 1.1 million prisoners.
There are 11 million invalids, of them 80% are in the first or second group, which means they cannot work.
There are 37 million pensioners.
There are 2 divorces for every 3 marriages.
There are 2 abortions for every live birth, or 3 million abortions a year.
There are 4 million abandoned kids and 10 million children living with a single mother.
The population of Russia decreases by roughly 700,000 people a year.
President Putin in his "State of the Country" address mentioned the problem of the declining population. He mentioned three causes: low birth rate (many families have only one child), shorter life span (due to high alcohol and cigarette use), and emigration. He wanted to increase government assistance to mothers so that they would have more children. I didn't really catch what he wanted to do about alcohol and cigarette use. And he wanted to encourage immigration to Russia. The last point sounded really good to us, since it might make getting a Russian "resident permit" easier (at least that's what we'll pray for). He also mentioned the need for Russian families to adopt children rather than leave them in orphanages. He said, "It seems to me that foreigners adopt more Russian children than Russians do."
We do regularly pray for President Putin and for the country of Russia. We thank you for your prayers as well.
Again, please pray the next few days for the conference.
Shalom,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy and Vera
