God Led Us to the Cities

There are many things unpredictable in Chukotka and one of them is that our plans are always changing and the word “plans” doesn’t always apply here. A week ago we were planning to fly out to Aion, a village on the nearby island. We had no tickets, but were hoping to get in on standby. When we came to the airport, we begged and they sold us two tickets, so not everyone could go, then at the check-in we kept asking the other lady to let all of us in, she said to go and buy tickets for the rest of the team. Long story short, with three tickets that we had on hand, no one got in because all 22 seats were full and we had to stay behind in Pevek. We waited till the helicopter took off, hoping something would happen, but not as we hoped. We came back to Pevek with good spirits, knowing God’s in charge and He has a special plan for us here in the city, and oh what a special plan it was.

God exceeded all our expectations and the opportunities that he provided us here with have overwhelmed us all. The weather was very warm in high 70’s and 80’s all week. We were able to hold events outside right in the middle of the city and attract a lot of kids and youth. Never in my previous years here, have we ran out of seating room for youth nights. Even though some teenagers that are in Pevek from other cities and villages because they’re flying out for vacation were not allowed to come to our “sect” they sneaked in at various nights. At other days, the teachers in charge of these kids would come and take their kids away and not even allow them to play with us outside. Regardless, we were always packed and had to check the kids at the door at one point if they were from Pevek or not.

Even more astounding was how open these teenagers were and they actually were talking and engaging in conversations and discussions on the topics that we led. Even after we were “convicting” when talking about alcohol, smoking, relationships, etc… they kept coming back. After one of the nights of talking about God, our testimonies of why we were coming to Chukotka, our goals in life, and more one girls asked: “How come that this ‘sect’ allowed you to meet in their building. It was a great starter for us to talk about God, religion, faith and what everybody in the city call a sect, hypnosis, money defrauding and more.

They youth was our prayer, and never before we were able to spend so much time in the cities and we see how in amazing ways God has interceded for us with His plans and we are amazed at what he’s doing through us and in our wonderful team, which no words can describe. Another miracle was Sunday’s evangelistic service, where we as a team lead the whole service. For the first time in a long time, Slava and Lera were able to sit in the back row and enjoy the service. God moved and used everyone in an amazing way and at the end of the service two more people accepted Christ. One of them was a church goer for a long time and another was a visitor from the hospital who came to Chukotka for work and got ill 4 days later and met a guy at the hospital who brought him to church that day. God is unpredictable and amazing!

Yesterday, Olya Grin, Nadya, and Diana flew out to the village of Chaun and in a week the rest of us are flying out to the village of Aion. We were the first people in line to make sure we’ll get the seats in the helicopter and after waiting for 6 for the helicopter they were finally on their way. We were sad to leave them, since we won’t see them for three weeks, but it’s the only way to cover more villages in the remaining time that we have here. In one week the rest of our team and brother Andrey, a native Christian man, will fly out to Aion for two more weeks of ministry opportunities and adventures.

"Etik" Pevek & Yanranai!

Our team has finally been united with our other teammate, Olga Mokan, after two weeks in Anadyr. She's a really great asset to already a great team as we've already ministered in Pevek and in the village of Yanranai, where we spent the weekend doing kid's and youth programs together. God has been blessing us and providing in many different ways. One of which is that we got the permission to use the local youth center, where there's a lot more room for doing our program with the kids. All but 2 kids from the village came to hear our funny and loud clown, who not only showed tricks and made kids laugh, but also told stories along the way and lead everyone in learning new songs! After one of the lessons on prayer, the kids made prayer cards. The most common prayer requests were "For my parents not to drink; That people would not drink vodka in our village; for people not to drink." The state of being drunk is a norm in the village for many young guys were coming to our events in this condition. But they still were able to talk about serious topics which showed us once again how alcohol became an accepted part of their life.Family is most important for any person and Satan knowing it, strikes right in it with the deadly weapon of alcohol. Kids seem to be suffering here the most. Friday night, a mother of Vika, was at our church service, next day she came to borrow 50 rubles from us when we were playing with kids outside. Vika was very embarrassed to see her drunk mother and ran away crying. She was avoiding us the rest of the weekend and after calling her several times she resistively came at the very end.Most importantly, we were able to follow God's direction and his leading. We had plans to do 3 youth gatherings but each time our planned program had to be postponed. Our goal was not to tell them what we had on our paper but to be sensitive to God's leading and he wanted us to hear their stories and their thoughts about life and about their relation to our coming and what it means for them. Finally on sunday night, after we've established trust and relationships with them they all came. We had great discussions, where two teams presented their opposing views about smoking, alcohol, purpose in life, and life without purpose and goal. I was pleasently surprised how much the people opened up and shared about the topics. May God continue to work in their lives, as many of them have already heard about God many times and some come from believers families.Our loving Lord has also been blessing us with great weather, it's been pleasantly warm on most days, around 70 degrees, which is very warm for this part of the world. On the days and nights in between services and programs we were able to spend more time in fellowship with the amazing Grin family and their kids. We've only been here about a week and if we're able to leave for Aion tuesday, we won't see Slava because he's gonna leave for his class session and come back most likely after we all leave Chukotka. Today we were lucky to spend a whole day with the family, where we went on a photoshoot and had a great time. We're thanking God for the opportunities he has been providing us with in serving Grin family and the people of Chukotka. Thank you all for your prayers and support!