Missions Trips
Missions Trips 2008
An Evangelistic Trip to Soltsy
This May, 2008, for the third year, a group of students from SPbCU went on a missionary trip in Soltsy, in the Novgorod region. This time we had a week-long program: a Christian children'
s camp, evenings meetings for local young people, and for the believers - a seminar on youth ministry.
Our missionary group consisted of 11 students and our teacher T.K. Nikolskaya. Among the students were people who previously traveled to Soltsy and also those who went for the first time.
Our trip began on May 19th. In just three hours by train, we arrived to another world - a small provincial town. At the station we met a pastor of a local evangelical church Valery Leonidovich Shilizhinsky. Of course, without his active promotion of our ambitious program, simply could not have come together. Our arrival also brought a lot of joy to the church youth.
We began almost immediately: a brief time for the accommodation, and then - preparations for the camp and youth ministry, the distribution of invitations on the streets. May 20 brought church youth together: testimonies, prayers, hymns, glorifying God.
Soltsy has very little cultural entertainment. Nevertheless, local residents responded to our invitation with caution. Understanding of evangelical faith is the most strange.
Some people say that the church is a place for harmful sect meeting or even pagans. We had to confront this ideas. Every evening at eight o'clock worship gathered guests to the church.
The evening programs for the youth had two objectives: first, to show that you can have fun 
without alcohol, drugs and foul language, secondly, to help young men and women think about the eternal questions and the meaning for their lives. Some of the young visitors came drunk, sometimes mocking us.
Admittedly, the leaders of the evening program Maxim Chepel and Katya Kalina kept up with dignity in this difficult audience. Over time, the joking ceased. Every day brought something new: "newsprint party", the film viewing and discussion, fun-night, black-and-white movie evening, picnic and, finally, the last Sunday meeting at which participants were invited to the prayer of repentance.
Everyone came in - about 50 people.
And during the day, from 21 to 23 May, in the village Vybiti, we had a Christian camp at the local 
children's shelter, which was attended by 20-25 children.
Director Dmitri Popov with the help of brothers from a local evangelical churches was leading the camp.
They had games, sports competitions, contests, classes in handicrafts and, of course, talk about God. On the last day of the camp some of the children even cried, when they were saying good-buy to their counselors.
On Saturday, May 24, our students held, in a church, a seminar on youth ministry. And while the participants were less than expected, the event was met with great enthusiasm. On Sunday, students participated in morning worship. Brothers and sisters were singing, Maxim Chepel preached, and Daler Rahmet-Zadeh gave a testimony.
The missionary trip ended, but the memories remain, as well as new friends. We hope this trip will bring spiritual fruits. We ask everybody to pray about this small Russian town and for revival among local youth.
The project of SPbCU "Yakutia-2008" is successfully finished
We landed in Yakutsk early in the morning, had overcome a huge distance, and immediately felt a warmness of the capital of Saha Yakutia. There is a false opinion about constant coldness in this region. But we had an opportunity to see that it's not so. +45C - such degrees a thermometer read for several days.
For the purpose of acclimatization and acquaintance with the new place we decided to stay in the city for few days and then go to Mohsogolloh - a native village of Sveta Markina, a leader of our team. During that period we became acquainted with the Sysoev family - Yan and Danna, and also their children - Dora and Nathan. Yan and Danna are graduates of Biblical University in Romania, they are coordinators of youth ministry in local churches. That's why they helped us in planning and organizing our ministry in Yakutsk.
After several days in the capital of Yakutia, we went to Moshogolloh situated an hour away from the city. Next several days we spent there. It was a wonderful time. Leaders of children's ministry of the Moshogolloh's church and youth also actively helped us.
We arranged church-based children's camp. Every day during a week from 10.00 to 17.00 children were with their crows.
Each day was filled with interesting assignments, games and, of course, Bible lessons. "The day of full combat readiness", "The main enemy", "The winner" - these are names of some of the days of our camp. And our slogans were verses of the Bible.
Speaking about our work in Yakutsk, our goal was to make a teenager's camp. But because of unsafe conditions of a building where we wanted to make our camp, we had to cancel it.
But we didn't despaired and offered to hold several evenings under the general name of "I am alive" - the project made by a missionary team which visited Soltzy in the May (students of the SPbCU).
Such "evenings" were very successful in Mohsogolloh, and we were very happy about it.
We prayed that the Lord would bring the youth and touch their harts. The moment of waiting for people was the most exciting. And the Lord brought them! Especially we prayed for 
a group of guys headed by a local criminal Vitaliy.
This young man attended every evening meeting and was the most active among others. We hope he was touched with what he had seen and heard.
What was involved in these youth meetings? Paper party, panel game, cinema-café, "Dark/white cinema" evening and picnic. The age of teens visited "evenings" in the city differed from the age of country teens. It was interesting. The same program, the same organizers, the same invitations, but everything is different.
In Mohsogolloh even boys and girls of 17-20 years old and older didn't hesitate to come. In Yakutsk we felt totally other newness. But not looking on earlier age of our guests, we were ready to serve them. We felt joy when, on the last day dedicated to the theme "The Real Hero", the number of arrived teens was maximal. W
e very hope that our humble contribution to the good evangelical cause was not in vain.
During several weeks that we spent in Yakutia, we became friends with the church's youth of Yakutsk and especially of Mohsogolloh. We together with them traveled to Buluus.
It's a wonderful place - an ice-flow with clearest streams, flowing through its chines. It doesn't melt even in hot weather. We had to overcome 15 km to look at this miracle. Our Lord is truly wonderful!
The other time we happened to see another God's creation - the Lena Pillars. It is a real pride of Yakutia. These rocks of strange form last for 40 km and nobody can explain their origin.
We are thankful to God for this trip. He provided everything. Thanks a lot to those who prayed about us and contributed their own money to this affair. Let God render to you a hundred times as much!