Adventure along the Amur River

Dear Friends,

our trip to the Lower Amur region was seven full - very full - days of activity. Despite encounters with bad roads, storms, ticks, insects and poisonous snakes, we completed the trip without injury. Our team of six (three Russians, Leah, Timothy and myself) was well balanced. Our STL van, which we named Rapture Buggy, performed excellently. The Lord brought us a number of very good encounters, and we learned a great deal about the area that will aid in future outreaches. This trip was dedicated to building the Kingdom of God, not photography, but we did manage to take a few photos along the way.

We visited several villages that exist only on the map. Quite a few villages in Russia are becoming ghost towns. However, some other towns continue to thrive. Our hope was to rent town halls for evening services to do evangelistic events, and spend the mornings and afternoons walking the town and inviting people; but the local administration always said that they need approval from higher authorities before renting out the hall, and that would take several days. We encountered this kind of response in every town. So we ended up doing a lot of personal evangelism rather than events.

The little girl is holding a book we gave as a gift. We passed out quite a but of literature, especially Children's Bibles.

The highway is gravel & dirt. We never got stuck, but some trucks got bogged down when it rained. And it rained several times while we were there, making things pretty muddy. This truck was sunk to the axels. And yes, that is the main highway.

We discovered a small house church that is very new. We worshipped with them on Sunday. Here I am doing a children's presentation while Timothy helped me with the Russian Language.

Here's Leah helping to prepare some materials.

Of course, prayer was vital to the trip. We daily spent time in personal and group prayer.

We staying in tents (sometimes on sand, sometimes on rock, sometimes on straw... yes, straw). No room in the van for mattresses, so this camp (which we named "rock camp") was a little hard on the bones, but somehow we seemed to sleep soundly anyway.

As an interesting note, you never know when God can use something old to do something new. Many years ago when I worked at Cameron Boys' Camp in North Carolina, I learned to strip bark off of pine poles that we cut to make tent posts from. Some men in one of the villages were stripping poles that they had cut, and I jumped in and stripped some poles. They were surprised that an American would know such a skill, and it enabled the team to get a good conversation going while I provided the "entertainment." You just never know how God might use you.

Along with ministry and work, there was no lack of adventure. We had encounters with two poisonous snakes (one in our campsite), numerous ticks (but none actually bit us), rough roads (with no flat tires), poorly marked routes (but we never got seriously lost), and difficult weather (serious thunderstorms alternating with brilliant sunlight, but the tents stood firm and only minor sunburn resulted). The Heavenly Father was with us, and took care of us all along the way.

In many ways this trip became a survey trip, gathering information and making contacts to prepare for future work in this area.

We praise God that:

1. People were mostly friendly and helpful, and many were receptive.

2. We had safety, health and good travel.

3. There was good unity on the team, and our spirits and energy stayed high.

Please pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send more workers into this harvest field to follow up on what has been done.

It is on our hearts to return sometime, especially to a village that is inhabited by the Nanian people.They had heard the name of Jesus but had no knowledge of who he is. That village has no cell phone connection, limited electricity, and we had to take a boat across the river to get there. The people were very open.

Please also pray for Leah, who returns to the States on Saturday.

Because He Lives,

Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna

Toward the ends of the Earth

Dear Friends,

for about ten days I will be out of touch with the internet. On early Wednesday morning (Tuesday afternoon in the USA), we'll be starting evangelistic outreach in the Lower Amur region. I'll be taking our Speed-The-Light vehicle. My team of six (including me, my son Timothy, Leah Close, and three Russian believers) will be doing outreach in the villages just north of Komsomolsk. Much of the time we will also be out of cell phone connection as well.

There are no known churches in the villages we will be visiting, so we are taking tents along for the nights. The census data (which might or might not be accurate) indicates that many of the people are from minority groups, some of which are unreached people groups. Please be aware that this is not a vacation or photo op. We're not sure how we will be received as we have no contacts in these towns. The roads are poor, and I will be taking along three spare tires and extra canisters of fuel. The mosquitoes are only annoying, but the ticks can carry diseases. All in all, the only reason we are going is because we believe the Lord is telling us to go.

Please pray:

1. That the Word of the Lord will be heard and received.

2. For health, safety and travelling mercies for the team.

3. Our our spirits and our energy levels to be high.

4. That spiritual fruit will remain after we leave.

The pastors of Khabarovsk region are working on plans for follow-up in places where the message of our Lord Jesus Christ is received. I hope to tell you more about this in the future.

Now, I must admit to a mistake I made in my previous update. Standing behind a statue where a wreath was being laid, I confused that statue with a different one of Lenin elsewhere in the park. The statue where the wreath was being laid was actually of Marshal of the Soviet Union Radion Yakovlevich Malinovskyi. Here is a photo from his front.

From the front, he doesn't look at all like Lenin.

I was asked by a young couple to perform their wedding. In Russia a church wedding is not a legal wedding, so they first had a legal wedding at a government office and then had the church wedding. Here we are with them.

Tonya thought it would be a good experience for some of the orphans to see a wedding. Since most of the young women who graduate from the orphanages get pregnant out of wedlock, we've been trying to teach the concept of getting married before having children. So we brought along three young gals from a local orphanage as guests. Afterward we asked the girls what they enjoyed most, and with great excitement they said, "everything!" It was the first wedding they had ever attended.

The boy in the photo attends that church, and wanted in the photo too.

We're still doing monthly birthday parties at an orphanage. Here's a photo from the latest. We're acting out (with some help) the story of the three Israelite children who got thrown into the fiery furnace.

I'll write again after we return from the outreach trip. Until then, if you want to contact us, you'll have to give Tonya a phone call (she doesn't do email).

Because of Him,

Cecil, Tonya, Timothy, Vera and Deanna