salvation stories

Jesus is moving in the hearts of people here!  He is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and truth.  the sunday before last, one of the ladies that comes to our fellowship, alyona, brought her cousin's daughter to church. (yeah, it was bring-an-obscure-relative-to-church day ) who was visiting from st. petersburg, russia.  the girl, katya, was very open to the Lord and afterwards came up to pray to receive Jesus!  we gave katya a kid's Bible and also a regular New Testament to get to know her Savior.  please be praying for her.  she is only 11 years old and her parents are VERY anti-christian.  fortunately, her grandparents (who also live in st. pete's) are open to God, so hopefully they will be able to take katya to a church there.  there are a couple calvary chapels in st. pete's that we want to try to hook them up with.  she's heading back at the end of summer.

alyona with one of her daughters, lada (left) and katya (right)

also, last night alyona brought a couple ladies, nina and natasha (both mid/late 40's i'd guess), to our mid-week Revelation study (way to go, alyona, you're on a roll!).  nina is the landlady of the building alyona rents for her second hand store, and natasha is nina's.... godmother?  obscure relative?  (there's a lot of those in ukraine )  we were in the part of Revelation 12 where it talks about satan being the accuser of the brethren.  the word there is not just someone who is mudslinging, but rather a formal word used of a prosecutor in court.  and its not that he's making up accusations... he's right!  he's bringing the case against us, our sins, before God, the Judge.  and the fact is, we are guilty!  but we went on to the good news that there is also a defense lawyer in the court hall, our Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous (I Jn. 2:1) who by His wounds, without saying a word, justifies all who trust in Him.  at the end of the study i gave an invitation to receive the Lord and these 2 ladies both prayed to receive Jesus as the one who justifies the ungodly! (Rom. 4:5)  please pray for them to be rooted and grounded in grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and to begin reading their new Bibles.  between the two of them, they've got 3 sons (all roughly my age) who are very far away from the Lord and allowing satan to destroy their lives.  one of them, sasha, from everything nina told me, may even be possessed.  please pray for God to miraculously get a hold on these young men and give them new life.  thanks!

oh, and i couldn't resist putting in a pic of my favorite girlies both in yellow... like little sunflowers!

note: if you have not seen planet earth you MUST watch it!  every time i watch it, my heart just begins to worship at seeing all the beauty, variety and power of God's creation.  amazingly well filmed, edited and scored (and surprisingly rarely does is mention evolutionary propaganda... though it is there)