I had an opportunity to pray with a friend of mine in his shop.  I asked him if I could pray for him, his worker neighbor’s shop, and his shop.  I asked him if I could pray aloud.  He said yes and I began to pray – it was simple but I just asked that the Father would bless him, his shop, and those customers would come and that the Father would show himself to him.  Fifteen minutes later several customers came in and within 15 minutes he made a sale – this was very important he had not had much business – in fact the whole time I had sat there with him before not one single customer came into his shop. When I got ready to leave my friend said you can’t go, you must stay – God has accepted your prayer, he must really love you.  (I have had spiritual conversations with him before and I have said before that I am praying for him – in fact I have made it a habit to let him know that I am praying for him as I am leaving his shop.)

Recently I had occasion to meet a new friend, he’s a businessman and after we had concluded our business, he went to a file cabinet and removed an Incil, he showed it to me and asked if someday we could talk about it. I said of course I would be happy to, he smiled broadly as he showed me that he had read up to 1st Cor. He was quite pleased with himself, and I encouraged him to continue on. We agreed to meet three days later in his office. We met and used the time to get to know each other better. It turns out that my new found friend and I had some mutual acquaintances, two of our own that some years earlier had spoken with him…they have since moved to other cities (small world isn’t it).
Anyway, again we see how God ensures that His work continues…we prayed together, talked some more, my friend showed me pictures of his family, wife and two children. He mentioned his wife had a business in a nearby town and he encouraged us to also visit with her, which we did that afternoon. Before leaving him we agreed to meet again, my friend said he had some questions. I suggested he write down five questions and we could discuss them at our next meeting, he said how about 10, was that ok, I said sure but maybe we would need to go slowly and answer each question before we moved to the next one. He agreed.  So here we are after a long period of waiting.  My friend is ready to continue his journey… one sows, another reaps.  Praise God!

This month I got to share truth with my friend Kam* at the fitness center I attend.  She has been reading the New Testament that another worker had given her, and she told me that it was confusing to her. She thinks it was changed because of all the miracles that Jesus was recorded doing. She also thinks it is strange that we believe that Jesus is God. I was able to tell her that for her to understand the significance of all this, she needed to start with reading the Old Testament.  She was shocked that Christian believers read the OT, and wanted a copy.  It seems that she feels it is more reliable. I told her that to understand our need for a Messiah, she needed to read it.  I marked some passages for her to read, Genesis and passages from Isaiah. When she asked me what I thought of her religion, I said, “Honestly, I feel that people of her religion are working very hard to earn Heaven. But are those works enough to cover our sins?”  She said, “It is not enough.” I told her, “Now you know why we need a Messiah, a sacrifice.”
I look forward to more conversations with her.

One day I was spending time with Marie*, and the topic of prayer came up in our conversation. I said that despite everyone’s desire to be heard by God, He will not hear because of sin (Isaiah 59:1,2). That caught her interest and so she said that she wanted to learn what the Bible says. About a week later we studied about sin and the Old Testament prophecies of Christ and how he would deal with sin. Then we continued on to the New Testament also referring to a book about the “Good News.” After our time together she said, “To be honest with you, I grew up in the ways of our culture’s dominant religion, but I really want to learn of yours.” We agreed to meet until we finish the study.

For the past year, we have visited the abandoned children’s unit at the local hospital. We feel this is part of giving back to the community in which we live, and in a way, a tithe of our time to the community. We include prayer each time we visit with the children and the workers. The children were all from the people group that we have been called to share with when we started the visits as well as some of the workers. Today, one of the workers told us that she had noticed that since we have been visiting and praying with the children, more of them had been placed in good homes. We think this is a praise that she recognized prayer as the reason for the change. It is amazing how God chooses to reveal Himself in situations.

Living in the Former Soviet Central Asian Republics has never been easy for the poor, but a new report conducted by Freedom House lists two Central Asian countries as some of the worst of the worst. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have long been known for their violation of basic human rights.

Paula Schriefer of Freedom House say “In these countries, regimes control the daily lives of citizens by denying them basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of belief.”

Uzbekistan is home to some of the least-reached people in the world, the Meshketian Turks.

Pray that justice would take place and the corrupt rulers of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan would be removed.

Pray for the governments to govern uprightly and without taking bribes.

Pray for the Christians in these countries to have the boldness to honor and bless their government officials despite the persecution and corruption which makes their lives very difficult.

US President Barak Obama is under pressure to increase drone bombing into Pakistan’s heavily-populated city of Quetta according a Times Online article.

Quetta is the captial of the Baluchistan province.  The Baluch people are some of the least-reached people with the gospel in all of Central Asia.

Pray that the gospel would spread in Quetta’s marketplaces and side streets.

Pray that God would have mercy on the people of Quetta and protect them from this bombing raid until they have a chance to hear the Good News.

When you finally are able to get into Russia and secure a year-long visa a praise of thanks goes up to Heaven — the first of many! You’ve already had to jump through a lot of hoops just to be able to stay and now face the challenges of actually living in a foreign country.Learning the local language is a priority and forming relationships with nationals is required to maintain some sanity as well as develop language skills! Looking back on their first year of life in Russia, with all of the ups and downs, one family sums up their experience saying,

“I remember a quote from the greatest quarter back to ever play professional football and it’s what I think ‘almost’ every day we’re here.

It was said during the last few minutes of a very close superbowl game when Brett Farve was leading his team down the field for a last second victory. They were in the huddle on a fourth down and long. Everyone in that huddle stressed and worried about the outcome of the next most important few second of their lives.

When Brett leans in, ready to give what could be the last play of the biggest game of their season and most of their lives, says, ‘Guys can you believe they pay us to do this!’ It was typical Brett Favre humor but his point was perfectly made and the same rings true for me each day we do what we’ve been called and blessed to be able to do here. We love it here and count it a true blessing each day.

We thank each of you for all the time you’ve spent over us in the past 365 days and we know it’s because of your prayers and His hand of protection that we’ve had such a blessed year.”