Russia - At last!

(Pictures inserted into article below!)

Four long years. No possibility to visit brothers and sisters in Christ, friends, acquaintances or congregations there. Then a visa was issued, and like faith that admits us through the very gates of heaven, I was suddenly being admitted through the passport control of the beautifully new Ekaterinburg airport. Christian friends met me at the gate and I was back in Russia!! Seven years I had served there from 1999 to 2006. Since then I had often been filled with doubt, trepidation and even fear about returning since my visa had been cancelled. The nightmare of being pulled off that train by the militia just inside the border on my way back to Russia in July 2006 was still very real. But now that was all dispersed, like stepping out of a dark cloud.

(Note: This is quite a long article with many pictures, so please get yourself a cup of coffee or your favorite glass of juice and just relax with me. I am quite confident that you will enjoy it!)


Within a few days after I arrived in Ekaterinburg Greg Greve and Bruce Ruotsala joined me. Greg is a dear friend and most seasoned Russian missionary and Bruce is the 19 year old son of our Foreign Mission administrator John Ruotsala. They were indispensible to making the month we spent in Russia a blessed and successful one. The key to a Russian missionary effort, we have found, is individual contacts. In places like India, for instance, one tends to think in terms of groups - large groups of pastors and thousands of people attending outdoor meetings. In Russia it is contacts with individual people that really make the difference. For instance our congregations that existed before in Ekaterinburg and Izhevsk simply exist no more. But the people still do and therefore one must be armed with the Russian language and a cell phone filled with personal numbers. Greg and I come prepared. Thankfully the German Lutheran Church in Ekaterinburg under the leadership of Pastor Waldemar Yesse (who issued me the official invitation so I could get a visa) has proved to be a spiritual home for many of our former congregation members. It was there I preached on Sunday and we had a reunion of some of these dear brothers and sisters.


A second touching reunion was held in the village of Gagarka. Many of you will remember Marat from Gagarka and how he led a village revival from the age of 13 when he converted from Islam and was baptized with his younger brother Dima. Even their mother came to faith at that time. Imagine singing songs of praise to God ten years later in that same humble room where they were baptized - praying and preaching as we acknowledged the power and grace of Jesus Christ to keep people in the way, the truth and the life. With joy we can testify that Marat and his family are still confessing faith.


Too numerous to mention are the amount of people with whom we had contact in Ekaterinburg but we should definitely acknowlege here the amount of work that Misha Ustuzhanin did to arrange things for our stay. Misha was the teenager who was invited to the Christmas celebration at our church back in 2001 for the first time. That evening he experienced how Jesus was born in his heart and ever since then he has remained with us. Also Denis Zhevlakov, the 17 year old who was the first of many young internees to repent and come to faith at the boys prison in that city back in 2000 is still with us. He is a taxi driver, has his own cars, and drove us many places - like to Gagarka twice. And Lena Ilyenkova, a faithful sister who served as Sunday School teacher and music leader for our congregation there is still an active sister. Our first Sunday School students from ten years ago, Julia and Roma, are still serious Christians. Julia is married and just had her second baby while we were there. After some years of testing his own wings Roma has returned to the faith in a deep and positive way.


In general the spiritual climate was good in the Ekaterinburg area and we are pleased with the work of the German Lutheran Church to provide a home for many of our dispersed congregation. Of course some go to other churches but in most cases the faith has been preserved.

By the new Cathedral of the Blood in Ekaterinburg with my dear friend and travelling brother Greg Greve - the man responsible for most of the pictures with this article. This cathedral was built on the place where the last Czar of Russia and his family were shot in 1918. (Ekaterinburg is more than 1000 miles east of Moscow, behind the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia).

Together again - at the German Lutheran Church with (from left) Nona, Lena, "little Lena" and Roma, the first boy in our Sunday School ten years ago.

Several of our original congregation gathered after the Sunday service. Denis Zhevlakov on the left.

Lena Ilyenkova a dear and faithful sister, originally Sunday School teacher and music leader in our congregation. Ekaterinburg's skyline in the background.

Heartfelt reunion. Seeing Marat again after almost five years.

