August News Letter

Once again the month has flown past us. This month we spent two weeks traveling to, in and around Moscow. We attended our first AGM (Annual General Meeting). It was a time that we spent with other colleagues, worshipping in our heart language, and learning new tools to aid us on field. Emma enjoyed a week of VBS. A word of encouragement - never take for granted the ability to worship together in your heart (English) language. When you have struggled for a year with a foreign language and sung every song and heard every sermon in Russian it is almost overwhelming to hear over 100 people burst out from the heart singing praises to the Lord in your native tongue. This was a twofold encouragement to us: #1 give praise to the Lord for times that we have such as this and #2 it encouraged us to strive to become very fluent in the Russian language so that we can experience the same with the Russians during worship.

Our new experience for the month was to wake up one morning and find that our district had shut the hot water off for 2 weeks. We had come to learn how to live without the convenience of hot water about the time they shut all the water off for 2 days while they repaired the pipes. What a blessing….we made it fine, thanks to the mission team leaving us all the extra “bath in a bag” they had brought with them to camp.

Family: Our family continues to do well both spiritually and physically. Lee and Emma have started back to school. We are still waiting on some of their books to arrive from the states but they have started nonetheless. Lee has already read one book and is writing his first book report of the year. (There is excitement in the air) Fall is in the air and the leaves will quickly begin to change and we will prepare for the next eight months of snow. We have had some clear and very nice days, clear blues skies with temperatures in the 70’s. Lee and I were able to go on an overnight fishing trip with some of our Russian friends. It was a great experience and we even managed to catch a few fish. We were also able to host one of our native friends from the village a couple of nights this month.
Ministry opportunities: We were very blessed to be ministered to at our AGM conference in Moscow. While in Moscow we were able to visit with our friends the Hooks and enjoy a Sunday morning worship service with them. A special thanks to the Hooks family for putting up with us a few days.

We finally arrived back in Petropavlovsk……Marty was able to help with Bible studies at Emmanuel and actually led his first Bible study this month without the aid of a translator (although he struggled for words it was a humbling but great experience and all seemed to understand the message). Suzanne has been able to share more and more with her language teacher the truth of the Gospel. Every day Natalia has more questions about why Suzanne believes what she believes. Please pray for Natalia as she is seeking the truth.

We continue to grow a friendship with our neighbor Zhenya. This month we were able to give him some fresh fish and he gave us some fresh berries from his dacha – (a small place outside of town where they grow fruits and vegetables). Pray for this relationship to grow as we share with him the truth of the Gospel.

Language: As we continue our language study we daily realize how much more we need to learn. However, we are also seeing some major steps in our language acquisition. Lee and Emma are both doing very well and are able to communicate easily with their friends. Lee even corrected Marty’s Russian a couple of times this month. (That is not surprising because Marty does not speak English very well).

Visa update: Visa issues continue to be an ongoing problem for us. Russia has now started what is called a 90/180 visa. What this means is that if you hold a religious visa you are only allowed to live in the country of Russia for 90 days and then you must live in another country for 90 days before you return to Russia. Our visa expires in October and we will be able to receive a new visa for only 90 days. We have made three attempts to obtain a work permit and in all three cases we have been denied. We are starting the process now applying for a temporary residence in Russia. This is a long and tedious process. Please pray that we understand everything and that we are led to the right person to help us with this situation. Please pray that the Lord will be honored and exalted in this difficult time.

Prayer request:
- Pray for the new believers in Kamchatka as they continue their walk with the Lord.
- Pray for the Putnam’s who are home for a few months on state side assignment. Pray that they have a blessed time with family and that they are able to communicate with several folks in the states the need to come along side and help with the work in Far East Russia.
- Pray for us as we continue to search out a way to be able to live here year round.
- Pray that we will be faithful to serve the Lord on a daily basis in the midst of __________ (just fill in the blanks).

Thank you for holding the rope!!! We would love to hear what is happening in your ministry.