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M.E.

January 16, 2013

“Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” (1 Cor. 5:7)

We thank God for his Grace to us sinners. Leaving the past year behind, it is good to look back and see God’s hand. In fact, we can clearly see God’s hand in all events of the past year.

1.     Studying God’s Word

Last year we noticed that we had strayed too far from God’s image and from the standard of the holy life that was passed down to us from our fathers. When we saw the yeast of sin in our church, we decided to study the Bible more seriously through the book of Exodus on SWS and Hebrews on Daily Bread meetings. Now, we are rejoicing that God taught us many things through these books as well as rebuked us in order to restore His holy image in us. Through Exodus, we learned that the Lord is leading us through the desert to experience hunger and thirst because he loves us and does not want us to suffer from Egyptian yeast, i.e. from our sinful habits and slave mentality. He wants to purge us so we can live as a kingdom of priests and holy nation by listening to his word. The presence of Egyptian yeast in churches is one of the most common reasons of stagnation. I deeply repented before God and decided to go back to the holy lifestyle as God wants. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7). We pray to live as a source of blessing and a holy nation in the New Year to come.

2.     Roaming in the Wilderness and Entering the Promised Land (new center)

From the very beginning of our ministry in T., we did not own the Bible center. We could not rent a separate place and were serving in our flat for a long time. Later, God gave us a place in another church where we stayed for more than 2 years (2009-2011). But, at the very end of the last year, God led us into the wilderness of an independent ministry. With prayer, we set out on our own in order to leave all dependencies on people behind and move forward by faith in God Almighty. As a result, in 2012 we changed our worship place 3 times. First, we had a church similar to a small hut, later it was like a garage. Now, God allowed us a wonderful and cheap place for ministry right next to the campus and home. We feel like we finally arrived at the promised land after wanderings in the desert.

Right next to the door of the church, there is a growing vine. We saw it as God’s sign and decided to call our UBF center “The Vine.” God reminded us of our old ministry in Kiev which was also called The Vine. However, this vine that is growing at our door is quite dirty and had obviously never been purged. We had to purge and clean it. The vine became small but clean. I realized that we needed the same purging in order to bring fruit in T. We grew too many wrong branches without fruit. May God purge us completely and help us be good branches on the vine of Jesus.

3.     Coworkers and Ministry

God was always sending us many coworkers and we thank all those who worked and lived here with us, sharing our joy and sorrow. This year, God blessed us with a precious coworker from Kyrgyzstan, Sh. P., whose name now is Shs. R. She is about to graduate from a university in T. and lives with her daughter J. She is growing as a faithful and independent shepherdess and is receiving training from God through living a separate life, bible study, testimony-writing and daily bread.

In 2012 we held a summer bible conference titled “Prayer.” God sent delegations from Bulgaria, Greece and Ukraine. Satan was strongly opposing us but the Lord was working mightily despite all odds. So, we experienced a serious purging of our church. Those sheep who had not been seeking God from the depth of their hearts, clearly showed their faces and left. Two of them called the police but God protected us and gave victory. God also conducted a serious purging of our hearts. We could see that all this had happened because we did not take care of one soul but served rather superficially. According to our title “Prayer,” we decided to pray more diligently like the widow who bothered a judge to death. We are thankful to all those who supported us at that time with prayer.

We are also rejoicing that God is showing us how we must serve T. students and teaching us to do what we can. Through bible study (especially Hebrews), we realized that even though people in Muslim countries do not believe in the Bible and say that it had been changed by men and is no longer a valid word of God, we still have a weighty argument against fulfillment of prophecies. Many prophetic verses were fulfilled in Jesus’ life and history. We will pay closer attention to the prophecies from now on, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus is Christ, just like Apostle Paul did.

4.     Children

We are happy that our children began to read the real Bible with adults and participate in SWS, asking many deep and spiritual questions with a clear understanding of difficult issues of faith and morale. We pray that they could have real faith in Jesus Christ while growing up in a Muslim country and become our coworkers for preaching the Gospel here. Now we have 4 children in our center.

5.     Work and Visa

This year God blessed Sh. P. to graduate. This diploma is nothing else than God’s grace from beginning to end. Also, even before the graduation, God had already given him a good job in the telecom sector. The job is related to telecommunications systems and mobile devices. The pay is enough to cover the living costs fully. Now we pray to receive a working permit and maybe a citizenship in the future.

6.     Prayer Topics

1. To grow in God’s image through Bible study

2. To invite new students and raise 12 disciples of Jesus

3. For Shs. R. to become a good shepherdess for T.

4. To receive a working visa

By BL