Her eyes shone with joy

Inna shared this testimony with me recently about a breakthrough in the life of one of the people she ministers to.

Kate is a young Christian woman, who lives most of the time in another country. She attended our church recently, and a friend advised her to contact me. After a serious illness she became debilitated. At an overseas hospital she received psychological and counseling help. 


Kate has a very serious and responsible approach to our sessions and quickly grasped the principles of prayer ministry. Because of the nature of traumatic events in childhood, she often can get distracted or switch the topic to current events in her life during our sessions. Improper rearing and abuse as a child led to a relationship with her mother in which Kate felt like a little kid, though she is responsible as an adult. 


During our first meeting, Kate said she was afraid of encounters with her mother during telephone conversations. But over time the Lord has consistently revealed the false beliefs associated with the relationship with her mother and replaced them with His truth. Now by her own testimony, Katie has more confidence in telephone conversations with her mother, and her mother has to reckon with Katya's beliefs. During the fifth session, Kate had an amazing revelation: she needed to ask the Lord to bless her into adulthood! After we prayed, her eyes simply shone with joy. I am grateful to God for the changes that are occurring in Katie's life and the chance to touch His glory!

Nastya about herself

Our new program "Orphans Reaching Orphans," and our small team of three (me, Nastya, and Inna) is off to a good and promising start. Today I translate Nastya's first letter about what she is doing and why it is important. I think you will appreciate hearing it first hand.

What is my job?

Our focus is to help graduates from orphanages.

Why them?

Everyone thinks that children are released from orphanages and they live like normal children, and they have everything you need to live. No. They do not live; rather they survive. As bad as the children's home is, they learn to live there, but when it is time to be released, they face an unknown future.

Adults who work in the orphanages work there to earn money, no more. One orphanage may have 1 or 2 people who genuinely care about these kids, loving them like their own children, investing themselves fully into them.You see what a little percent? And what about all the kids who do not get that love?

I myself grew up in three children's homes, and trust me, I know what I'm writing about, and I understand what the problems with graduates are. If these questions are not addressed, then it will be reflected not only in the people around them, at work, and in society as a whole. Many Graduates do not know how to:

• cook
• wash clothes
• care for themselves
• clean at home
• pay bills
• work
• manage their time
• make a budget
• buy food
• keep their word
• hold any moral principles
• help and give to others
• and much more

But the main thing is they need support, faith in them, love, and friendship.

The things I listed can be learned, but without someone to teach them to love, be a good friend, help others, believe in others, to trust, he will not live well, he will merely exist. They need someone they can come to, get advise from, to trust with any question, to share. With this kind of support we won't need to protect them against suicide or to visit them in prison. They need to know that there are people who need them, for whom they are important and valuable. Doing this is much more difficult and time consuming than learning those life skills above.

I'm not just talking hearsay; I live all of this; I understand how important this all is for them.

I have a girlfriend and one of them said to me, "If it weren't for you, then I would not know what to do." This she says just because I give her exactly what she really needs, in terms of friendship, relationship, love, fidelity, forgiveness, faith, accepting and valuing her as a person, and just time together. The best part is that this is how she acts with others. You see what can be done? What I do will be passed on to others, and it will be a huge help to orphan graduates as it spreads.At the outset I have 5 people who very much need this help, and thanks to you I can give them the maximum time possible. When I had my other job, I had no time, and I lost a favorite friend who died. It turned out she had needed a person who might respond to her at any time. Two other childhood friends of mine committed suicide because they were lonely and had too many problems that they couldn't resolve because they did not trust.

And there are many more like this.

They need us.

Learning to hear from God

One of my main goals personally while on vacation in France this summer was work on an independent study project I've started to learn how to hear God's voice better. The material I am using comes from Communion with God Ministries, which I have known about and promoted for years, but never actually did their basic course all the way through for myself.

And too bad! It is turning out to be a personal revolution in my spiritual life to learn how to do tow-way journaling with God. The author, Mark Virkler, is wonderful at helping left-brain skeptics like me work through all the million questions, biblical basis, personal doubts, and frustrations that come up as you go. There are answers!

The bonus is that I decided to try it with my kids during our daily devotional time, and the results blew me and Diana away. Lydia is naturally gifted spiritually, but she was very encouraged by some time she spent with God struggling with some personal fears and sense of loneliness. Simon, as the youngest, did very little writing, but since G

od uses pictures more than we realize, he got some awesome things to draw that really spoke to his heart. One was a picture of God cracking an egg open, representing Him bringing Simon into life as a baby. Simon felt God was showing him how special He had made him.

