Gospel Expedition

We see a long line of vehicles behind us. We see cars stoping by the waysides. We are “full owners� of the highway. Accompanied by police cars, we enter the city of Novosibirsk. We are allowed to ignore traffic lights and traffic rules, and continue on our way.

Novosibirsk was founded in 1893 where a railroad bridge was constructed across the Ob River. At first the village was called Aleksandrovsky in honour of Tsar Alexander III. In 1895 it was renamed and became the village of Novonikolaevsky. In 1903 it became a town, and in 1925 it was renamed and called Novosibirsk. On May 13, 2000, a presidential decree gave it the status of being the Federal Center city for the area, which unites 16 constituent regions of the Russian Federation.

After lunch and a short rest, we went to a park named after Kirov. Evangelical Christians received permission for the action in the town park without much difficulty. But there was one prerequisite — we could say nothing about religion. We were allowed to propagate sports, physical culture, and to tell about some interesting episodes of the Expedition.

I found out about this restriction of “freedom of speech� only a few hours before the event. I was disappointed. All the songs we prepared were about God. We had with us only Christian magazines as well as the New Testaments, which we planned to give out to all visitors. What were we to do? How could we present our program?

The answer from God came through Dmitri, the truck driver. He did not know about the restriction and hung the banner with the words “Gospel to the nations of the worldâ€? on the stage. I understood — we did not propagate religion, but Christ. We had the usual evangelistic meeting. One elderly lady said to me, “It seemed to me that the sky was opened and God looking at me saying, ‘I forgive you!’â€?

We were scheduled to travel 280 km to Kemerovo and stop there to rest. It was too hard for the cyclists to wheel for such a long time. Alexei Sofeev, the senior pastor for the Novosibirsk region, invited us to start after lunch and go to the town of Bolotnoye first. It was only 120 km from Novosibirsk and we could stop there and stay overnight in the church house.

But before that, we had ministry to do. The next day — July 15 — we divided into four groups and had four meetings. The team from Vladikavkaz served at Salvation Baptist Church. Two young men repented at the service there.

Victor Kabachevsky, our cyclist who has hearing problems, attended the service for deaf people. Victor came to saving faith in Christ 4 years ago. He used to be an alcoholic and lived in basements. He began to drink alcohol when he was 7, and stopped this practice at 40. He repented thanks to a meeting with evangelical believers. He studied at the Theological Seminary and became a preacher. Victor is the soul of our team. With the help of sign language, he told people about the ministry of the Expedition.

Vitaly Semionov and Denis Bernaz visited a rehab centre for alcoholics and drug addicts. A team of cyclists from Bryansk sang at the worship service in a church on Kamenskaya street. Vladimir Skovpen shared his testimony in that church.

On to Bolotnoye

Accompanied by one police car, we went to Bolotnoye. We had several stops on our way there, due to technical reasons. One cyclist fell and several bicycle tires were punctured. When we stopped, a lot of gnats attacked us. We were warned about the gnats long before!

Pastor Alexander, whose church is in Bolotnoye, didn’t have a lot of time to make all the preparations for our visit. But he accomplished it all — to meet, feed and accommodate the Expedition. There are 20 members in this church. The church house is about 40 years old. None of us had ever heard about this town before. Thanks to the Internet, we found some things about the history of the town. But we failed to find any information about this church’s background.

In 1805 along the Moscow-Irkutsk highway, there was founded a postal station. In 1895, the Trans-Siberian railroad was built. The railroad station was built and called Bolotnaya. The 1900 guidebook describes the services available then — “The station Bolotnaya, 3rd class. There is a buffet. There is a nearby village, Bolotnitskoye. 590 people live there. There is a church named after St. Nikolai, and a school. They ship oats and flour.” In 1939, the population of Bolotnoye was 19,000. On the 12th of November 1943, Bolotnoye became a town. Presently the population of the town is less than it was in 1939, but more than in 1900.