September 15, 2005

Greetings from our family to yours!  I would like to ask you to pray for the following needs related to our work here in Ufa:

1. Pray for Grace Church, as it may have to move from its current premises by the end of the year.  The church has been confronted with rent prices going up 50% by that time, which the small church can not afford.  Although Grace Church conducts worship, bible study, and prayer activities 3 times a week in the two rooms, there are multiple other activities that take place there (evangelism, training, seminars, etc)…PRAY for God’s provision of the funds necessary (approx. $175 per month additional expense than present rent cost) through whatever source He chooses, OR, that the Lord would quickly lead Grace Church to new premises that can be rented for no more than they are presently paying.  We hope to have some meetings in coming days with city officials to ascertain the possibilities of locating municipally-owned building that could be rented to Grace for a fair price with some kind of guarantee of stability.
    
2. Pray for a group of believers from Hillcrest Church (Pensacola, Florida) who are coming to Ufa Sept 25-Oct 2 to present ESL activities…as of today (Thur Sept 15) we have approx. 260 folks signed up for interviews which will lead to placement in the activities…PRAY that the testimony of the trainers will be evident and accepted by the participants.  We are asking God for up to 700 individuals to interview.   We are asking God for many of the participants to come to know Jesus as their “heart” friend and become part of Bible studies, worship, further English studies, attend special events, etc.
    
3. Pray for a group of believers from 1^st Baptist Church (Laurel, Maryland) who are coming to Ufa Oct 9-20 to be involved in a variety of evangelistic, humanitarian, envisioning, student ministry, and local church ministries.   Pray especially that the Lord would open up the possibilities for the team to engage students through a  Fall Festival and daily classroom interaction.

      4.   Praise the Lord with us for the 3 new believers who were baptized in early July as followers of Jesus and members of Grace Church (Zuchra, Looba, & Marina).  

            Pray for the continued spiritual growth and that they would take seriously the call to share their faith daily and accept the calling to be involved in church planting  themselves; praise God with us that Sveta has returned from summer vacation and will hopefully be baptized as a new believer before the weather turns cold.

           Thanks for standing with us in prayer, to God be the glory!

 Chris Carr

IMB SC for the mega-city of Ufa, Russia

September 3 2005

 1) Team Ufa asks you to pray for apprentice missionary, Larry Moon. Near the beginning of August, Larry began to notice that his feet swelled every day around the ankles and on the pads of his feet. With the swelling came pain. The pain was especially acute in the mornings. At first is was just a nuisance, but now it is as such that it is often difficult for Larry to walk, if he can even fit his feet into his shoes. We right away expected heart or kidney problems, but tests here have almost ruled that out. Pray that we might be able to find the root cause of Larry’s swelling feet. Pray that whatever the ailment is, that it will be manageable, and that Larry will be able to remain on the mission field.

2) Team Ufa asks that you pray for Victor Bauer, a potential future member of Team Ufa as he recuperates from knee replacement surgery. Ask the Almighty to allow Vic's knee (mechanical though it may be) to quickly and completely heal up. Pray that his pain will subside and that he will be a bit more mobile with each passing day. Pray that his leg might regain a good range of motion and that the swelling around the replaced knee might go down significantly. Pray that the Bauers might soon get the IMB doctors' permission to continue the mission board’s application process with an eye towards proceeding to the mission field as Master's program missionaries and members of Team Ufa.

 3)      Team Ufa asks you to pray for an English as a Second Language (ESL) school that will take place in Ufa from September 23^rd until October 1^st. Hillcrest Baptist Church from Pensacola, Florida will be coming to work alongside Team Ufa in order to communicate the Gospel to the Russian speaking inhabitants of Ufa via the English language. Pray that their sojourn with us might translate into souls added to the Kingdom and brothers and sisters in Christ added to Ufa’s Christian churches. Pray that as the visiting English teachers share about their heart friend, Jesus, that several of the students will feel the need to have Jesus as their heart friend also. Pray that an outpouring of the Lord’s spirit on this ESL school might encourage the Russian brothers and give them a new and bolder vision for reaching the lost of Ufa.

 4)  Team Ufa asks you to pray for Grace Church’s efforts to reach the village of Nizhegorodka. This village is not the region of Ufa that goes by the same name, but instead, a village that lies outside Ufa. Grace church plans to hold worship services and do street evangelism in the village in early September. Pray for the safety of all involved. Pray that there won’t be any interference from authorities. Pray that the villagers might at least hear and begin to consider the Gospel and the claims of the Lord Jesus.

