Ministry update. August 2009.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What a blessing to know that we are not alone in this world. We give praise to God that He is always near to each of us, gently leading us towards Heaven. We are also grateful that He has allowed us to live in such period of time when technology provides unbelievably fast ways of communication between people. 

Please find time to read and to pray for the following needs of the ministry in Penza, Russia.

 Last month we had the incredible opportunity to share the love of our Savior with kids and youth in the orphanage camps. Our program held a lot of fun games, crafts, and stories. It is very important for us that each time we visit the kids they hear the Truth of the Scripture.  This time we shared about the source of life, which is our heart (Proverbs 4:23). The only way to keep this source clean and right before God  is to let Jesus purify it (2 Cor.5:17; Col 3:1-10).  As always all our helpers were “Fireworks” youth (former orphans who are part of the transitional ministry). Their example of being Christian gives hope to the kids, that God can change their whole life and make it new, beautiful and eternal.  Click  here to see more pictures.

The workers of each camp shared with us about difficulties with new kids and especially with those who returned from foster care families. Unfortunately there are many kids who have been returned, because of various problems for which the foster-care parents were not prepared. One year ago my mom (Sergey’s) took two beautiful girls, Dasha and Masha, as foster-care children. She had so many dreams about how to help those girls to find happiness in relationship with God. But the Lord had different plans for them. After awhile my mom got seriously sick (gall bladder surgery, heart and thyroid gland problems etc.) and she had to spend about three months in the hospital, during which time the girls stayed with us. It was obvious that my mom was not able to take care of the girls. Then the Lord gave a desire to a wonderful Christian couple, Philip and Shirley Luckett, to adopt the girls. Philip and Shirley have put so much effort into the adoption process and they can’t wait to be united with them.  Please pray that the Lord would help this adoption happen soon. By Russian law the girls have to go back to the orphanage, which is not an exciting thing for any of us.  We are trying hard to get permission for the girls to live in the family while they are waiting to be adopted.  I consider this to be a  “happy-ending-story”, however most of the time after returning to the orphanage kids  have  no chance to be adopted because  usually they are too old for adoption (older than 16).  Praise to our Heavenly Father who is able to adopt anyone, no matter age or social status (Eph.1:3-5)! Thank the Lord that we have open doors to proclaim the Gospel in the orphanages and tell about the hope that we have in Him.

            Please, continue pray for my mom, Tatiana, who still has a lot of  health problems. 

All the “Fireworks” youth are doing well.  Sahsa T., Slava B., Irakly, Vitaly, Yura, Pasha, Leo, Rita and Larisa continue study in colleges and trade-schools.  Please pray  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to these youth a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.(inspired by Eph.1:17).

 In our previous letters we shared that Larisa and Julia have won two court cases and should be granted apartments from the government. A few weeks ago they were called to another court with the same judge who had approved their cases before, but he denied them this time. The reason he gave is that the girls have their own apartments in the village, which is not true.  Vitaly has also lost his court case. I have many guesses why things like this are happening with former orphans; all I can say is that God is in control of everything on this earth and we trust Him completely.   We ask you to pray that in our weakness God would show His power and protect the rights of His children. 

            This school year we are going to continue our home Bible study groups for boys and girls and we are also involved in leading a home–church group and Sunday school. We have many plans to bring the gospel to people who are seeking God. Our dream for this year is to take our “Fireworks” youth on mission trip to India. Please pray that the Lord would fulfill His plans through us.

Angelica and I are very grateful to those of you who has been praying and supporting us financially. Our family is doing well, by Grace of God. My spine back feels much better. The Lord helped Angelica to find right treatment for her varicose veins problem. Thank the Lord!!! 

I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders.

I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High. (Ps.9:1,2)

Serving Chirst together with you.

Sergey, Angelica, Elijah and David Zelenov

“Gospel to the children/Fireworks ministry.”

September 2009.  Penza Russia.

Ministry update. July 2009.

Dear friends , this is our update which we sent out to prayer partners in August 2009.

I love the LORD, because He hears My voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, Therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live. (Ps.116:1,2)

We are thankful to God for all His goodness and His mercy. We never cease to be amazed at the great works He is doing here in Penza.

