Equmeniakyrkan Ljurhalla har en vänförsamling i Ryssland. Staden där vänförsamlingen finns heter Ryazan och ligger ca 200 km sydöst om Moskva. Ryazan har drygt 600.000 invånare och är grundad år 995, numer en militärstad och har varit stängd för utlänningar fram till 1991.
Vänförsamlingen i Ryazan är en baptistförsamling, Independent Baptist Church, som har drygt 100 medlemmar. Utbytet består av brevväxling, personliga kontakter och besök och att vi stöttar dem i deras sociala arbete bland barnhemsbarn och pensionärer.
1991 på hösten sände vi iväg den första hjälpsändningen till Ryazan och under flera år sände vi hjälpsändningar dit ett par gånger om året. Detta kunde vi göra tack vare att vänliga människor från vår bygd och Alingsås - Vårgårda och andra, skänkte kläder och pengar. Att hjälpen har varit mycket uppskattad, det har vi fått många bevis för. Under de senaste åren har vi stöttat deras arbete främst genom ekonomiska bidrag som gått till socialt arbete bland barnhemsbarn och andra hjälpbehövande. Församlingen i Ryazan har under de här åren stadigt växt och mitt i alla materiella svårigheter har man samtidigt haft alldeles för trånga lokaler och i december 2000 stod deras nya kyrka färdig. Församlingens verksamhet påminner mycket om vår egen med gudstjänster, barn och ungdomsarbete och träffar för daglediga mm.
Församlingens ungdomar besöker regelbundet olika barnhem i Ryazanregionen. Då undervisar man i kristen tro genom drama och musik och försöker ge dessa utsatta barn ett hopp och en trygghet inför framtiden.
Den gamla kyrkan har byggts om till ett boende för barnhemsbarn som är på väg ut i vuxenlivet. Församlingen stöttar dem med mat och husrum men hjälper dem även med studievägar, arbete och juridisk hjälp att ta vara på deras rättigheter i samhället. Den ekonomiska kris som drabbade vår värld under 2008 drabbade de svaga grupperna i Ryssland väldigt hårt, och de som bor och arbetar på detta transithem har fått arbeta mycket med praktiska saker för att få mat, värme och kläder, förutom att sköta sina studier. Just nu har man egentligen inte resurser för att ta ha mer än 5 ungdomar boende i transithemmet, men trycket är stort och under detta år räknar församlingen med att ha 13 barn boende där.
Puls- Tro och Idrott
Puls är Equmenias och Equmeniakyrkans idrottsarbete, som syftar till att möta idrottsintresset i våra församlingar och föreningar. Vårt Pulsarbete i vår församling handlar om att hjälpa till med ett fotbollsläger i Ryazan varje år. Detta innebär att vi dels ger ungdomar från våra egna led möjlighet att åka iväg som fotbollsvolontärer en vecka och som får växa i sina gåvor. Dels så får vi möjlighet att hjälpa och ge glädje till barn som inte har det lika bra som vi.
Brev från Ryazan och Anatoli
2014-02-04
Dear Friends in Christ!
We had a blessed Christmas season in the orphanages in spite of very severe frosts here in January. Even our diesel fuel froze and we were not able to come to Chapaevski orphanage by the first attempt. We could go only 30 km and then we could not move and we even had to come back with big difficulties to Ryazan. Only in two days we could reach it.
Every time we are surprised how the orphans are waiting for us and how they are glad to hear God’s Word accepting it with great joy. We are grateful to the Lord that we had a good team in this season. 1/3 of this team is some new people which want to serve the orphans and this means for the Lord. As always it was a special joy for the kids to receive some surprises, gifts with sweets and toys. We are thankful to the Lord that He has done all this possible. We are grateful to you, our dear friends, for your prayers, financial support and note encouraging. May the Lord keep you all in safety in this new year.
In His Name,
Anatoly
2013-12-07
Our dear friends!
We greet you in His Holy Name! We are in safety at home. It was wonderful again and again to have this relationship with our Swedish friends thank to our Heaven Father being His kids. Really we had a very blessed time being with our native brothers and sisters in Christ. The Lord gave us this opportunity to share our common belief, our hope Him. It was very joyful for us to be in the atmosphere of friendly attention and respect. It was joyful to worship together and to have our joint prayer.
We are grateful to the Lord for your hospitality, warmness and generosity. May the Lord give you in 100 times more for your serving the Russian guests. By the way, we do not feel ourselves as the guests. We feel at home. We come to you as to our natives. We are always glad to see you as our natives in our homes.
