AZERBAIJAN, TURKEY & LATVIA
One of our team is currently seeking to meet up with
contacts from Iran who are seeking baptism. She is also
addressing issues with the Iranian brethren still seeking to get
out of Turkey, and we ask for your prayers in her mission.
Another trip is also being made to brethren and contacts in
Kurdistan who are in severe difficulties, and this also could do
with prayerful support.
Meanwhile, the Lord’s work continues in the Baltic states. We
continue following up on over 1000 active contacts, as well as
seeking to help out the many brethren and sisters caught up on
the downside of the transition from a former USSR republic to a
member of the EU. At present this transition is leaving some
people getting wealthier and yet many others [especially
Russians in Eastern Latvia] being pushed down to subsistence
economy and even below into life-threatening poverty. We really
appreciated a visit from Marcus & Gwladys [Heaster] accompanied
by Brother Graham Mitchell from the UK. Graham filled us in on
the exciting mission work he and his sons are quietly doing in
Eastern Zambia.
We are very pleased to report that more Bible Basics contacts
have responded to the Lord’s call and been baptized since we
last reported to you: ALEKSANDR, NINA, KARINA, IEVA and LIGA.
They need your prayers as they begin to witness in areas where
we do not have many nearby brethren and sisters.
Photo: Brother Aleksandr just before his baptism
Photo: New sisters Nina and Karina bond in fellowship with two
other sisters immediately after their baptisms
Sister Karina works three month ‘shifts’ at a Russian
restaurant on a Meditteranean island, and is very keen to make
her witness there, upon which we pray the Lord’s blessing.
Many Eastern European brethren and sisters will now be seeking
employment in the West following the EU expansion, and we
commend them to their Lord’s care in the often unstable
circumstances they will find themselves in. May their dispersion
be a means of the truth spreading.
We are now at the end of another Winter, and we have to remind
you again of the heating crisis which there is for many poorer
brethren and sisters in Lithuania and Latvia. The Soviet style
blocks in which many live have no way of regulating the heating;
they were built during Soviet times, when oil was cheap. The
heating systems are very inefficient. The cost of heating the
flats in Winter is often equal to or more than an old person’s
pension. If the bills aren’t paid, they have the flat taken away
from them by the State in order to pay the bill to the heating
company.
In the past of course, before heating provision was
privatized, it was the same State who owned the flats, the
heating, the oil and everything. Many elderly or sick or
unemployed brethren and sisters are therefore really desperate
during the Winter months, when the fuel bills are highest. Even
those in rural areas still have to find heating material to
burn.
The elderly and those without relatives [a sad
feature of
the breakdown of the family unit during many decades of
Communism] are again left desperate for funds to buy firewood if
they are too old or ill to collect it. There is also growing
concern about the destruction of Latvia’s forests for firewood
and it is more difficult to just go into the forest and take
away firewood.
The BBFU gave around £3000 towards heating
issues
this Winter, and now we have only about £3000 in our total
balance for all our work and responsibilities. We are looking
ahead to the problems to be faced next Winter, God willing.
Perhaps individuals and ecclesias could consider adopting
individuals who need heating support?
Photo: Newly installed electric wall heater
Photo: A terminally sick brother [now fallen asleep in Christ]
in a cold rural home [note how people are dressed even
indoors]
Photo: Sis Svetlana’s poverty stricken rural kitchen; note the
water bucket. All hot water has to be heated on the fire.
Yet in this poverty, the truth is spreading, both in terms of
baptisms, and also in the way brethren and sisters are
undoubtedly growing in their appreciation of what it means to be
in Christ, and bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit in their
lives. This is our greatest joy to report.
p.s. One of our team is soon to make another visit to the UNHCR
in Geneva to thank them in person for their work for our refugee
brethren and sisters. Any last minute thank you emails can be
sent c/o unitedchristadelphians@bbie.org