Hi all.First off all let me say sorry for the lack of news.I have spent the last 2 months in a country where oppression can be very harsh towards people of different faith (especially locals), so we were asked to be very careful of what we communicated so as to not communicate anything we shouldn’t.I thought the best thing is to wait till I return to Perm to write an update.
DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING SCHOOL
As most know we have been running a Discipleship Training School and after 5.5 months the DTS has just come to an end. We started the school with 3 months of lectures.We were blessed with some great lecturers from all around the world.Just to hear them speak and share was a huge blessing for me. It was a privilege to see the students start to change, as their view of life and God changed. I have included a newsletter from one of our students to give you a bit of a glimpse of the school in her eyes.
Last Friday was my wonderful day off. After a short sleep in I was awoken to my daughter screaming Mum someone took the wheels off our car. Then she burst into the bedroom to tell me, daddy someone took the wheels off our car. I thought she was joking so I said to her honey stop being silly no one took the wheels of our car. She said yes they did daddy. So after pulling myself out of bed I walked to the window and guess what? Yes someone had stolen the wheels of our car. After standing there looking for what seemed like half an hour I got dressed called the police and went to inspect the damage. Sometimes it is interesting, it seems the more you want to follow God and his purposes the more problems we seem to have. (Sometimes it feels like days of our lives). So Christy and a good friend waited for the police I went off to the market to buy new wheels and a new set of tyres. Praise God that we don’t need to listen tomusic as they took the stereo as well as the battery. So it was a very hard day. It took a fullday of buying wheels and tyres, battery then getting the car off the mud and wheels back on it. Please continue to pray for us. Gods protection etc.
Hi all I hope life is good. I would like to talk about the goodness of God in this trying time of financial difficulty as the world deals with the financial problems. As you may have heard the Aus dollar has fallen a heap in the last month and we lost a quarter of our sponsorship. I was feeling very frustrated and when I got to the end of myself and allowed God to speak to me I was able to see the huge mistake I was making. He was very faithful but very blunt in telling me, HE is God and the financial situation of the world or the Aus dollar is not. I find it amazing here I have been in missions for the last 20 years or so and he has always provided for me and my family and here I go to worrying about how the dollars are changing.
Well here we are in lectures and listing to Pastor John Geissler from America.You may remember we have set up a discipleship training school here in Perm. We have 7 students who come from all around the world. They are a real blessing and I know as we go through this course that god will move upon these special people. The course runs for just over five months. The schedule is very taxing but it is worth it. I will put student’s photos below. This week’s lectures have been on mercy ministries and it is very challenging. Pastor John ships stuff overseas to nations all around the world and it is good to have his input.
Have you ever been at an airport and watched people at the gate waiting for their loved ones to come through?Here in Russia this is a big deal. There were people with balloons, flowers, etc waiting. I know this because I was there last Sunday morning at three a.m. waiting for students to come for our 6 month course. It seemed strange that there were no arrival boards lit. But this is Russia and sometimes things just don’t get turned on.We didn’t know the news we were about to find out about.