Kerith was the one who has been the most impacted. He loved to journal on a ladder to be "closer to heaven" and he made himself a "prayer box" to go with him when he journals.

For example, he had been struggling with feeling unforgiven for his sins, and God wiped that away with one remark and a picture he got about Jesus on the cross. Another couple of examples:

K: Lord, what do you think about and care about me?

G: You are a wise, clever, and beyoutefull boy, and i care deeply about you.

K: Wont you ever get bored in hevans?

G: Inposibill!!

The most amazing time of all had to to with Kerith's fear of bees, which was near comical. We would be sittin

g around eating outside, and a bee would come around. All of us were calm, but he would get so upset he would have to leave.

This conversation was at his own initiative, however.

K: Lord, can you take away my fear of bees?

G: Close your eyes.

[Kerith then reported that he felt a sort of internal vibration through his body.]

G: Hey, a bee landed on your shoulder.

[Kerith opens his eyes and actually sees a bee on his shoulder. He has no reaction, and the bee flies away.]

From this point on, Kerith became totally calm around bees.

I'd say there is power in hearing God's voice!

Refreshment from France

We had not taken a real and serious vacation since moving to Russia, so we were overdue. Ministry colleagues offered us a place of theirs in the small town of St. Aignan, France, so we took it, though not sure of all we were getting.

With no Internet, TV, or phone our lives were definitely different, but then change was welcome.

We lived in the top apartment of a 2-story house. The yard was perfect for us. Sun and shade with loads of fruit trees. Loads of bird activity, including a neighbor's chicken who took up residence for a couple of days. The kids named her Henny-Penny, and she seemed to enjoy the petting and attention.

Lyle had all 3 kids picking up fallen apples (small, hard green) and using them to practice their throwing arm in preparation for the baseball mitt use. Both boys have very good aim, and Kerith is proving quite accurate and fast. The long driveway was lined with high hedges and the property itself is quite secluded, as it seems all French residences are, so we felt like we were squirreled away from everything even though the neighbors were close by.
The big open porch on ground level housed a huge gas grill and large wooden table and chairs, which we had to take advantage of frequently.

Town life was simple. Store hours are very minimal, i.e. 4 hours/day for a local pub., so we wandered around armed with paper and pen to write down all the working hours of everyplace we need. The St. Aignan church and castle are impressive and the view of the Cher river beautiful. We walked about 13 min or so into town, but our main grocery was only about 5 minutes in the opposite direction.

Language: Diana picked up quite a bit, and the kids at the playground learned "Please, mister, would you push me?" (Lyle was swinging kids on a sort of maypole with handles.) There is very little English here, which has been only a minor hindrance. Armed with her Fr/Eng dictionary, she figured out practically everything. Of course expressing ourselves was another matter. We met our backdoor neighbors - Pierre + wife - who are g-parent age and friendly. We managed to communicate where we lived and how long we were to stay in town. Lots of smiles and nodding. They are avid gardeners, and our kitchen window overlooks their labors. Even gave us a huge zucchini as we were leaving and talked at us - amazingly friendly given our inability to talk back.

Outings: We really had very few: a big canoe trip one day and two days of visiting other towns and castles along the Cher river.

Really, this R &R is doing exactly what we needed -- to get away from Russian culture and give time to personal contemplation, prayer, and growth. We actively felt ourselves "healing up" and recharging our batteries.

Our spiritual growth individually and as a family was another blessing, which I will comment on in another post.

Retreat, Retrain, Regroup

After a year (for many in our counseling training group) of learning, practicing, and growing together, we decided it was time to get really serious, so we took of for 3 days for some intensive practice in the specific method of prayer ministry that we have been learning - theophostic prayer. Although not strictly counseling, and not mere prayer, I have used this approach in my counseling practice for many years with astounding results. My students are seeing similar results, and so their interest is far from abating.

One of us owns a dacha, or summer home, about an hour from the city and offered to let us use it for the weekend. It, like most such places, is a very simple house, with no running water or toilet, but that makes it all the more fun. It was a family event, sharing in cooking, cleaning, and fighting mosquitoes. And since Diana and Lydia were gone, the boys tagged along.

More pics from this event here.

Other than the great practice everyone got helping each other pray through difficult issues in their lives - and breakthroughs! - we also got to dig into reconciliation in a deep way. I kept hearing little conflicts, but nothing being done about them. So I started suggesting that the best path might be to talk things through. It went nowhere. Eventually, it got worse, so I called the attention of the entire group to it. What was happening was that two people (at that point) were in conflict, and nobody was doing anything. In loose group settings, maybe that's ok. But we are a tight group who minister weekly to deep places in each others' lives. To ignore what is happening in the group is disaster.