   5)  Team Ufa asks that you pray for a mission team hailing from First Baptist Church of Laurel, Maryland, that will be working alongside Team Ufa from October 8th until October 20^th. The Marylanders will busy themselves with prayer walking, Bible and literature distribution, orphanage and student work, recreational ministry, preaching, and church participation. Although they have greatly increased their involvement the past few years, this historic and strategic church is relatively new to hands on missions. Pray that God will work in them and through them during their stay with us to the extent that they return to Maryland excited about planting the Gospel seed even to the ends of the Earth. Pray that both the lives of those on the Laurel Team and the lives of those they come to contact with in Ufa might be radically changed by the Creator as the result of the Maryland Baptists’ obedience to the Great Commission. Pray that their mission contagion will rock their church to its core.

 6) Team Ufa asks you to pray for a team from West Side Baptist Church in Sumter, S.C., who will be working with us at Thanksgiving time. These brothers and sisters in Christ are great mission partners who have rented an apartment in the Sipailovo region of Ufa as a base of evangelism to the churchless area. They will be keying on ministry and evangelism in the Sipailovo and then helping us give thanks to Almighty God for His bountiful blessings. Thank God for a team willing to give up Thanksgiving with loved ones in the States to reach Sipailovo for Christ and bless us. Ask the Lord to bless them, sustain them, and give them tangible fruit in Sipailovo during their sojourn with us Thanksgiving week.

 7)    Team Ufa asks you to pray for the Sipailovo (sea-PIE-lah-vah) district of Ufa. The bedroom district of Sipailovo is home to a populace of some 250,000 souls, several casinos and gambling clubs, a strip joint, and a mosque, but has no Christian church or witness. Church planting efforts there have never really gotten off the ground. The difficulty is that our Russian brothers believe that before there can be any ministry in Sipailovo, a trained and called Russian brother must oversee the efforts there. But, nine months after we rented an apartment in Sipailovo, with donated American funds, to serve as a base of evangelism in the area, no such leader willing to shoulder responsibility for ministry in Sipailovo has been identified. No one feels called to work there. And those few willing to do some work in Sipailovo typically only have a half a day a week to dedicate to the task. There simply are not enough brothers to go around. Except for cooperative efforts undertaken when visiting mission teams are in town, Sipailovo’s populace has not been substantially engaged with the Gospel. Very little ministry has been done. Pray that God might identify a Russian team leader for Sipailovo. Beseech God to call out two Russian brothers to work with Apprentice missionary Larry in the region. Pray that despite our human frailties, God might glorify himself by planting a church in Sipailovo. 

 8)  Team Ufa asks you to pray for Grace Church in Ufa, which will be losing its worship space at the end of the year. Grace’s worship space has been a great blessing to the church for over a year now. Grace has used it not only for worship, but for seminars, fellowships, and English Clubs. Losing the church’s present worship location is painful indeed. Pray that discouragement and anger over the landlord’s insistence on upping the rent to an unbelievable and unobtainable amount might be transformed into peace, joy, and reliance upon the Lord. Pray that the landlord might still have a God given change of heart. Pray that if Grace does lose its worship facility, that the church will either be able to find another facility that will be even better than the present one, or be able to thrive as an apartment church.

 9)  Team Ufa asks you to pray for The Light of the Gospel Church in Ufa, whose church building will be bulldozed next summer. The church of 50 souls sought 10 years for a place to meet. Meeting in an apartment limited what they could do ministry wise. Finally they found an old building and over the course of two years, renovated it until it is now a nice worship facility. But, in Russia, you can own the building, but it is very difficult, especially for a church, to own land. And so, just as The Light of the Gospel finished their renovations, the government declared its right of imminent domain in order to build yet another apartment building. Pray that God might change the hearts of the government authorities. And should the bulldozing proceed, pray for peace and comfort for the church that does not know what to do next. Pray that the Light of the Gospel might, by the power of God, be able to do what is impossible here, buy land on which to construct its own building, or find an affordable existing building - and failing that, pray that the Lord might make them a vibrant apartment church.

 10)  Team Ufa asks you to pray that the loss of two of the Russian Baptists’ five worship facilities and the great difficulties (some say impossibility) associated with purchasing property in Ufa might lead our Russian colleagues, at long last, to consider the feasibility of planting cell and apartment churches and finally partner with us in church planting rather than insisting that everything is okay with the status quo.