Really we enjoyed your amazing and blessed program. Especially we are thankful for surprises arranged by the Lord for us and for special surprise - the meeting with Ingvar Holmberg.
During already 22 years by correspondence I know the name of this person and I will tell you why. In the 90-th years when our church was planted - we came from the spiritual bondage during the communist regime when we were persecuted by the Soviet authority and we tried to keep and to save ourselves during this persecution. That's why we did not spread the Gospel during those years. That's why churches had to be conservative and they had no any experience for outreach in the society.
We as young ministers of the 90-th years getting spiritual freedom began to understand that we need some experience and prayer support from those who can impact the society. We had this desire to look for some prayer partners and to give our hand of friendship to those who will take it. Then we sent several hundreds letters to the different countries and cities hoping to make friends. Only one answer came to us and it was from Ljurhalla. In this letter it was written:" Recently Ingvar Holmberg visited our church and he gave your letter. We wish to make acquaintance with you and to make friends."
So our many years and blessed friendship started and we marked 22 years this year. We are very grateful to the Lord that He chose His vessel who did a little but great for the sake of the Lord for the sake of the friendship between our churches. It was a great help for many thousands people in our city which had spiritual and physical starvation. Thousands people got God's word, some Christian literature. Thousands prisoners and thousands orphans were encouraged and supported. The Lord helped us to reach unreached thank to our partnership with Ljurhalla church.
It was a result of very modest action which our dear brother Ingvar Holmberg accomplished. We are thankful to the Lord to have this joyful, thrilling meeting with him in Missions Ljurhalla Church. The Lord's ways are great and wonderful! Praise the Lord for all!
In His Name,
Anatoly
2013-10-09
Potato is the second bread. We have such a proverb in Russia. The history of Russia especially of the past century is filled with a lot of episodes when many Russian people had no any bread on their tables. So the potato was the single food for surviving people in our cold winters.
We are grateful to the Lord that our Transition Home is 10 years old already and we will celebrate this date on October 12. We are grateful to the Lord that this ministry is very actual today. In this September 5 new boys graduates from the orphanages have come to live in our Transition Home. Now we experience many problems in the life of our Transition Home. Praise God that the Lord helps in their solving. One kind person allowed for our Transition Home to collect the potato on his field for this winter. Our transition kids were allowed to miss one day in their trade schools to accomplish this potato project. In spite of very nasty weather (rain with snow) with very strong wind and very primitive machine process we with our prayers, some jokes and smiles and with some delicious lunch could collect 1500 kg potato. We are grateful to the Lord for this.
With prayers,
Anatoly.
2013-09-30
Dear Friends!
You can see the group praying yesterday on Saturday in our Transition Home. I am grateful to the Lord for your prayers, support (sometimes anonymous) that church week-ends become popular among the graduates from the orphanages. (Now they are studying in the trade schools). If earlier we sent the car to pick up the orphan graduates on church week-end but now we send the van for 9 seats. On this Sunday service many of these young people have been the participants of our wonderful Christian celebration Harvest (Thanksgiving Day). Please, continue to pray for us. Your prayers are a half of that orphan ministry which we accomplish together with you.
With prayers, Anatoly.
2013-09-30
Dear Friends!
You can see the group praying yesterday on Saturday in our Transition Home. I am grateful to the Lord for your prayers, support (sometimes anonymous) that church week-ends become popular among the graduates from the orphanages. (Now they are studying in the trade schools). If earlier we sent the car to pick up the orphan graduates on church week-end but now we send the van for 9 seats. On this Sunday service many of these young people have been the participants of our wonderful Christian celebration Harvest (Thanksgiving Day). Please, continue to pray for us. Your prayers are a half of that orphan ministry which we accomplish together with you.
With prayers,
Anatoly
2013-09-06
The Lord has given us some wonderful and blessed days at the end of leaving summer.
Football is a game, with which different people enjoy: Christians and worldly people, men and women, church ministers and hesitating people which do not know how to attend church. There are kids belonging to every of these categories. The Bible says to us that parents and spiritual leaders are responsible to kids, for their studying, acquaintance with the Lord and involving them in church. We decided to take part in this uneasy work.
Sport is a good tool for preaching the Gospel. In our serving kids we used New Testament, the testimonies of sportsmen, the games, some show, the Bible examples and, of course, football. There were 60 boys and girls in our camp. Many church home kids and their friends united with orphans graduates. But when orphans learned about our football camp they began to call us to take them to the camp. (That moment they had relaxing in the camp.)
It was very difficult for me to have some negotiation. But our Lord is Majesty!!! So 15 teenagers could come to our football camp.