I had to keep proding, but after a while, they began to see that the problem belonged to them as a whole. So then I led a group discussion/teaching on biblical principles of reconciliation. I find that Russians can be really teachable, and the impact was significant. One woman was so hurt that she almost left because she had been so ignored, but now the group made a choice to minister to her, and the healing that came for everyone was powerful.

We capped it all off with a communion service and worship. Beautiful. That's what I live for.

Love Russia on Wheels

Through my work at MIR that I have often written about, I got to know a ministry out of England called Love Russia. Their heads, Alex and Jacqui Cooke, have been a real blessing to us in St. Petersburg through MIR, and more recently to our family. I'll tell you how.

Most of their work is about providing funds for specific purchases or physical projects at orphanages and other orphan related nonprofits or ministries. They are Christian, but often don't accent that in order to build relationships and favor. They had been working in the Ryazan region, south of Moscow for many years, but with the political climate changing, they have moved a lot of their emphasis to St. Petersburg, and our work here to orphans is the benificiary of their change. They don't have permanant staff on the ground, but rather come in periodically to find new projects to invest in, and to follow up on old ones. As such, MIR is a good partner organization, as it has the capacity to funnel funds, to build relationshiops with orphanage leadership, and to organize events and projects.

Our current project is a summer camp for orphans in foster care that MIR has organized for them, to take place in August in Estonia. ABout 50 Russian-speaking kids from Russia, as well as as many or more from Estonia and even Israel will be participating. Since Estonia is much more open to Christian ministry, the camp will be much more openly Christ-centered and evangelistic.

So what Love Russia does most of the time is raise funds for all these various projects, and hence the major bike trip that they organized recently, taking them from England, across Europe, all the way to Moscow. When the British Consulate here in St. Petersburg heard about it, they invited them and those associated with them to a tea at their consulate. The TV spot below takes place there, and you can see me in the yellow shirt. I'd never been but was impressed with the joint. It's like a little England in the midst of the city - clean, with English country gardens. The title of the spot, by the way, is "English bikers drink tea in Petersburg."

17:19 | 09.06.2011 Английские байкеры пьют чай в Петербурге В эти минуты в саду Генерального Консульства Великобритании пьют чай байкеры из Англии. Они участвовали в благотворительном российско-британском мотопробеге. Читать далее >>

Other pics from facebook on the event are here.

Alex and Jacqui are also the owners of the house that they have graciously offered to us for a summer vacation in France. We'll be there the whole month of July.

Neighborhood Clean-up

Just as the weather starts to turn tollerable for being outdoors each year (late April) a Soviet-era tradition kicks in. It brings the city back to life after the ugliness of "muddy season" when winter is melting away, leaving the accumulation of months of littering behind. We've participated in the last two, and it's really the best chance to get to know neighbors that are mostly reclusive or inclined to hang with their own otherwise. "Subbotnik" starts with raking leaves, planting plants, and picking up garbage, and ends with a shishkebab barbeque and, of course, drinking.

I got the kids going working on trash. Others raked leaves. Others helped us by standing around, but hey, it's Saturday. The day started at 11am. Work lasted two hours at the most, after which began the shaslik (shish-kebab) and drinking, which lasted until 1am that night. In these kinds of companies, drinking is pretty much mandatory. A habit I learned way back from living in Central Asia was to just take the minimum sip.

We have two special neighbors that make our subbotnik unusual:

Nadya (in the purple) brings the beauty to our courtyard. Her gift of love to the community through constant care and planting of new plants and flowers is a rare blessing in a country where public spaces are nobody's, so no one cares about them. During the course of the day, in speaking with Nadya, I learned that her husband had died way back in December. That's how embarrasingly out of touch I was. This was the very Valery that was the neighborhood drunk, who had such a special relationship with Lydia. The problem is that people don't go out much in the winter, so you don't notice when someone is gone. I still felt bad, though.

Sasha is the professional photographer who took the two group shots you see here. His great input for the day was in organizing games for the men. They did this strange stick throwing game that I could never fully understand that boys used to play back in the good old USSR.

As a professional, he and his family seem to enjoy our company more than anyone else here. I don't even fully get it, but he really wants to build a relationship with me

(he is to my right below). I take it as the favor of God, and hope I can be a good friend. Incidentally, it is their boy that Lydia tutors in English. BTW, her comments on the day are here.