RUSSIAN MINISTRY NEWS LETTER: August 1999

Dear Friends,

Christian greetings from Russia!

I would like to give you a hint to help your prayers to be more specific by bringing a summary of a recent survey "What Do Russians Fear?" made by "Moscow Tribune". The survey conducted by Prof. Vladimir Shlapentokh (Michigan State University) and Russian sociologist Prof. Vladimir Shubkin found that Russians today are more fearful than ten years ago. Russians fear poverty most and feel completely uncertain and helpless about their future.

Lawlessness, unemployment, crime and corruption are the greatest sources of anxiety. Many worry about ecological disasters, chemical and radiation poisoning and epidemics. A lesser number fear nuclear weapon proliferation. In general, the level of anxiety is extremely high.

Ninety percent state that the earnings from their primary job are not enough to provide a satisfactory standard of living. Thus, 70 percent grow foodstuffs on their own land. Seventy percent are prepared to endure suffering.

Unfortunately, the spirit of fear is very strong in religious life also. Orthodox church uses widely the mass media impressing fear upon people, threatening them with sects. Today the majority of population thinks that any non-Orthodox church is wrong and dangerous. There are nationalists who are even preaching that for being Russian one must be an Orthodox and if a person do not belong to the Orthodox Church he is "sectant".

Throughout the 20th century Russian people became tired of being deceived so many times. First, the communists promised them a bright future which appeared to be just a "soap bubble". Then many people were promised a rapid raise of the economy. After the latest crisis of August 1998 the standard of living became very low for most of the families in Russia. Many people are filled with fear and perplexity. Thus, it's even hard for them to believe the Gospel. They want to see something more real than just words.

Praise God that as Christians we can live without fear leaning on the Lord and His promises! We are trying to build bridges to the community and serve people. One of them is the humanitarian help distribution.

Recently we gathered over a 110 needy people and preached them the Gospel. Most of them responded the salvation prayer, but only 2 of them came to the church again because somebody spread a rumor that we are a bad sect... Shortly after that meeting the city officials called us and said that we are not supposed to do this on their premises (we are renting the city's house of culture). Now they want us to leave this place and look for something else.

We ask your prayer support for God's will to be done regarding the place for our church meetings, for the devil's plans to be destroyed and for the spirit of fear and religion to be bound.

We appreciate very very much your help and your prayers.

Thank you! We also regularly pray for you.

With love in Christ,

Andrew revival@centro.ru
"Fakel Union" http://geocities.datacellar.net/fakel_union/main.html