Message from Volodia
Karlinski:
Dear Brothers and
Sisters,
This year was very fruitful both
for the church and for me personally. God has blessed us in many ways. A
few have been baptized, and some of them have great potential to be leaders
like for instance, Andrey Lubutzin. As you know, our church was registered and
that has given us many rights. Now we can freely and legally evangelize, invite
foreigners, etc... ( for the
first time Frank Chappell came to us with a one year visa that was
issued because of our church invitation. )
Another encouraging thing for me
was small prayers groups, which we now have regularly. As a rule, we leaders and
any other willing people meet every morning, and it helps us to become more
disciplined as well. God has already answered our many prayers. Until recently
we had mostly young people and those of middle age. But now we are having more
and more older people. It started with Tanya Griebenova's mother. She
was baptized today the 2 nd of January by Frank Chappell in a very
emotional ceremony. With tears in her eyes, she thanked the Lord for
His patience toward her ( she is 72 years old ) and was very eager to be
relieved of her burden of guilt. She has already brought to the Church several
of her neighbors and friends. One older couple ( Natalia and Mitrophan
) are very special. They both are very sick and have serious
problems in their family ( their 2 sons are alcoholics; they often get
drunk and beat their old parents ) They live very far from the church
meeting place, but in spite of all this they never have missed a worship service
in the last 7 weeks. Natalia has told me that when she was feeling very sick,
she would ask God to help her to get to the Church and He did help her every
time ! That is a good lesson for those who often "don't feel good" and use that
as an excuse for not coming to the services. Our 2 brothers, Volodia Skritski
and Sergey Karmanof are successfully moving toward their future eldership. They
are becoming more and more mature and confident.
This year was probably the most
difficult one for this Church. The problems with one particular member hurt
all of us very much, but now I can see how God has used all this for our
good. Unfortunately, unfaithfulness will appear in the church from time to time,
and we need to know how to deal with it.
We had a special worship service
on the 26 Th of December and it was very encouraging; we had more than
75 people. Thank you for all of you who have sent the theater pieces.
We performed a special play for the season and it was very well received by the
members and visitors. We have been invited to repeat the performance in
homes for the elderly and an orphanage.
Last year, the Lord did
great things in His Church,
and I believe He will do even more in this year.
Thank you very much for your
prayers and support.
In Christ,
Volodia