The ice sculptures in the parks are beautiful. http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/12/31/38439959.html
Cold, but beautiful. Actually, the camera can hardly capture the real beauty. We tried to decorate this ice wall with some Eshelmans.
The Hinson family had a late Christmas present. Michael Lee Hinson was born January 10, 9:10 pm Khabarovsk Russia time. He was 8 lbs. 14 oz. Mom and baby are doing awesome, and the delivery went absolutely perfectly. Tonya had the privilege of translating for Amanda and Steve during the delivery.
David is a children's pastor who came from Australia to teach a session on counseling and children's ministry. What a change from the Australian summer to Russian winter! The seminar was great. Five days of some of the best teaching on the subject that we've ever heard.
Hope Center is being used quite a bit for various things. One of the things we are personally doing is starting an outreach to young people in the evenings. Every Tuesday is game night and every Thursday is movie night. Please pray that more and more people would attend, enjoy and become involved with these actives. Pray that through the fellowship and fun that we have these young folks would discover a true walk with Jesus.
We've been showing movies for a while, but our first game night was last week. So far so good.
The Russian church has begun an outreach program to bring a Gospel witness to every town, village and Hamlet of Russia. This is a huge undertaking. They call it the Hosanna plan. One of our personal friends here in Khabarovsk has decided to commit one year of her life to serving the Lord with this project. So she has left her job as a surgeon, sold her car, and joined the team in Volgograd. Wow. I'll tell you more about the Hosanna plan in the future, so that you'll know how to pray for it.
We love our kitchen, but it looks like it will need a total remake. Recently the kitchen drain become clogged to the point where we must now do dishes in the bathroom. Since the original pipes are encased in poured concrete, the job is quite complicated. Chemicals and other equipment have been ineffective (anybody have some extra dynamite?). And in a completely unrelated failure, the electrical outlet for our refrigerator has gone out (yes, the wires are buried in poured concrete too). So it seems the time has come for a major operation in the kitchen. This, of course, is not the fun side of missions.
The Amur river is a mighty river, but here in Russia the winter is even stronger. So we went for a walk on the river last week.
That's down town Khabarovsk in the background.
We have young folks in the States interested in coming to join in the Lord's work here in Khabarovsk. Please pray the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the harvest field of Russia, that they would be equiped, and powerfully used of the Lord.
This video from Ellerslie Mission Society offers a fresh new perspective into God's heart for the orphan, and His call on believers to care for the orphan:
Because of Him,
Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna
