Ministry in Siberia

We continue to work with Vyacheslav Ostankin – a deacon of an Evangelical Lutheran church in Novosibirsk. He writes, “During the last month we visited lots of places, especially children’s institutions for those who are ill with tuberculosis, we also went to prison camps and sat at a committee session discussing release on parole.

Another place I went to was a prison camp outside of the city. It’s a maximum security penal colony in the village of Gornyi in Novosibirsk Region. Last month I continued my visits to the prison camps: a colony for the prisoners who have TB and AIDS. I lead Bible studies there.

We also continue to work with the children’s tuberculosis sanatorium. This past month we bought some Christmas presents for the children and organized some parties to congratulate them with Christmas and New Year. We do similar things for the Regional Antitubercilous Hospital which has more than hundred people.

Thanks to Concordia Foundation help we send out lessons on foundation of Christian faith to prisons and prison camps. We also distributed Biblical calendars and children books Christmas which they really liked. So we are very thankful.

Christmas in Grand Canyon

On January 9th, a theatrical performance Christmas took place on the stage of Fruit of Enlightenment theater in a big shopping mall Grand Canyon with the support of Concordia Foundation.

This play is made as a folk theatrical act based on Russian Christmas carols and hymns.

The play was set like a traditional Nativity Scene only adapted for a large stage. Russian folk songs that people here in Russia would traditionally be singing for Christmas were sung during the play. All music was played live; lots of folk instruments were used: gusli (the oldest Russian multi-string), zhaleiki (Russian single-reed hornpipe plucked instrument), violin, Medieval five-string vielle, kantele, and a nyckelharpa.

So it was a very joyous performance in a style of open-air festival customary to Rus. The audience, which was mostly represented by children, was involved in the performance – alongside with the actors they participated in the khorovods (a combination of the circling dance and a chorus singing) up on the stage.

On the other hand, this play showed the full true meaning of Christ’s birth. The meaning of the Saviour’s coming to this earth was not belittled, but instead intensified, by this merriness.

The actors were able to show this most significant event in the whole history in an easy-to-understand way. They’ve told about Joseph and Mary having to got to Bethlehem for census and of the things that happened to them over there.

The play had such a great effect on the audience that after it was over a lot of the parents together with their children came on to the stage. It was very much like an open-air festival.

With great interest, children looked through the stage gadgets and collected the sparkling glare, and the adults continued to informally converse with the actors. And above all of this, at a distance, as a symbol of the festival, stood Mary and Joseph looking at the baby Jesus.

This play is a joint effort of the theater Traveling Puppets of Mr. Pageout and a folk-group Otava E, and since this project was focused on the preservation of Russian Christian heritage, Concordia Foundation was greatly interested in it.

Seminar in Toksovo

A small town Toksovo is located within twenty miles to the north of St. Petersburg. When we arrived to the place of our destination, we were greatly surprised to see snow falling off of the sky and a thick layer of it covering the ground – at the same time there was no hint of snow in St. Petersburg itself. It was rather chilly inside of the church building, but the parish building, where the seminar was to be held, was warm and cozy.

During the worship service we found out that a famous missionary from Finland, Arvo Survo, is going to speak after the Mass. At first, this overlap made us concerned: we wondered how we were to blend our seminar into all that. But the Lord provided everything in the very best way.

Arvo sang two songs to a guitar and then preached a very short sermon which turned out to be a great introduction to our seminar. We had a lot of participants of various ages. Also, the cooks’ son had his birthday that day and his friends stayed to wish him a happy birthday and share a birthday cake with him.

Everybody listened very carefully to what we had to say about the activities of the Concordia Foundation, about the principals of sharing the Gospel with others  and the importance of it for the growth of the church. At the end of the seminar the pastor of the church, Ero Kugappy, preached a short sermon and summoned the flock to be more active in sharing the Good News with this world. He expressed gratitude to the Foundation’s staff for encouraging the church and for the well organized seminar.

After the seminar we all had some tea. One of the choir singers, Ekatherina, sat down and shared an edifying story with us. You see, the narrator of the seminar, Igor Savich, included in one of his presentations several slides about Islam; he said that this religion, or rather life style, constitutes danger for today’s society, including Russian society. Ekatherina told us that she has the firsthand knowledge about that. Several years ago she met a fine young man – typical Russian from Novgorod. They got married; she wasn’t able to get him interested in spiritual matters.

Some time passed and she noticed that he began reading books about Islam. She didn’t pay much attention to that thinking it was just a mere curiosity. But it wasn’t! Her husband became friends with other Russians who were interested in Islam. They all exercised and went to a sauna together.  After all, when Ekatherina realized that he was serious, it was too late already – her beloved husband became Muslim. That was a real shock for her. She tried to talk with him, but everything was in vain. Her husband became more and more aggressive towards her; he demanded that she becomes Muslim also. When she refused it caused scandals between them. In order to save their family she decided to be patient and not to prevent him in this belief, but keep silence. That didn’t help. She was accused of not being a good wife and of getting in his way. He then abandoned her.

We ached for this young woman, and the most terrible thing is that hers is not an isolated incidence. She told us that a lot of Russian young man convert to Islam nowadays. I remembered a parable that Jesus told saying that if an evil spirit is driven away from a person and is not replaced by anything else, it comes back and brings other evil spirits alongside with him and this person feels even worse. In case of Ekatherina and her other friends we can see that they were greatly influenced by the power of darkness because there was no one to show them the light. Aren’t we as Christians to be blamed for our passiveness and indifference?

Realizing the graveness of the problem Concordia Foundation prepared to publish a brochure titled Is There Any Use in Going to Church. This brochure will be able to give answers to a lot of questions including the questions of those who want nothing to do with a church.

Greetings from Concordia Foundation

The person is equipped to go to the Church

This letter is from prisoner who graduated from BBC.

Before studying the Bible through the Correspondence Bible Courses I thought that I was a Christian, but I was only able to find the truth once I started going through the lessons.

These lessons helped me to know the Christian faith better. Before that my knowledge was very shallow. Through these lessons I was able to know God better – I learned about His character and about the way He sees people.

Before studying through the Correspondence Bible Courses I didn’t attend any church. Now I know that I will not part from the Christian way, and I am looking for a church that will be in accordance with my convictions. The Correspondence Bible Courses helped me to get established in my faith.

I liked everything I went through during my studies, although most helpful was the fact that the lessons helped me to learned more about the sin and the Gospel, and about the church. There are still some questions that remain.

I don’t think I’d improve anything in the Courses. I think that after going through them a person is equipped to attend a church and to become a true child of God.

I believe in God and I can’t continue leaving in a worldly manner. I’d like to continue studying doing question-answer lessons through  the Correspondence Bible Courses.

Maxim Aleksandrovich Logunov

The Truth is on the Surface

A symposium Days of Petersburg Philosophy took place in St. Petersburg. This event gathers hundreds participants both from Russia and from abroad annually. Concordia Foundation took part in one of the workshops of this symposium called TRUTH AS A VALUE AND THE PROBLEM OF TRUE VALUES IN TODAYS RUSSIAN CULTURE (Led by: Candidate of Philosophical Science, assistant professor of philosophy  from St. Petersburg State University of economics and finance, Masloboyeva Olga Dmitrievna and Doctor of Biological Science, Savich Igor Mikhailovich).

Last-years discussions on the question of truth and its interaction with philosophy, science, religion and art sparked genuine interest among present scientists who were representing various cultural spheres in wide geographical range — Russia, Former Russia and USA. The following topics were discussed during the symposium: classic and present-day concept of truth and its standards; truth and value in classic and present-day science; true and ostensible values of philosophy, science, religion, morality and art; organic concept of truth, goodness, beauty, justice and holiness in the Russian society, etc. Alongside with purely philosophical issues we also touched on some questions of Christian faith.

Vice-principle of the religious, philosophical and pedagogical center named after Y. A. Komenski, K. K. Ivanov at the end of his speech about love for truth said, “Now we can fully understand the meaning of our love for truth. As any other kind of love it seeks reciprocity and finds fulfillment in it. The love of truth in the fullness of its religious, personal manifestation as communication between God and men is a special gift of Christian faith. And the everlasting classic of the Christian faith is that be the means of the Holy Spirit we miraculously get to know the eternal, inaccessible God in the person of a man — Jesus of Nazareth — who is a man like we are, who represents God to us not being a mere prophet, but shows us the eternal human face of God. In todays society the meaning of Christian faith becomes apparent particularly in the newest theology.”

A student of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy, S. N. Vasilkova, in her speech on the idea of truth in the Ancient Greek Philosophy and Christian tradition emphasized that, “truth is God as absolute entity that knows Himself and knows the world as His creation…. Experiencing the nature of creation which is logically arranged we acquire the freedom of thought that being purified by the Spirit is able to rise up to understanding of the mystery of thought that sees itself only logically – i.e. thought about God before creation of the world.”

In his speech Doctor of Biological Science, I. M. Savich — director of Concordia Foundation — presented ways of possible communication and logical influence in the process of the discourse on evolution and creation. With that he especially stressed that the informational essence of the living creatures clearly points to their creative source which greatly questions the main principle  of the evolution model about the accidental appearance of every living thing on the Earth. Thus, the truth acts as the absolute value in respect to Jesus Christ’s words, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” So the Truth is on the surface. Just to look at that.

Advent and Ballet Festivals – the meetings of the two subcultures

The annual Advent Music Festival took place on November 26, at the initiative of non-profit organization Prosvet and with the support of Concordia Foundation. It is already the eighth year that this Festival of Christian music and culture is being conducted in St. Petersburg. Every year about 600 people of various ages, both believers and those who are just attracted to it by music, come to this Festival for advertisements are being put up all over the city.

Sixteen Christian groups performed at the Festival this year. These groups represented all sorts of musical styles so each person was able to find something they really liked.

And Concordia Foundation’s staff took care of providing all those who came with some spiritual food. We had volunteers giving out invitations to Study the Bible. There was also a stand where people could by products issued by the Foundation: books and desk calendars with the Bible quotes for each month, T-shirts with a call on them to share faith with others, and music CDs When God’s is Near. Besides that every person who was interested in evolution theory points of issue got a brochure Splinters of the False Mirror that shows all inconsistencies that this theory has with the real picture of the earth’s origin.

It was interesting coincidence that took place during this day. Right behind the stand of Concordia Fund there was another big hall where Ballet Festival of youth from St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia took place.

There was opportunity for these young men and girl of quite another world of Art to have information about Christian activity and had possibility to take some materials from Concordia table. There was indeed the meeting of the two subcultures: the classic and modern and both of them were attracted many visitors.

The Advent Music Festival lasted from eleven o’clock in the morning till eleven o’clock at night, and all this while there were lots of people from both Festivals near the Foundation’s stand.

They came up to us and asked questions, showed interest in what was presented at the stand, they bought some things or got some gifts  to learn more (through the correspondence lessons) about that faith that they saw at the Advent Music Festival.

Konstantin Zhidulin’s concert in Warsaw Express

The first concert – presentation of a new Konstantin Zhigulin’s CDShepherd’s Songs – was held with the support of Concordia Foundation.

The entertainment center Warsaw Express used to be a railway station. Today, only its unique architecture with iron columns and glass ceiling reminds us about that.

Nowadays this building contains various stores, restaurants, cinema theaters, a skating ring, a bowling and fitness center. Several thousands of people come to this place every day. And it is in this place that the first presentation of Konstantin’s group took place.

When you perform in places like that you need to take into account its specific features – people come here on some business of theirs: to buy something they need to watch a movie, to eat, etc. They can stop by and listen to a song or two and then go on to run their own errands. That’s why we tried not to lose out on neither one of them.

Between singing his songs Konstantin Zhigulin announced that all those who liked the music they heard can come up to Nikolai Erohin – a staff member of Concordia Foundation – and ask any questions that they have, and also leave their contact information in order to find out when the next concert is going to be so that they can come specifically for the concert.

The work on Konstantin’s new album Shepherd’s Songs  is almost completed, and as soon as the disk will be issued we’ll use the contacts that we collected during this concert. And also we will send out information to all those who showed interest and left their addresses inviting them to learn more Concordia Foundation and invite to study the Bible by Correspondence Courses.

A Church on the Lake

One early morning the staff of Concordia Foundation came to Pobeda village to visit an Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Peter and Paul. It was still dark when we arrived to the place and we were astound by the towering brick walls with the aperture of empty windows and the floor overgrown with grass inside that building.

But the pastor of the church, Nikolai Volodarski, took us into a small bright hall where the worship took place. Right after the worship we had a seminar during which Igor Savich gave a presentation about the Concordia Foundation’s work and talked about methods of congregation’s strengthening and enlarging. Igor talked aboutr Evangelical activity and its methods.

Fourteen people participated in this seminar, most of them were of advanced age. However, when the pastor’s wife, Zinaida, invited us to come up to the second floor, it became obvious to us that this church does have future.

The second floor is a bright, warm room decorated by various crafts handmade by children. Pictures on the walls looked surprisingly very mature. Sunday school in this church has now more than thirty kids of various ages.

Zinaida is an experienced teacher, she is a distinguished teacher of Russian. She told to us that the Sunday school could easily have 100 children, but the pastor Nikolai Volodarski accepts only those kids whose parents ask to count their child in for this Sunday school.

At the end of our visit the pastor took us inside the big building which we saw that early  morning. The fate of this building was tragic. It was opened in 1934 (at that time the territory which it was on belonged to Finland) and few years later the World War II began.

After the War the land was given to the Soviet Union and the church was closed. People tried to reorganize the building in order to make a club there, they even took the cross off of it and put a star in its place. But during the first strong storm the lightning stroke the star and completely destroyed it.

Communists were frightened and the idea of the club was put off and eventually the building of the church was used as a storage yard for the agricultural products, though not for too long – in 1980s there happened a fire and the building got burned out from within.

So that morning we saw what was left after the fire. We really hope that those who come for the Sunday school will maintain the seeds of faith that are sown into them with such love and patience.

And that some time in the future this magnificent building would be reconstructed and the bell will once again ring over the surrounding villages calling people to church.

Gift to Concordia Foundation

We continue our relationship with Elena Sokolova  author of Eternal Kingdom novel that was recorded for broadcasting.

Elena Sokolova expressed her desire to present to Concordia Foundation the number of her books for free distribution. When Igor Savich visited he home he was surprised that Elena is also a good painter.

She demonstrated her artistic feelings not only in writing but in painting also. Her dog was accompanied Elena and was not very much pleased when Igor Savich started to take out books from her apartment.

In fact more than 300 books of Elena’s  novels were brought to Concordia Foundation. And it is very good as we have many requests from various people for Christian literature and especially for prisons.

Oksana, the secretary on Concordia in St. Petersburg, immediately started posting of these books in accordance with requests.

The books of Elena Sokolova include various novels writing in allegoric manner where clearly visible God’s work and His creation. She is very eager for spreading her books as it is real tool for evangelic influence on the people of various ages.

Her novels for Children gave us an idea to use it also as a material for future radio programs.