December 23, 2006

 Greetings to you from cold and snowy Ufa!  One of the great consolations of being separated from family and friends is the fact that we are guaranteed a white Christmas in any given year here in Ufa.

 We plan to have a special time of family singing and praying together on Christmas Eve here in our apartment.  We will open presents together on Christmas morning, have a big Christmas dinner with family and a few friends, and then attend a Christmas Evening worship service at Grace Church here in Ufa.  

 Here are a few prayer requests for you during this Christmas season:

 1. Please pray for funds to be gathered for purchase of a building for the church/rehab center in the city of Oktiabrski about 2 hours west of Ufa; the believers here in Bashkortostan have set a goal to raise

    200,000 rubles from the local churches here & are praying for God’s miraculous provision of the rest 

2. Pray for ministry to develop to the 20 scattered believers in northwestern B-stan where no churches exist yet for those believers; pray for God to call out a Bashkortostan believer to spearhead discipleship,

    evangelism, and church planting for these 20 believers…church planting and evangelism is particularly difficult in the outlying areas away from Ufa because of a much stronger ethnic presence of non-

    Russians who are loyal to their ethnic heritage of Muslim influence

 3. Pray for God to raise up someone to direct the children’s ministry here in Ufa known as “Hello Friend”, which has tremendous potential to reach older children and their parents with the gospel

 4. Pray for Grace Church to know God’s perfect will for starting a feeding ministry to Ufa’s poor people…pray for the Lord to raise up the right person at Grace Church to spearhead this church-planting ministry

    as it is combined with mercy and compassion for those struggling to survive.

 5. Pray for God’s blessing on an International World Changer team of 10 individuals arriving in Ufa on Dec 29 to minister through Jan 4.  Pray for them daily as they host a Christmas party/concert, participate

    in an evangelistic New Year’s Eve party, prayerwalk, distribute Bibles and invitations to special Christmas worship services, preach/sing/testify in 2-3 local churches, minister for two days at an orphanage,

    etc.

 6. Pray also for Grace Church as it searches for an apartment in which to meet…the current facilities in which it is meeting will likely have to be vacated by mid-January because of a unreasonable increase in

    rent costs.  For the time being, the church will likely be meeting in a local believer’s apartment, which is a great model for reproducible church planting.

 7. Pray for an emerging new church plant, they have taken the name of “1^st Baptist Church of Ufa” and are really active for the Lord…pray for them to accept the responsibility to birth another new church

    within the next two years. Pray for leaders Andrei and Sergei to reproduce their leadership in others and empower/train others to lead evangelistic bible studies.

 Merry Christmas to you and thanks for being a part of our team as you intercede!

 Chris Carr

Ufa, Russia