It was surprised that we had the girls not less than the boys in our camp. After training we had spiritual talks according to the topics:
1. TEAM - God has His own team of players and He invites everyone to unite to it.
2. COACH - Every good player always has a coach. Our coach is Jesus. How to learn Him?
3. VICTIM - It is necessary to take part and even to have a victim from every player in a team to win. Jesus already gave this victim for you.
This camp has given a very blessed experience in preaching the Gospel for kids through football.
God's truth for their memory. May the Lord grow them into salvation. We have accomplished this uneasy work and God is smiling to all of us. Praise the Lord!!!
This camp has given a very blessed experience in preaching the Gospel for kids through football. Heartily we are grateful to Goran Holmberg, Samuel and our dear friends Emma, William, Jacob from Ljurhalla. We were very excited of their ministry in our Christian football camp. They gave a great blessed impulse for all of us. Thanks for their uneasy work accomplished for God's glory. We are grateful for the equipment which they brought for our camp.
Heartily we are thankful to our brothers and sisters of Missionary church in
Ljurhalla, Hjulet and Covenant Church for your prayers and great support and thank to it we were able to accomplish this blessed football camp.
We are grateful to the Lord for getting such a good experience for holding this football camp.
We want this football ministry to continue and enlarge and we are ready to pray for our next football camp in 2014. Dear friends, please pray for this ministry and may Jesus be glorified through it.
We are also grateful to the Lord for the director of the stadium which we used for training and games in charity. All participants of our camp are thankful to you, our dear friends, for your T-shirts which will remind of this blessed time spent in the camp.
But in main we believe that kids will remember Jesus and His teaching which help to grow them up spiritually.
May the Lord help them to grow into salvation. We have accomplished this uneasy work and God is smiling to all of us. Praise the Lord!!!
In His Name,
your brother Anatoli.
Maskinell Översättning:
Herren har gett oss några anmärkningsvärda och saligas dagar i slutet av lämnat sommaren.
Fotboll är ett spel, som olika människor njuta av: kristna och världsliga människor, män och kvinnor, kyrkan ministrar och tvekar människor som inte vet för att gå i kyrkan eller inte. Det finns barn som hör till varje av dessa kategorier. Bibeln säger oss att föräldrar och andliga ledare ansvarar för att barn, för deras studier, bekantskap med Herren och involvera dem i kyrkan. Vi beslutade att delta i detta orolig arbete.
Idrotten är ett bra verktyg för att predika evangeliet. I vår servering barn använde vi nya testamentet, vittnesmål av sportsmen, spel, vissa visar Bibeln exemplen och, naturligtvis, fotboll.
Det fanns 60 pojkar och flickor i vårt läger.Många kyrkliga hem barnen och deras vänner förenade med föräldralösa akademiker. Men när föräldralösa barn lärt sig om vår fotboll lägret började de att ringa oss för att ta dem till lägret. (Det ögonblicket de hade att koppla av i lägret.)
Det var mycket svårt för mig att ha några förhandlingar. Men vår Herre är majestät! Så 15 tonåringar kunde komma till vår fotbollsläger.
Det var förvånad över att vi hade flickorna inte mindre än pojkarna i vårt läger. Efter utbildning Vi hade andliga samtal beroende på vilka ämnen:
1. TEAM - Gud har sitt eget team av spelare och han uppmanar alla att förena det.
2. COACH - alla bra spelare har alltid en coach. Våra tränare är Jesus. Hur man lär honom?
3. Offer - det är nödvändigt att ta del och även ha ett offer från varje spelare i ett laget att vinna. Jesus gav redan detta offer för dig.
Detta läger har gett en mycket välsignad upplevelse i predika evangeliet för barn genom fotboll. Vi är varmt tacksamma till Göran Holmberg, Samuel och våra kära vänner Emma, William, Jacob från Ljurhalla. Vi var mycket glada för deras departement i vår kristna fotbollsläger. De gav en stor välsignade impuls för oss alla.
Tack för deras orolig arbete utfört för Guds härlighet. Vi är tacksamma för den utrustning som de kom för vårt läger.
Varmt är vi tacksamma att våra bröder och systrar i missionär kyrka i
Ljurhalla och Covenant Church för era böner och stora stöd och tack till det vi har kunnat åstadkomma detta välsignade fotbollsläger.
Vi är tacksam till Herren för att få en bra erfarenhet för att hålla detta fotbollsläger.
Vi vill ha denna fotboll ministeriet att fortsätta och förstora och vi är redo att be för vår nästa fotbollsläger 2014. Kära vänner, be please för detta ämbete och kan Jesus förhärligas genom den.
