Eastern Europe and Russia

In January 14 staff from our HR team went to Turkey to attend the Eastern Europe and Russia staff conference.  While they were there to meet with our U.S. Staff and their families, there were some very encouraging stories of God working.  It’s not an easy part of the world for ministry.  A common theme was perseverance.  Another theme was trying something new.

Expedition Teams are composed of young (and energetic!) staff and interns who move into a city for one month, looking for believers who can be equipped to start of movement.  This region has 20 countries and even more languages and cultures.  An estimated 71% of the people in this region do not know anybody who truly follows Jesus-so how are they going to get to know Jesus for themselves?  the region has a goal of having a presence on 300 campuses, but are only on 100 of those.   Expedition Teams are working to change that! 

Volgograd Russia:  A student said, “I want to be a part of something bigger, I had been praying for revival.”  An expedition team was surprised and encouraged to learn that God had prepared this student and 3 others to form a team.  Now they are having weekly team meetings and doing weekly evangelism.  They have already exceeded their first year goal of sharing the gospel with 300 people.

Poland:  A pastor said he had been praying for a long time for somebody to come to help reach the campus in his city.  After a month of working with an Expedition Team of Polish staff, they have a partnership between that church and believing students to work together to reach the campus.

Ukraine:  Matthew, a student from a team from San Luis Obispo, CA explained that it is challenging to find English speaking students in Ukraine.  But they found that many believes in an African Ukranian church did speak English.  And so Calvin, a Nigerian living in the Ukraine is now a key volunteer after being trained by a team from CA.  Calving said, “Evangelism is the clothes that I wear, the air that I breathe.”

Thank you for investing in our family, and in the ministries in Eastern Europe and Russia!

With much love,