Sixteen years...

...years ago today, November 2, 1999, we stepped off the plane in Siberia with our almost two year old daughter and less suitcases than I wanted to bring to start our lives as missionaries. Russia has changed so much in the time we have been here that we can hardly believe we are serving in the same country after all these years. 

We thank the Lord for showing Himself faithful to our family time after time. 

We thank Him for safety and protection through the years. 

We thank Him for the many souls saved and lives changed.

We thank Him that He is not finished with us. 

It is our prayer that we would continue to see much fruit here in the field where He has us. 

Please pray with us, in this coming year of our ministry,  that the Lord would provide a piece of land or building to be used as a meeting place for our church.

To our supporting friends and churches, thank YOU for your faithful prayers and support of our ministry. 

We count it a privilege to represent you in Siberia, Russia.

She's Home!

I am still working without my laptop since it has been in the shop now for a month, therefore, I have very limited amounts of photos to share right now on Sundays for our Photo of the Week post.

We are reposting this stock photo of a Ssang Yong truck as our Photo of the Week to let everyone know that our truck is home! The new engine was installed with an added blessing of labor costs being less than we expected. We are so thankful for those of you who prayed for God to provide for this need. As we mentioned in the last update, a gift was sent to our family and we were able to use that money to pay for the service and purchase of an engine for our truck. The giver had no idea ofour need. :) This past week we were able to get a new windshield installed as well.  Roads which are often dirty with pebbles and debris and the lack of mud flaps on trucks make for seriously abused windshields!

We are so thankful to have our truck running again. The weather changed the next week after we were able to pick it up. We now have snow on the ground and strong winds as winter is blowing in. It is a tremendous blessing to have a strong engine in the car that actually allows us to accelerate uphill!

Warm and Toasty!

In this post I wanted to update you all about the need we had for a newer and updated heating system in the old house we used to live in which we now use for Sunday school classes. We asked you all to pray for the Lord to provide this need.

We are happy to report that the following month our regular support was enough for us to be able to take care of this need! We were very grateful for your prayers as we were able to purchase all of the necessary items to put together the heating system and get it up and running within a week or two.

As the process began, it was quite the mess!

Eventually, we were able to clear out the area where the old stove stood and move the stove we had first purchased to heat our new house into it's place. We plan on painting the bricks to make the are look more finished. But, just getting to this point and removing all the old bricks was a giant step completed!

For those of you who might be curious, we then go to a store like this one pictured below where they sell lots and lots of parts to piece together a radiator system which will carry heated fluid from the stove all throughout the house. 

This system will be similar to the heating system in our new house but, only much less complicated.

A trip to this store with my hubby always makes me proud of my husband as he knows exactly what he needs and is able to express himself to the store clerks. When you are ready to "order" your items, they scan the product numbers and send those numbers on to the warehouse where you pick them up once you have paid for them.

My husband choosing the parts we need to build the heating system.

So, once you have made your purchases, you take it all home and feel like a kid again with a new Lego set.

Finally, you are ready to put the pieces together.

This is the emergency air pressure release tank (red), gauges, and electric pump
to pump the fluid through the pipes (green).

We put in four radiators under four windows at this point. We might add one more at a later time.

(Please forgive the torn wallpaper in the pics which had to be removed in order to remove mold damage after we moved out of the house and before we started using it for our Sunday school ministry.)

This is the main room of the house where we hold SS classes.

As you can see, wallpaper is pretty close to the top of the "to do" list for the old house!

Once the pipes were all connected, the radiators prepared and connected to the pipes, and the system was checked for leaks, we were ready for a Sunday morning!

Thank you for praying! 

All is working well and the kids are very thankful for a warmer place to gather and learn about God's Word!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I have always loved Thanksgiving. I love being in church and hearing testimonies of what God has done and is doing in other people's lives. Here, in our ministry, there are very few times I am able to be in the services due to me being the SS teacher. So, when I am able to sit in the services every now and then on Wednesday nights (if extra curricular schedules conflict and keep my teen girls away from their discipleship lessons with me), I love hearing our church family share something from what they read in their devotions or watch the "light bulb" come on when they understand a truth from God's word.
This past Sunday my husband shared that during the am service they went around the room and shared what each of them are thankful for. Here were a few of their comments:

Lady #1: "I am thankful that for the first time in our family, we have peace among us."

Lady #2: " I am thankful that I have a God who cares about me and is there for me. When I need to make a decision He is there for me." (this dear lady accepted Christ this past summer and is the newest Christian who attends our services!)

Man #1: "I am thankful for my salvation, that we even had the opportunity to accept Christ as our Savior."

What a blessing to hear them share their hearts and be thankful! We praise the Lord for YOU, those of you who prayerfully and financially support our family and ministry so that we can have the wonderful privilege of sharing the gospel with souls on the other side of the globe. God is good!

A Reason to Celebrate

Today, November 2nd, 2014 is a special day for our family as it marks 15 years of serving the Lord on the mission field of Siberia, Russia. It is truly hard to believe we have been here for that long!

I put together this slide show to share with you many of the blessings we have witnessed over the years. 

God is GOOD!

We would like to express our sincere appreciate to those of you who have prayed, given, encouraged, and loved us along the way. 

We truly could not have stayed here this long without you holding the ropes for us!

We look forward to many more years and many more blessings. 

We have so many dreams, hopes, and wishes that we beg God to allow us to see come to fruition here in Siberia. 

Please pray for us as we continue on in His name.

Long story short...

The long story short is...we are back in Russia! We are very happy to be back in the swing of the ministry here. Please forgive the extended "break" in blog updates. I have to say losing all my photos, no thanks to Google +,has really made catching up the blogs almost overwhelming. In the States, we thought we would have time to update the blogs but the lack of consistent internet connection made that very difficult.

So, here we are already back from furlough and still have lots of catching up to do!

Packing up a church van to get our family and luggage to the airport!

Even though furlough is quite costly for our family because of travel expenses, we were very thankful for the opportunity to return to the US and be spiritually refreshed.  I hope to share some highlights from our furlough on my personal blog, (http://www.whitherthougoest.blogspot.com). We have a wonderful time as a family and made lots of memories. 

We unloaded the van, said goodbye to the driver who was a guy from our church, and we were off!

As for our much needed increase in financial support, every new church we presented our ministry in, promised to take us on! We did see some decrease in our support once we returned to the States and began calling for meetings in already supporting churches, so please pray with us that all of this new support will come in. 

Felt sort of strange with no family to see us off since David's parents moved to Arizona and we fly out of Seattle.

We also still have need of a new vehicle for use on the field. We strongly desire to begin again our village outreach ministry and need a newer and more dependable four-wheel drive vehicle to be able to make these trips out away from the city where the road conditions often give a whole new meaning to the word "extreme"! Please be in prayer for this need.

We were all happy to be settled in for the long flight and done packing!

We covet your prayers as we continue in the ministry here in the village of Elita. We have already seen some spiritual growth in Christians who have been saved during our ministry. Some who had walked away from church and the Lord have come back and are now excited to live for Him! We look forward to sharing those stories with you in the coming weeks. Others, for whom we have continued to pray, are still lost and searching to fill that void in their lives that only a relationship with God can fill. We continue to witness to them. We would like to tell you more about them as well. There is much work to be done and many lost souls to reach!

Landing in Moscow.

One blessing we do not ever want to take for granted is the open arms which were waiting for us upon our return to the village. Praise the Lord, we were missed! 

The "welcome sign" the teen SS class had made for us to welcome us home!