Vi är också tacksamma för Herren för direktören för stadium som vi använde för utbildning och spel i välgörenhet. Alla deltagare på våra läger är tacksamma till er, våra kära vänner, för dina T-shirts som kommer att påminna om denna välsignade tid i lägret.
Men i main tror vi att barnen kommer att minnas Jesus och hans undervisning som hjälper dem att växa dem upp andligt.
Herren kan hjälpa dem att växa till frälsning. Vi har åstadkommit detta orolig arbete och Gud ler för oss alla. Prisa Herren!
Detta läger har gett en mycket välsignad upplevelse i predika evangeliet för barn genom fotboll.
Guds sanning för deras minne. Kan växa Herren dem till frälsning. Vi har åstadkommit detta orolig arbete och Gud ler för oss alla. Prisa Herren!
2013-07-16
Dear Friends!
I did not see the orphans from Kostino orphanage for 1,5 months because they are in the camp which is far from Ryazan (200 km). Praise the Lord recently I could visit them. First, I was very glad like a child to see those kids which love our meetings and remember our instruction in Christ.
I was touched that the kids did not go from me during 2 hours. It was amazing to see how they in chorus told me something their personal. They brought their personal sweets and wanted me to eat and enjoy. It was very touching to see them how they wanted to be hugged with tender and to be heard with their reproaches - why we did not visit them for a long time.
It was blessed again to instruct them and to pray together with them. Please, continue your prayers for these precious kids for their understanding and accepting God's love.
Anatoly.
2013-06-04
On June 1 the holiday Children"s Defence Day is marked in Russia. They say it is international. I do not know it is universal or not. But I know that really all kids must be protected and in the first turn from heartless and violence of adults which not always understand that children are the Lord's gift. The orphans need some special defence and the Lord takes care of them in some special way:
"He protects the immigrants, and cares for the orphans..." (Ps.146:9),
"You should defend those who cannot help themselves. Yes, speak up for the poor and needy and see that they get justice." (Prov.31:8-9),
"The Christian who is pure and without fault, from God the Father's point of view, is the one who takes care of orphans..." (James 1:27).
This time in the special way the Lord helped us to serve not only the ordinary orphans but the orphans-invalids. When we come to them they are glad for our relationship, gifts, attention. But practically they have never any opportunity to travel or visit some sighting action. There are many objective reasons for this: first, it is still not correct for an invalid to appear in public and in audience in our society. In the Soviet period you even could not see any invalid wheels in streets because the Soviet society must be looked the most healthy and happy all over the world. Very often they were mocked and hurt. May be that's why orphanages for kids-invalids and for adults-invalids were built far from big cities. May be that's why more simple and hearty people lived near them. Today all orphans-invalids are far from Ryazan: Ukholovo trade school for orphans is in 130 km and Elatma invalid orphanage is in 200 km.
We with God's help could organize for them some celebration and arrival to the Ryazan circus to see a wonderful program. According to the words of the accompanying adults many of them have seen the city, many- storeyed houses, many people and cars for the first time in their lives. All kids were in delight! They expressed their delight in various ways: somebody was very shocked with all happening and could not say any word being very concentrated and very serious during all performance. Somebody squealed from joy and delight. Unfortunately, we could purchase only ice-cream for them and could treat nothing. Unfortunately, they did not go to Mc Donald's even after 4 hours by bus and 3 hours by performance and they left for back. But in spite of this circumstance they were very and very glad and grateful to the Lord and to those who helped them to get this gift through the visit the circus.
Dear friends, please, pray for our circumstances, for our serving these kids.
In His Name,
Anatoly
2013-05-23
Embrace the orphan!
At Mother's Day it is so pleasant to see some Mom's shining love and some childish sincere feelings to their Moms at some pictures. It was
very good to hear some kind, sincere, hearty words about those Moms which are with them and especially about those which as my Mom is with the Lord in Heaven. Praise the Lord for our Moms! These days our team visited the orphanages with the Easter program (Russian Easter was one month later than Western Easter this year). As always we had our puppet theatre, prizes, games, puzzles, songs, verses, presents and sweets. But this time there was something special: these days orphans tried to hug and touch and kiss those who visited them. There was a great mutual joy - you hug this little child which is thirsty of Mom's tenderness and love and at this moment you feel something trembling in your heart and it is impossible to express by words. Dear friends, come to us and we all together will visit these wretched kids left by their parents but the Lord is with them and He highly appreciate them. May be we are not able to do a lot of things for orphans but we can hug and give our warmness and tenderness for them for several minutes and it is possible for each of us and it is very precious for the Lord!
In His Name,
Anatoly