Gospel Expedition

We said farewell to the departing members of our Expedition in the morning. It is hard to say goodbye as they have become a part of our hearts. The service awaits us. There are 172 kilometers to a town with the interesting name of Raichikhinsk. There is an asphalt road for once, but we still had some flat tires, and at lunch time we arrived at the town. A delegation of believers met us and accompanied us to the church house. This town was not included into our schedule. We planned to have a day off that day, but the believers in Raichikhinsk found our route from the Internet, and expressed a strong desire for us to visit them. It was impossible to say no to them, so we exchanged a day off to wash things for a day of cleansing for souls.

The Shadow of the Gulag

The town of Raichikhinsk was founded in tsarist times on the junction of two rivers — Rai (means “paradise” in Russian) and Chikha. But people turned this paradise into hell. Where the church house is located, there used to be a barracks for prisoners in the infamous GULAG. The population of the town is 43,000 people. They mine brown coal here, but some mines are closed and people left for more prosperous regions.

The church in Raichikhinsk is not large with a little more than 40 members. It was planted in the 1990s. There used to be a small church in the vicinity of the town. All the neighboring churches united their efforts to have evangelization there.

After our arrival and a brief time to clean up, we went out into the town streets to invite people to the evening service. The authorities allowed us to have the evangelization at the gymnasium downtown. We traveled along town streets several times and invited people with the help of loudspeakers. Many of them had already read about our arrival on the posters. We were pleased to see people coming together with their kids. Families were heading for the stadium. As usual there were many kids and our children’s workers had a lot of work. Boris Berezhnoi and Albert Redin sang. Vladimir Skovpen shared his testimony. Leonid Kartavenko preached. We were surprised at the number of militiamen at the stadium, who were there to keep order. Praise God, the commanders of these men ordered them to be at the event, and they also listened to the Good News about salvation.

People remained at the stadium for a while after the event concluded. It was getting dark and we were forced to stop conversations between the cyclists and the people, as we had to be at the church to rest.

Tomorrow more travel — over 200 km. Part of the way will go along a gravel road. May the Lord keep our cyclists!