March
31, 2005
1)
Team
Ufa asks you to pray for an Evangelical
English class that the team will be leading from now until the end of the
school year in late May. The team is using press articles and film clips that
lead to spiritual discussions with the students, before turning to the Bible
as an English text the last 40 minutes of the class. The students are mostly
intermediate English speakers who study at one of
Ufa’s many universities. Pray that God’s
Word will not come back void and that some of the students will come to
repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. Pray especially for Mikhail, who
frequents the class. Mikhail is seeking God, but plagued by doubts, teeters
between his traditional Russian Orthodox beliefs and Biblical Christianity.
2)
Team
Ufa asks you to pray for the Sipailovo
(sea-PIE-lava) district of Ufa. The bedroom district of Sipailovo is home to a
populace of some 250,000 souls, and yet, has almost no Christian witness. The
international church planting team is now in somewhat of disarray. There is
uncertainty as to how to proceed and disagreements over what kind of
methodology to use. Pray that God will show us where He is working in
Sipailovo and clarify the road ahead. Pray that despite our human frailties,
God might glorify himself by planting a church in Sipailovo.
3) Team
Ufa asks you to pray for an Experiencing God
discipleship course that Apprentice Missionary Larry is leading
Ufa
Bible
Church through. The Wednesday night
course will continue until late May. Pray that this will be a life changing
event for UBC’s young people. Pray that the course will help the students to
be sensitive to where and how God is working around them, and then to join Him
in His work. Pray that the course might engender a passion within the students
to plant reproducing churches and share the gospel with those who are
perishing without Christ.
4) Team
Ufa asks you to pray for two volunteer
groups coming to our city in May.
Gayton
Baptist
Church from
Richmond,
Virginia, will be here from May 22nd
through May 29th, and
Battle Creek
Baptist
Church will be here from May 29th
through June the 9th. The two volunteer church groups will be
working alongside Team Ufa in prayer walking, Bible distribution, street
evangelism, evangelistic English clubs, student ministry, and many other
church planting activities. They will focus their energies on areas where
there is no church. Pray that these two teams might be able to point the
spiritually dead citizens of
Ufa to new life in Christ. Pray that the
lives of those who come and the lives of those with whom they come into
contact might be forever changed as the result of the teams’ time with us here
in
Ufa.
5) Team
Ufa asks you to pray for a week long
pre-Resurrection Day Christian film festival that will be held at Grace Church
in the mega-city of
Ufa from Monday, April the 25th
until Russian Easter, May the 1st. We will be showing the Russian
version of films such as the Jesus Film, the Passion of Christ, The Ascent,
and Ben Hur. Pray that the film festival will draw non-Christians from the
Television
Center district of the city and
that the Holy Spirit might work in the hearts of those that come, through what
they see. Pray that the Lord might save some during Passion Week here in
Ufa. Pray that the local church may grow in
numbers because of what the Lord does during the last week of April.
6) Team
Ufa asks you to pray for efforts to reach
Ufa’s 90,000 college, university, and
technical school students for Christ. We have little access to the students.
We are seldom allowed on
Ufa’s campuses (there are guards), and even
then, what we can say once there is restricted. And we have virtually no
access to the scores of dormitories in the city (again, there are guards). We
can’t even pass out literature on university territory. Frankly, we do not
know the way ahead. Pray that God will show us where He is working among
Ufa’s tens of thousands of college students.
Especially ask Him to lead us to male students who are seeking Him, as roughly
50% of them are either drug addicts or alcoholics. And there are exceedingly
few male Christians on
Ufa’s campuses.
7) Team
Ufa asks you to bless the efforts of Grace
Church’s pastor Zhenya to project the church’s witness outside of its meeting
place. Zhenya believes that the Lord is beginning to work in a number of
villages that encircle
Ufa. On April 10th, the small
church that he pastors will participate in an evangelism effort in one of
those villages. Ask the Lord to gather the non-Christians in the village to
listen to what Grace Church has to say. Ask the Lord to speak through the
Christians that go to the village that day to proclaim the name of Christ. Ask
the Lord to change the eternal destiny of some of the hearers on Sunday the 10th.
8) Team Ufa asks you to pray for Victor and
Susan Bauer. The couple is in the IMB
appointment process (Masters’ Program) and just might be future team mates.
One potential snag is that Vic is in need of knee surgery. Pray that Vic will
be able to get a surgery date as soon as possible. And pray that his knee will
fully and quickly recover to the point that he is able to get medical
clearance from International Mission Board doctors, and along with his wife,
join Team Ufa early next year.
9) Team
Ufa asks you to pray for all those
missionaries who work in
Russia. The field is undergoing a
huge administrative overhaul. For those who work in the area of the now
defunct CERF (Central and Eastern Russian Field), uncertainty and anxiety are
everywhere. Almost everyone has a new boss, new responsibilities, or a new job
title. Pray that the peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding might
envelope the former CERFers and give them confidence about the future, knowing
not what their future holds, but who holds their future.
10) Team
Ufa asks that you pray for Strategy
Coordinator
Chris Carr. Ask the Lord to give Chris wisdom
as he prepares job requests for additional team personnel and puts together
detailed daily action plans for upcoming volunteer teams. Pray that Chris’ job
requests and action plans might reflect the will of God and please the
Almighty. Ask the Lord to reveal His will to Chris and to give Chris stamina
as he goes about his many duties, chief among them, being a father to five
children.
11) Team
Ufa asks that you pray for the Carr family.
The Carrs will shortly begin inviting neighbors over for get-to-know-you
dinners in their apartment. Ask the Lord to give the Carrs favor in the sight
of their neighbors and to help them build relationships that might lead to
witnessing opportunities.
Thank you again for praying for us. Without prayer
support, it would be senseless to carry on here. Love and Peace in Christ,
Larry in Ufa
