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