Together with Marat, his mother Nadya and brother Dima

Typical village home like Marat's in Gagarka.

Greg with Misha Ustuzhanin, the main coordinator of our stay in the Ekaterinburg area

Bruce Ruotsala by the ruins of an old Orthodox church in the village of Galkinskoye, 65 miles from Ekaterinburg.

Greg with Vasily Melnichenko and his son Sasha, our friends and brothers in Galkinskoye who promote living and sustainable villages in Russia, starting in their home area. - 2 hours drive east of Ekaterinburg.

Happy send-off by precious friends from Ekaterinburg as we headed for Izhevsk by train.　

　

Greg and Bruce talked me into taking the "plats carte" car on the overnight train to Izhevsk - about 14 hours to the west. This is an open sleeping car with bunks accommodating six people in each area. Usually I have taken a sleeping compartment with 4 bunk-beds each and a closing door. But no, they wanted "more contact with the Russian people". I was OK until about 3:00 a.m. when the conductor woke me up and told me that a lady who was leaving the train had stored her bag in the box under my bed so I had to get up. It was a bit difficult to go back to sleep after this "contact" but I did manage.


The time in Izhevsk was again very people oriented. Our faithful sister Diana opened her home for the three of us while we were there. She is the professor of English at the university whose home we visited the first time many years ago because she was interested in speaking English with us. God then touched her heart deeply with the Gospel and she has become one of the most true servants of the living God since then. Some of you remember our dear old "matching babushkas", sisters Raiya and Klava, who are both still doing quite well. We got to see them on more than one occasion, especially when we visited Sasha (Klava's son) and Katya Tumanov. We also had a short but meaningful visit with Sasha Smirnov, the former pastor who since has been removed because of irregularities in his service. Unfortunately this means that there is no shepherd for this flock in Izhevsk, but we did mange to have a fairly well attended Sunday service at a local Christian bookstore.


On Saturday we hired a van and took a group of people on quite a long journey to the village of Verkh Uni where we used to have an active congregation and regular services. Anatoly, the man responsible in that area was only able to gather very few people for the service. It was the first communion service there in five years. The other village we visited later, Gureis Pudga had a well attended service because there is a full-time pastor trainee there who serves the local church most conscientiously. Very encouraging! This man, also named Marat, is sponsored so far by the Ingrian Lutheran Church but would definitely need our support since he is also trying to revive the congregation in Izhevsk, 1½ hours away.

Teatime in our open "plats carte" sleeping accommodations on the train to Izhevsk.

 

Diana, professor of English, our faithful hostess and Christian sister in Izhevsk.

Sunday evening church service in Gureis Pudga. An active little rural congregation whose church was built by Finnish Christians.

And speaking of people, Shekino, our next stop south of Moscow, is a lovely people place. Here is where Bruce Selin got a congregation started some years ago together with Misha and Natasha Krupinov. Bruce has been the driving force behind most of our congregations in Russia. Now one of the first members, Vitaly Praslov, who initially vociferously maintained that the only church necessary in Russia was the Orthodox Church, is now the ordained pastor there. Pyoter and Irina Bagrayntseva are still probably the main anchors in Shekino. Pyoter and Vitaly took us to the boys' detention center where every one of the 15 boys who attended our service humbled themselves before the mighty hand of God and asked to hear the blessed gospel of the forgiveness of sins. We blessed each one personally in the mighty name of Jesus and the power of His blood.. What joy and peace there was then in the room - a room that they had all entered rowdy and laughing, and now where they were completely gripped by the Spirit!

***************************************


Archive photo from the boys' detention center in Shekino with Pyoter and Greg. This time only 15 of the oldest boys were able to attend our service.

With friends in Shekino.

Placing flowers on the monument commemorating the thousands of victims of Stalin's repression - for many a reign of terror - in the Shekino area.

Lastly we come to Rzhev, about 150 miles northwest of Moscow. Here Pastor Valery Antipov and his wife Natasha have served for many years. Here also is a beautiful church which was completed about four years ago and basically sponsored by the Russia Project Ministry, again spearheaded by Bruce Selin. The congregation has not grown noticeably but it is still very much alive. The thing that really interests Greg and me in all of these areas, but maybe especially Rzhev, are the lost and faltering sheep. We often work the fringes of these congregations.

