On Valentine’s Day weekend Roman and his wife Tanya, along with Victor and Luke headed north to “Light to the World” Church in Plastun. We planned to do a little bit of outreach to the community and some encouragement to the congregation as we wrote in news letter Feb 2004 >>>>>.
 

Vladivostok Calvary Chapel with help of Friends church (LA), Russian Bible Society and others  had bought 310 kg of food to take and got about 200 kg of other stuff (New testaments, video cassettes, flyers, equipment. The plan was for the team to hand out bags of rice, sugar, oil, butter, pasta, and a Gideon’s New Testament to the poorest families in town. Also, an exciting, new Christian movie called “The Climb” was going to be shown two times over the weekend.
 

Through the mercy of God we arrived safely after driving on bad roads for nine hours.
 

The brothers and sisters in Plastun were waiting for us when they arrived. After all the greetings everyone got busy separating the bulk items into evenly distributed amounts in forty bags. Everybody had good fellowship that night and went to bed late.

The next morning the church and the visitors from “Life in the Word” separated into four teams and distributed the bags of food to Plastun’s neediest families. Many people appreciated the gifts and listened to the Gospel with open hearts. Some people even started to cry. They had asked for help from the local government but had been refused. Now, total strangers had come a long distance to provide them with food and the Good News. There were many opportunities to pray for healing and salvation. The Holy Spirit filled the team members with boldness and blessed all of those who participated.

Sorry you see too many pictures with Roman (we had camera only in one of the 4 groups, Luke took all the pictures)

That night people came to the Yaraslavna cultural house to see “The Climb.” Everybody enjoyed it very much and many interested people asked questions afterwards. It was a good time for the church to introduce itself to the townspeople, tell them the Good News, and invite them to come to church. Later on, Roman and Luke had fellowship with a family from the church while Tanya and Victor stayed at the house and spoke with some new members. It was a good time of teaching and encouragement for the Plastun church members and the Vladivostok leaders.

More visitors came to see the movie that night. About 60 people. It was a very effective ministry that made a lot of people reflect on their lives and to think about redemption. The congregation again had time afterwards to talk to people and have fellowship, this time around a cup of tea and pieces of chocolate. The technician at the cultural house said that a much more popular movie was recently played by a government organization, but that nobody attended. It seems God was working on the hearts of many people to bring them to the movie that night.

On Sunday Roman, Tanya, Luke and Victor were surprised and pleased to see all of the new members that the small church had gained. God is definitely at work in the town, and the proof could be seen in the size of the congregation that morning. Luke preached about how the church members were children of the light living in a dark place, and that their duty was to shine for God. After a large lunch provided by one of the sisters, the team from Vladivostok rested and prepared for the movie’s second showing.