What are you thankful for this year? There are so many personal things that I am incredibly grateful for this year. I do not take for granted my family or our children. I am so grateful to God for my wife! I am thankful for our eldest daughter (the one for whom we were foster parents) getting married this year. I am grateful for my eldest son starting school this year and all the opportunities for sharing the Gospel that it brought into our lives. I am grateful for our middle son’s starting to learn English and for our precious little princess being so cute and adorable. And I am profoundly grateful to having my dad around and for our kids to experience what an awesome father and grandpa he is. By the way, attached you will find his latest painting, one that he did in September.
But as I look back at this past year, I cannot help it but be incredibly thankful for our church. This was not an easy year in ministry for any of us. You may remember that Moscow Bible Church was forced to move in May. We had rented St. Peter and Paul’s Lutheran Cathedral for over 12 years and were quite shocked when the new leadership of the church decided to terminate this arrangement. Currently we are using 5 different facilities across Moscow to accommodate all our ministry activities. Obviously, that is not the simplest arrangement in life. Imagine having to leave church and travel across town for the afternoon Bible study or membership class! But we are grateful and excited as we see the Lord using this to strengthen and grow our church.
To tell you the truth I was a little bit worried about how the church would respond to this move. I mentioned to all our leaders several times that it was quite possible that we would lose up to 20% of our church due to this move. Churches tend to lose people when they move to a new place, let alone in a move from a beautiful cathedral downtown to a small loft that is not as centrally located.
But God surprised me! We lost practically nobody, and as a matter of fact, we somehow grew in the process. This in and of itself is remarkable because given the dynamics of life in Russia, churches do not tend to grow over the summer when everyone leaves the city for a vacation. However, somehow, by Someone, Moscow Bible grew. Just this past Saturday, Sasha and I were hosting a brunch for new church members at our place, and it was jam packed with new people. When we looked for a new place to meet, we deliberately sought a place that would be slightly bigger than our current needs. Yet God surprised us and there were several Sundays when we maxed out the capacity of this facility, forcing us to think about looking for a new place again in the nearest future. Yes, it is kind of a headache, but I am very grateful for these pleasant headaches in ministry.
To those of you who are in the United States – Happy Thanksgiving! I am looking forward to hearing from you about things you are grateful for this year!
Yours in praying and hastening the day of revival in Moscow and Russia,
Constantin and Alexandra
PS In my next newsletter in a couple of days I will share more about our recent youth conference which is yet another example of how the Lord is growing our church.
THREE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please join us in praying for God:
- To bless our Advent season. We are going through a lot of changes due to the fact that we are in a new location. Please pray that these transitions would be very smooth during the holiday season and that we would be able to reach a lot of people this coming Advent. We have secured a new venue for our candlelight service but still there are a lot of unknowns.
- To bring to repentance unbelievers that began attending out foundations of faith class. Our class is a very intersting mix of those who came to know the Lord recently, those who have been walking with Christ for a while and several people that are completely new to the church. It would be great to see them put their trust in Christ and be baptized. I will share more about this class in the upcoming weeks.
- To bring peace to Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, ask God to use this conflict by bringing reconciliation and revival to these countries.