Let me tell you about one particular little sheep. Maybe some of you remember an article I wrote from Rzhev about six years ago called "Little Prince of the Streets" about a small Gypsy beggar boy Roma. Since leaving Rhzev almost five years ago I have had no contact with this boy but I have prayed for him regularly through the years. Gypsies - also often "despised and rejected of men" - are not people who live in one place. I knew that Roma and his family would have moved all over the place since then, begging for their livelihood. When I returned to Rzhev I just prayed that in some miraculous way I would find him and let him know that God still loves him and his family. One day Greg and Bruce and I decided to just go out and comb the streets and bazaars of the city in the remote chance of finding him. We prayed as we returned to our hotel from the church by car to begin this mission. As we pulled up to the hotel and I looked up - there was Roma coming around the corner!! I just gasped and cried out, "Look who we have here!!" It was totally incredible! But there he was, now grown to a boy of 14 but easily recognizable. In the days that followed we spent many times together, at the church, at his home or just sharing time together. He really hit it off with Bruce and now he wants to be baptized. Then his family packed their bags and were off to a new destination. We had met like satellites in the realm of space and just as suddenly he was gone again. God's miraculous hand is, however, not shortened.

While in Rzhev we attended the church on many occasions. Once they asked me to show my mission pictures with a testimony of faith. On two occasions we attended a concert of spiritual music there and on Sunday I preached at the Holy Communion service. On Sunday evening I spoke and showed my slides at the Baptist Church where our dear friend and brother Mikael Soloviov is pastor. All in all we had a very active time in Rzhev - especially among the weak and straying sheep.


******************************************

Roma the little gypsy boy as he looked when I first found him six years ago.

.......and now "our miracle" as he looks today.

Roma with his little brother Artur and sister Maria.

Congregation gathered after the Sunday service in the Rzhev Lutheran Church.

The church in Rzhev as it stands today. It is the direct result of support that was channelled from brothers and sisters in America through the Russia Project Ministry, which has since become a part of the Foreign Mission of the ALCA.

　

The month in Russia was a truly meaningful and uplifting experience - except for the constant need to register and re-register our visas as we travelled from city to city which caused us more than its share of headaches. But all in all it was just great to be in that huge country again and to travel with Greg and Bruce Ruotsala. Greg is such an incredible missionary communicator. His Russian has improved very much and his blessed people skills just get better. Bruce, the novice, quickly found his way around, picked up Russian like it was seeping through his pores and was an avid student of my communication lessons on our long train rides. I believe God blessed us all and now I look forward once more to another mission trip to Russia sometime in the future.

I so well remember how Bruce Selin first said to me years ago, "Dennis, I want you to go with me to Siberia." How that invitation changed my life. On this trip I often thought of Bruce and how he trail-blazed the way to Russia for so much of our mission there.


In God's love and peace,

Dennis Hilman

Russia!

I’ve been home for a couple of days now and have only just found the time to write and send out a final update for our May/June 2010 trip to Russia. Dennis Hilman, Bruce Ruotsala and I were in Russia for a month. We were very busy each day and time passed all to quickly for my liking. My last update was sent out from Udmurtia, but after leaving that republic we also visited the brothers and sisters in the Tula and Tver regions of Russia.



One month is not nearly enough time to meet and fellowship with everyone we would like. It takes some significant timing and effort to coordinate so much into the very few days we have in each place. One of my sincere prayers for the future, and the prayers of many friends I am assured, is that the Lord would allow me more significant time to spend in Russia. There is yet a great need for the gospel to be heard in Russia, but also a great need to encourage, teach, and share the word with other living faith believers.


I’m not sure when next I will personally be back in Russia. The present economy in the USA is still reeking havoc with our Foreign Mission resources, which is something we each need to pray sincerely about and act on when called to. If everyone contributes just a little to the cause, the work will definitely go on.


