Usually the summer in Russia is a quiet time for most churches. Their members are all busy working in their dachas and gardens. Many of them grow vegetables that they will put up and eat during the long Russian winter. Many work long hours outside to do all the work they cannot do during the winter. Many students leave town to go back to the villages where their parents live or take the rest they need. So usually church attendance is low and everyone relaxes.

As the elders of our supporting congregations visited us in April, they agreed with us that Alexander Anochin ( Sasha ), one of our team members needed to change some very specific things in his behavior in order to work well within the team. Unfortunately, Sasha did not show a willingness to improve anything, but he only resisted more. Thus, unfortunately, because of this, we were forced to decide that he could no longer be a full time worker on the team. We gave him the opportunity to choose any preaching school he wanted to go to, with the purpose to increase his Bible knowledge, to work alongside other missionaries, and so come back to us well experienced after that period of training. We thought that this could be the best way to protect the church and protect Sasha's reputation and future. But Sasha did not see it this way. Instead, he bitterly tried to divide the church with so many misrepresentations that we had no other choice but to explain everything to everyone. Many were shocked and confused, but eventually all saw the truth for themselves. Sasha has left the church with one other person, his girl-friend, and has accepted a position as the preacher in a denomination. Of course, as you can imagine, we as leaders went through some extremely difficult times emotionally. But we all grew in some deep convictions: the first one is that we need to be humble before each other because it is hard for any of us to see our own sins. We so badly need each other. The other is that we need to always be absolutely honest both with each other and with ourselves. The truth is the very foundation of our unity, because nothing can destroy the church more than lies and hypocrisy.

The first one is that we baptized the youngest person ever in the church here: Igor Karmanov who is 13 years old. He is the son of Sergey Karmanov who was baptized almost a year ago. We have very few teens or children in our church because we are still not registered and therefore do not have the right to teach any children except our own. We know that once we get officially recognized by the local authorities, we will have the opportunity to have a blooming children ministry.

The second record is that we baptized Zhenia, a student of German language at the University. So far, she is the person that has taken the longest time from the moment she started coming to the church until she was baptized. Exactly one year. But it is so encouraging to see how she slowly opened up to be now a sister who has many relationships in the church.

-Volodia, Oksana and Paulina have gone to a one week school of singing in the nearby city of Donetsk in the Ukraine. They came back with new songs and ideas about how to improve our service. One of them is to have a quartet sing the 4 part harmony of each song that the congregation will sing on Sundays. This way we will be able to give an opportunity to all to find their voice and dramatically improve the quality of our singing. I really look forward doing this.

- We now have regularly at least half a dozen deaf people who regularly come to our Sunday service. We have already 2 persons who can translate, so this group is likely to grow with us. In fact we now have begun to have many seekers who have gone to some denominations where they are not satisfied. One of them told us recently : " I was very impressed by the love I saw in your church. In that Baptist church where I went I was told that television is an instrument of the devil ( deaf people communicate visually, so try to take that away ! ). Many members now feel comfortable in approaching them because it is at first not so easy to communicate if one does not sign. But a warm hug often speaks louder than anything else !