Youth Camp

We just finished our week of youth tent camping on July 20^th. Everything went very well. We only have one regret – that is was such a short time. Many of the youth want to go back and stay for a month at the campsite worshipping God in His creation and having fellowship with other Christian youth. The theme of the camp was “Being Disciples of Jesus”, based on John 8:31 where Jesus said that if we continue in His word, we are truly
disciples of His. Each day of the camp, we talked about different disciples – John, Peter, Paul, Philip, Thomas, and finally Judas. We looked at those disciples and we learned from them how to be a true disciple of the Lord and we talked about different issues that they had. There were over 50 people in the camp and several were unsaved youth that joined us. One of them was Andrey L. who was invited by his friend, Yura, who is part of Fireworks. One night at camp he came to me and asked, “Sergey, how can I pray and change my life forever? I am so tired of my stinky life.” At first, he was very concerned about what words to say to God. I explained to him that it is not about the words, but about the heart. It’s about resetting your mind and not living for yourself, but for the Lord. Andrey was touched by every single event we had. He took part in the skit about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. He played the part of the Ethiopian man. Before the play, he studied every word of the passage in Acts 8 that describes the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian man. When talking with him later, I pointed out that the eunuch asked Philip how he could understand if no one guided him. I told Andre that in order to understand God and how to follow Him, he needs someone to guide him. He said he understood and we are hopeful that he will join the church. Please pray for him and for people to mentor him. During the week of camping, God blessed us with wonderful Texas weather and we had water close to the camp. Before that week, the weather was cold and rainy. We prayed, and God sent wonderful weather for us. Our friends from the Charismatic church said that next year they want to do their camp at the same time as ours because we always have great weather during our camp! Another blessing of the camp was that the city officials were very helpful this year, which is completely opposite of the situation last year. They even sent a guard to stay at the camp with us to ensure our safety. We were surprised about their cooperative spirit, but we know Who choreographed this for us. We are very thankful that we had a time of peace at the camp so that we could focus on the spiritual aspects of camp for the week. We also did a project while we were there. We took the group to the lake and picked up garbage along the shoreline that had been left by vagrants and others. When we returned home from camp, we immediately began thinking about next year and everyone was enthusiastic about that. We want to thank the people who donated money through Spoken For to provide scholarships for some of the young people. I am very thankful that they were able to be at camp.Here you can find other pictures of the camp.

Fireworks Youth

We have praises to report about some of the Fireworks youth graduating from different schools. Yulia graduated with good marks and is going to work in the neonatal unit at the pediatric hospital. There are many abandoned babies at that hospital and she is excited about helping them. Her salary will be very small – about $150 per month, but she wants to work and serve the Lord there. Irakly graduated from trade school and will start technical school in the fall. He was granted exemption from military service. He is a gift from God to us; he is such a servant and follower of Christ. Please pray that God will work out details to allow Irakly’s brother, Vitaly (age 17), to leave the orphanage and join the Fireworks program. Leo and Slava will be going to a new trade school where they will get training to help them have a stable profession. Sasha Trushnin has a job doing metalworking. Pasha, our newest Fireworks young man, is living in the apartment with Leo, Irakly, and Vitaly K. and they are great influences on him. We are thankful to God and the people who donated money through Spoken For for braces for Leo, Vitaly, and Slava. They used to dream of getting braces to correct their teeth and now they have them.

Tamara

We have bittersweet news about Tamara from our church. She went home to Jesus. Thank you for praying. Her last days of life here were peaceful. Her last words were, “Praise the Lord for everything I had here in this life.” Then she went to sleep and passed away. The funeral was packed with people who were all grateful for having known such a virtuous person. We will all miss our sister and are looking forward to seeing her when we get to heaven.

Prayer Requests:

1. That God would bring more people into Fireworks. There are some young people who would like to join. Please pray that God would lead them and give them an urge to get to know Him better through the wonderful Fireworks program.

2. That God would bless the government authorities who were used for glory of the Lord – that He would continue to touch their hearts and they would be open to take the next step to give their lives to God. Everywhere I went getting paperwork for camp, I had opportunities to share the Gospel with those people.

Thank you for supporting us financially, without your help we couldn’t do all these things for the Glory of God. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.(Php.1:3-5)

With love of Jesus.

Sergey, Angelica , Elijah and David Zelenov.

“Gospel to the children , Penza, Russia/ Fireworks ministry”

gospelttc@gmail.com

www.spokenfor.org