For now, please know how very much I have appreciated your prayers and personal support for the gospel work we were doing this last month in Russia. May our Father’s love uplift and encourage each of us in our own daily, personal walk. We are not alone; we have Christ and we have each other.


Your brother and fellow labourer in our Lord’s gospel love,


Gregory


"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours." John 4:34-38

From the Mission Field in Sri Lanka

It’s 5:00 AM and there are people everywhere! If I didn”t know better, I could almost think I was at the Mall of America on the day after Thanksgiving!!! And the loading zone is curb to wall people, luggage and vans, all unloading and loading more people. And HEAT! It sure isn’t the cold and snowy Minnesota that I woke up in this morning. But wait a minute. That was 2 days ago! That praise ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’ takes on a whole new meaning.


Then I see it and it’s defiantly heading my way. White and broadly curved upward at the corner. The smile I had come to know in Massachusetts. It greets me with “Jesu Piti” (God’s Blessing), a hug and “welcome to Sri Lanka”.

That was the beginning of my first foreign mission trip. One filled with so many blessings for both Carl and me. Blessings 1 and 2 met us at the airport in Colombo. Pastor Lynton Sylva ( Mr. ‘Smile’) and his wife Iona. I didn’t know it at the time, but blessing #3 was just a van ride away. And what a ride it was.


I want you to picture something in your mind. A small town main street with one lane of traffic in both directions and some parallel parking. Now on this street there are cars, vans, pickups, delivery trucks, motor cycles, bicycles, 3 wheeled taxies, hand carts and buses that stop for anyone who puts their hand out. Oh yeh, I forgot something. Dogs, cats, chickens, mongoose, monkeys and COWS! Not the sacred ones. And remember all those people I saw at 5 in the morning, well they are fallowing me and meeting up with family, friends and strangers or just walking to work. Can’t forget the armed guards and check points along the way. And they drive on the wrong side of the road! It’s kind of like rush hour traffic in a zoo while running Grandma’s Marathon! This is in the capital city. The country roads are narrower and almost as much traffic. We got into the habit of saying a prayer for safe passage before leaving home and a prayer of thanks each time we made it safely back, especially when traveling up into the mountains. Thus, blessing #3.

It’s time to leave the big city and travel up into the central part of the country into the lower mountains to Badulla where Lynton and Iona live. The countryside was beautiful. The rainy season had just ended and everything was green and lush. The only thing to mar it’s beauty are all the Buddhist temples and statues and Hindu shrines. But I thank God that there are people like Lynton and his team that are bringing light into those dark places of idol worship. BLESSINGS BLESSINGS BLESSINGS BLESSINGS


It will take us all day to get there. The distance isn’t that great, the country is about the size of Rhode Island, but the roads are so bad the average speed is 20 MPH. Remember, the rush hour traffic in a zoo while running a marathon will be with us all the way. And a lot more COWS!

In Sri Lanka, it is against the law to build any new Christian churches. That’s why they are all houses were church is held. There are no marques or names written on the outside walls. Through the generosity of a man here in the States, Lynton was able to purchase a house and with help from others here, an addition was built onto the house and this addition became the church and Sunday school. The property has been deeded as ‘NO SALE’ meaning it can never be sold. It will always be a House Church, passing from one generation to the next. A BLESSING for all the Christians.

On the wall inside the church at Pastor Lynton’s is a poster representing the ministry in Sri Lanka. Currently there eight House Churches. Of these, six are Sinhalese and in mostly Buddhist areas and two are Tamil; one in a Buddhist area the other in Batticaloa in the tsunami Hindu area. SPECIAL NOTE: Just before we were to leave Sri Lanka, an outreach Church destroyed four years ago was being reestablished. Praise GOD!!!!!


Sunday services are always at Pastor Lynton’s home church even if he is traveling to other areas. There were about 150 people in attendance the Sunday we were there. Church starts at 10:30, but people start arriving around 8:00. Bus service you take when it’s available and for those walking, they want to do it in the coolest part of the day. Some of those arriving early that day brought vegetables, rice, tea or fruit as an offering or to share with those in need. Thanks were given for these gifts during the service. Each week a person or family is chosen to receive these BLESSED gifts.


