What are you grateful for today? The last 4 months were jam packed for our family with all kinds of things both in our personal lives and in ministrey that we can definetely be thankful for today. Addition of a little girl in March and then purchasing our first appartment in early October highlight our list of things to be grateful for in our personal lives. While purchasing real estate should not be something out of the ordinary for us it was a miraculous affair filled with clear signs that God was protecting us and going before us in this endeavor. He closed the door on a purchase from a rather questionable homeowner and led us to a place that was priced below the market. We applied for a mortgage before the bank increased the rates making them essentially prohibitive (our mortgage is 11% but there were two hikes in late summer and early fall making the rates 15-17% currently). Even though this apartment was a little bit out of our price range, it is bigger than we expected, and it located in the wonderful part of town not far from the Moscow State University which we can see out of our windows now.
Ministry has been a great source of encouragement too. We have had 2 record breaking camps this past summer. Both our youth camp and our kids camp were bigger than ever before. But what is even more important now these events are attracting unbelievers who get plugged into a church afterwards. Our youth ministry has just wrapped up our first youth conference called “All Saints” that we believe will be a catalyst for both evangelism and discipleship among teenagers, college students and young adults. And then this past Sunday we had an interesting experience that we hope to repeat in the nearest future. I was contacted by a college professor from the Diplomatic Academy of Russia who wanted to bring her students for a tour of St. Peter and Paul’s Lutheran Cathedral. She teaches comparative religions, and she wanted her students to get a firsthand experience of protestants. On Sunday before the service, we had 8 students who came from her class. We gave them a tour of the cathedral, brought them up to show them the historic pipe organ and shared both about history of Protestantism in Russia (which is as deep and rich as the history of the Russian Orthodox church but very few people know about it) and about the history of St. Peter and Paul’s cathedral. But what was more important we got to weave a Gospel presentation into our tour and shared the good news of salvation in about 3 different ways with them. Afterwards our youth minister went out to get a cup of coffee with them and talk some more. 3 guys stayed for a church service after the tour. The picture above is with the students getting to know the pipe organ at the cathedral. This experience was so great and so natural that we are going to contact other departments of comparative religions now seeking to establish a working relationship with them so that we could do tours like that with college students more often.
So what are you grateful for this season? We would love to hear from you! Drop us a quick note and let us know about your Thanksgiving this year!
Yours in praying and hastening the day of revival in Moscow and Russia,
Constantin and Alexandra
PS By the way if you are on Facebook we would appreciate you signing up to our "page" and spreading the news about it.
THREE THINGS TO PRAY FOR:
- OUR OUTREACH: The Advent season is upon us and we have great plans for it. The Christmas Eve is Sunday this year so it gives us a chance to do more. The pastors are going to go to Moscow State University to record some short interviews with college students about Christmas. We hope that it will encourage our college students to record similar interviews with their classmates on their campuses. We hope that this will open the door for us to share the Gospel and invite college students to come to church for Christmas Even candle light service. Please join us in asking God to use opportunities like this for sparking a revival in Moscow.
- OUR HOME: We are in the midst of a remodeling project on our newly purchased appartment. Please join us in asking the Lord to make it as inexpensive as possible and as swift as this process could be. Those kinds of things tend to be always much more expensive than anitipated and much longer. Also please pray for us to pay out raise additional funds to pay out our mortgage as soon as possible. While it is a 26 year mortgage and with the best rate that we could get given the war and economic situation in Russia, we would love to pay it out much much sooner. We would need about $30,000 for that.
- OUR PEACE: It is easy to forget about the war and it is very easy to get used to it. Please continue to pray with us for peace between Russia and Ukraine.
GIVING THROUGH INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES OF EURASIA (ICC-E):
You can donate to the Lysakovs’ ministry via ICC-E by check or autopay from your bank (see address below), or with your credit card via the ICC-E web site http://icceurasia.com/
Website: http://icceurasia.com
Email: icc.eurasia@gmail.com:
Mailing Address:
ICC-Eurasia
P.O. Box 34035
Bethesda, MD 20827-0035
Phone +1 (301) 514-7433
GIVING THROUGH CRYPTO CURRENCY
It's a new age and a new dawn, so why not use this simple method if you are so inclined and you have etherium or bitcoin that you want to use to support our ministry. You can use our Metamask wallet that was set up for these purposes (0xE021dB34F65C0F5B1F0ccF4Def059233B67891DB)
