Dear Brothers and Sisters,
"The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy !" (Ps.126:3)

YVES RECEIVED A ONE YEAR VISA
Thank you for all  your prayers !
Yves finally received his visa so now he can stay in Russia until the end
of September '99 ! This is really a good news ! If everything goes smooth
with the local authorities, he should be able to renew his visa since he is
involved in a programm of studies that "forces" him to study for the next 3
years ( which will end up with a Master in Russian).

KARMANOF BAPTISED
But there is another even more exciting event that happened the 5Th of
November: the baptism of Sergey and Irine Karmanof ! Personally, I had been
eagerly waiting for this glorious event ever since the beginning of March
when they started coming to the services. My coworkers and myself build a
friendship with them and prayed many times that God would convert them. A
week prior to their baptism, their 25 year old son Daniel became a
Christian and we pray that one day their 12 year old son Igor will join the
rest of the family. Both parents have this rare quality of being extremely
smart and yet very simple. They are very intelligent, both Phds in civil
ingeneering and relate in a very warm way to all kinds of people. Sergey is
not only a leader in the world, where he runs a company, but he has already
demonstrated not once his wisdom at reading people and making insightful
decisions in the church. Already the Karmanof have gained the respect and
the love of the whole church. To me all this is very exciting : I see God
using them powerfully to bring many Non-Christians, and, Lord willing, I
see one day Sergey becoming an elder.

A LEADERSHIP WITH A LOCAL IMPACT AND A GLOBAL VISION
I am more and more encouraged to see how the leaders of the Voronezh church
grow in their abilities and faith. The 14 Th of November they made the
courageous, wise and unanimous decision to finally disfellowship Dima
Kossaref. As you already know, this brother had not only made a scandal in
the church, but he was not willing to recognize a single mistake he has
done in all this. That in itself is not at all the problem, but rather the
fact that he was still wanting to get contact with others and was spreading
all sorts of false rumors to destroy the unity of the church.
The leaders are getting a larger vision of The Church by their trips :
Vladick spent few days in Rostov on the Don ( over 300 miles south of
Voronezh ) and came back with all sorts of usefull new ideas and
friendships. He met as well one brother from the Lipitsk Church, a very
small group of 6 Christians that is 60 miles from us: they are struggling
and look for any encouragement. Volodia as well spent many days in Moscow (
about 300 miles north of Voronezh ), where he got to renew his friendship
with another Volodia, one of the 2 Russian men who started to work full
time for the Moscow Church. What is interesting is that both Volodias come
from the same region in Siberia, which is over 3000 miles away ! Truly we
are one brotherhood in Christ ! I personally consider these frienships
beetwen Russian leaders to be extremely crucial to the work and the future
of the Church in European Russia. In fact, in cooperation with the Moscow
Church, we have decided to organize a one or 2 days meeting for all the
Russian leaders/workers. It will take place just before the Europeen
seminar for all the churches in May, so that the maximum amount of persons
can participate.

ECONOMICAL SITUATION IN RUSSIA
It seems that in wealthier cities like Moscow and St Petersbourg the
economical crisis has hit harder and quicker than anywhere else. Places
like ours have started to slowly feel the impact. There is less and less
products on the central market. Foreign imported products are becoming
harder to find. Most analysts are predicting the most difficult winter for
Russia since the dark days of the 80' and 90' before the perestroika.
The State Statistic Committee came out with a raft of depressing statistics
on October 19. Inflation reached 38.4 percent in September. Real wages have
fallen 26.7 compared to August--the biggest drop since January 1995. Real
wages fell 12.4 percent from January to September of this year, as compared
to the same period in 1997.
Meanwhile, 44.3 million Russians, or 30.1 percent of the population, fell
under the minimum living standard in September, as compared to 32.8
million, or 22.3 percent of the population in August.
The overall trend is getting worse every month.

THE POOR:
We want to thank you from all our hearts for all of you who have
contributed toward helping the poor; already the money has been used for
various needs in the church, from buying medecine or food to free gifts to
the needy. I will give you a detailed report of this in the next issue.

CHURCH MEMBERS STOCK POTATOES
Yves has a good relationship with a company that is subsidized by the Swiss
government and which goal is to help some local Russian farmers in their
productivity. This Swiss-Russian firm had this year a potatoes harvest that
was 4 times higher than all other farmers around, and with a quality that
was by far surpassing all other local production. Because of the quality
and the price I was offered ( 2 times cheaper than the local market ), I
was able to help the church members to literally buy "tons" of potatoes for
themselves. ( almost 2 tons ! ) You have to understand that for the
russians the potato is the most essential element of their food. For some
it is even the one indispensable means of survival when the winter gets
rough. Russians have to survive a long and harsh winter until the summer
brings back some fresh food on their tables. As far as the church is
concerned, we are now ready to hold a siege. I will even be able to help
any spontanous need arising since I have bought 3 times more potatoes for
myself !

WE GET SERIOUS ABOUT PRAYING
We noticed that whenever prayer annoncements are being made on Sundays the
members listen to them. The only problem is that it is all what they do !
They listen, pray with the person who mentionned them, and then forget
them. Unless the prayer request is of such a tragic or emotional nature as
to not be forgotten, it will come out of the heart as soon as it came in.
With time, Christians learn to think that their needs are not so important
as to be mentionned to all members, and even less on a consistant basis.
And what James said eventually becomes true : " You do not have, because
you do not ask ! " ( James 4:2 )
In the light of this problem, we decided to offer to all the members a
little thick journal in which they can write down the prayer requests that
are being announced to the whole church every Sunday. We hope this
innovation will turn into a habit that will completely change the Voronezh
Church. I believe that God will do miracles in our midst if we do pray with
faith and perseverance. Already we know that the Church in Rostov on the
Don had someone healed of blood cancer and even a paralized woman walk
because the saints persevered in their prayers.
Another idea came as well for people who have problems, but don't want the
whole church to know about it. In this case some or all the leaders make
themselves available at the end of the Sunday service to listen and pray
for the person right away on the spot. For instance last Sunday we had a
Non-Christian woman asking us in tears that we prayed for her marriage
because she was about to divorce and yet did not want to do so. This
eventually led to a Bible study.
The last inovation in the area of prayer is that we will have a "prayer
worship service" once a month. The preaching on that Sunday is short and
the theme, of course, is on prayer. At the end of the service we split the
whole assembly into small groups of 6-7 persons who pray together for about
an hour.That prayer worship service is always followed on the next Sunday
by a "Bring your neighbour day " and fellowship meal. What this means is
that if we want God to bring us visitors, we need to pray for visitors. I
find this to be an excellent evangelistic tool because people cannot pray
to have visitors without trying to bring some themselves !

 

PRAYER REQUET:
- we are now involved in the process of wanting to get federaly registrated
as a church, because the local authorities have always denied us such right
on a local basis. If we get this, we will be legal,  which means we will
have all the rights of a normal church ( to preach publicly, invite people
and teach children, have visas for foreigners, etc... )
Please pray eanestly for this registration !