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
