I am excited to write to you in the beginning of the studying semester
for Odessa students and us – missionaries on the student field. WE effectively started this semester all together – our team of seven
people. This is the first time in past few years when everyone has enough financial
support to do this. So we thank God and thank you for letting us serve full
time.
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| Our team from left to the right - Lena and Zhenya, me Tanya and Dima, Natasha and Artem |
I want to share our joy with you. Recently we had a baptism at our
Church – Holy Trinity Evangelical church. Two people out of four who got baptized
came to know the Lord through CRU ministry among the students.
Alyona and Sasha (the ones to the right) came to our English club a few
years ago.
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| Sasha |
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| Alyona's baptism |
Four years ago Sasha was graduating from the university. He came to our
English club and invited his friend, Denis. Sasha was quite skeptical about
Christianity, but Denis received Christ and joined our ministry.
Denis continued to share his faith with Sasha who attended church and
our campus meetings from time to time. Now, four years later, Sasha got
baptized. Please pray for him – soon he is going on a few month long shift on a
ship.
Alyona is also one of those students who needed a long time to come to
Christ. She has been coming to CRU meetings for about year but she always
insisted that there was no God. For students like Alyona it is especially
important to be able to continue having personal relationships with believers.
At a camping trip that was organized by our students two years ago she trusted
Christ with her life.
In the beginning of the semester we had a meeting with our student leaders
and we were thinking what would be the best way to engage freshmen students in
our movement. We decided to have few events in the row organized for them specifically.
Students tend to be around those who they meet their first days on campus. And
those people will influence them in future. We really want and pray that we would
be the ones who they meet right away and they get involved in activities held
by Christians.
We want Jesus Christ influence them from the beginning, transform
them and make an eternal impact on their lives.
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| iStudent party |
That is why we organized a party for freshmen of different universities of Odessa. Next day we had an excursion around Odessa for them and on the third day we invited them to play paintball with us. God gave us a chance to meet 60 new students from major universities of Odessa.
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| A lot of guys showed up |
Please pray:
- For these 60
students assimilate in the movement and keep coming to our further events for them.
May they have a spiritual hunger as well and have an accessible heart to the Good
News.
-First two weeks
of October we will have an English Club. Please pray for Americans that are
willing to come and serve here (support, airfare etc) and pray that we would
have at least 100 students who will have an interest to come to our EC.
- Pray for our student leaders. May they have wisdom to plan their time and participate in the movement wholeheartedly. May God bless them with spiritual disciples.
Pray
at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the
word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ (Col.4:3)
Thank
you for your input to the student Ministry in Odessa