They have six Sunday school classes, preschool thru New Life in Christ (40-45 children and young adults), a women’s prayer group and an adult study class. There are eight active couples in the ministerial team helping Lynton and Iona to share the gospel of Christ. Each couple has a job within the team; hospital ministry, seniors and elders, administrator, housekeeper and handyman, errand runner and bill payer, evangelists in remote villages, family counseling and accountant. These dedicated men and women leave their children with grandparents or other family members to travel to the seven other house churches or to homes for prayer services. Almost everyone in the congregation has some part in the running or maintenance of the church or the service.


During any church service or home service, anyone led by the Spirit to pray does. It might be a member of the team (male or female) or other person attending. At the close of all gatherings, people come forward with prayer requests. They have seen the power of prayer. When Lynton and Iona’s son Lewllyn was in the hospital with cancer and told there was nothing else that could be done, God heard the prayers of his people and he walked out of the hospital the next day cancer free! When George’s wife Rizmih, formerly a Muslim, was poisoned by her mother because she became a Christian, the congregation prayed over her and God took the poison from her body! Nateeka was going blind and received her sight. They truly live by faith believing if they ask in prayer, God will answer.

Every week on Sunday, house services for the fallowing week are posted. Locations, days and times are never the same two weeks in a row. This is done to protect the people. Don’t let anyone tell you Buddhist are a peace loving people. They rule the country and declared “emergency law” when the war ended. They can arrest you without charging you for 90 days.


Everyday we traveled to at least one House Church or had a prayer service. Going to and from these we would stop for home visits. One of these home visits was high up in the tea hills. The mother (a tea picker making $1.00 a day), her daughter and grandchild (husband kicked her out when she became a Christian) and another child (found by the mother after someone had thrown him away in the tea plants) live in a two room house with dirt floors. They carry water from a spring down the hill. The mother’s prayer was that her son-in-law would come to know the Lord and be reunited with the family.

Our trip to the tsunami area was two fold. We had a service on the sands in front of the house there that evening. After a night sleeping on the service sight sands, we went to the lagoon behind the house to celebrate a baptism! Little Nadeeka openly confessed her faith and was baptized. They do practice infant baptism but for older converts they wait until they complete counseling classes so they are aware of the persecution they will face. The classes don’t make them Christians, they already are.

There would be so many more blessed stories to relate about our trip, but let these be written so that you might know that our brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka walk by faith in The Lord Jesus Christ.

Lynton and Iona will be traveling in the States before the convention and will be at the Foreign Mission presentation on Saturday of the convention. If you have the opportunity to visit with him, do so.

Unforgettably Blessed, Carl & Carol Lamppa

Short Note From Russia!

Young brother Bruce Ruotsala and I stood quietly together under the star filled Udmurtian night sky just outside the doors of the remote village church where we and our group had been given places to sleep. What drew us out and held us there in the deepening darkness was the most exotic liturgy of bird song that I have ever heard. Often I am asked by Russians if the Canadian landscape is very much different than the Russian one. I answer that our landscapes are very similar and that sometimes it’s difficult to see any difference at all. I tell them that what really reminds me that I am in a foreign country is not the landscape, but the songs of the birds.



One of the myriad lessons that foreign mission work teaches us is that we are not exclusive, that God is much bigger than the personal boxes we tend to place him in. Too often missionaries have stepped into foreign lands with the idea of conforming culture rather than working in that culture to present the gospel in ways that the local inhabitants can empathize with and grow thereby. There is a very good reason Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9 that “I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some.”


Encapsulated in this vast landscape of Russia are many cultures, and though in this modern age of global communication the cultural differences between us are perhaps lessening, there is still great need to present the unchanging gospel in a way that each person and people may grasp.


I hope that each of you who are able will continue to remember brothers Dennis Hilman, Bruce Ruotsala and I as we travel here in Russia for two more weeks. Pray the Lord of the Harvest that He will grant us His Spirit of wisdom and love and that we would recognize always that we are in a foreign land and that the songs are different here, and that we need to continually be sensitive to them.


In His love always,


Gregory