Besides leading Bible studies and preaching sermons that encouraged everyone, they greatly helped spiritually and financially most members of the church.

Then our sisters Jan and Margaret came for the VBS (Vacation Bible School) for their seventh year ! It is amazing how they love children ! One of their suitcases got lost on the way, in which they had all of their craft materials for the kids. At first they were upset, but they immediately started to think about what to do. Try to imagine how creative they had to be in order to compensate the lost ! Our sisters Natasha and Zhenia helped them to come up with new stories and buy new material. They succeeded - all the crafts were beautiful, even though made of very simple materials.

We had 2 groups - one for little kids (for instance Yann, the first son of the Perriards and Liza, the daughter of the Karlinski attended this group), and one for the teenagers. Everyone liked our two American teachers, especially their generosity: Kids were coming home everyday with new toys and presents !

After the VBS, we kept on having Bible classes for teenagers, and we have a growing number of teens coming. Igor Karmanov, who is the 15 year old son of one of our elders, has taken the responsibility of teaching them. (He got some experience while translating the Americans).

A new young man named Dennis started to come to our Church. It was very good to see his deep interest in the Bible right at the first worship service that he attended. Volodia Karlinski has already had a few Bible studies with him, and he is close to baptism now. He is a student in the medical school.

A group of Christians went out on the streets to evangelize. We had our praise team singing joyful songs and brothers distributing tracts and New Testaments. We preached the Good News to the people who stopped by to listen to our singing, and we had some good conversations with a few of them. Some promised to come to Church. Among them was a young woman who had tried to commit suicide just before. There was another woman, whose brother in the US was praying for her to find a non-denominational Church. She was very glad to find the Church in Voronezh. We met a former military man who served in Chechnia. He asked many difficult questions, such as "Where was God when my friends were being killed?" We tried to answer and show him God's love.

This small outreach has greatly encouraged everybody. It has clearly shown us that there are many people whose hearts are open to the Good News, they just need to hear it.

Galina Ragozina, a non-Christian friend that most members know, called us very disturbed and asked that we seriously prayed for her son. He had suddenly gotten sick with a strange and dangerous sickness which was unknown to the doctors. He was in the intensive care with an artificial kidney connected to him. Because he was in a condition between life and death, we immediately started to pray .

The next day, a few of our brothers and sisters came to the hospital to visit him. He was laying flat on his bed, and could hardly move. At first he did not want us to pray over him because he had heard at school bad reports against protestant churches. In fact he had always been opposed to our church, and even threatened his mother of leaving home if she kept on coming to our services. We went in another room and prayed for him. Then Volodia came back and encouraged him with stories about faith in God. He eventually smiled, and his mother said that it was the very first smile he had since he became sick.

Then, the next day was his birthday. Our brother Vladick and a few sisters came to congratulate him. They made funny costumes for themselves with paper hats and red noses , and came right to his room with a bunch of balloons. If only you could have seen his face ! What a surprise ! There was a lot of fun there, and at the end he looked much better. They prayed for him again and in the end he even said "Amen". When the doctors made their tests, they were amazed at the speed in which he recovered. At first they said he would have to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks, but then they said he could be out in a few days. Praise the Lord! We pray that Galina and him clearly see God's hand in all this and that they make the decision to become Christians.