Gospel Expedition

Today is the last — and the longest — day trip. We are to cover 220 km, and hills with steep grades are awaiting us. We got up at 5:30 a.m., prayed at 6, and started at 7 a.m. As we gathered by the church house, some young people came to see us off despite the early hour. We prayed. Our accompanying police car arrived 15 minutes later and followed us to the outskirts of the city. For the first 140 kilometers, we did not stop. By the town of Vyzemsky, another road inspection car was waiting for us and saw us off to the border with the Bikin district, where two more cars were waiting for us, and followed us to the church in Bikin. A meeting in the square is planned for today.

Bikin for the “Bikers”

Bikin has 19 thousand people and is located on the border with China. The church in this town originated at the time of the spiritual revival in the Far East, which took place in the 1920s. In the 1960s, the church bought a small house for services. Last summer, when the Bikin believers were at the UECB Congress in Bryansk, homeless people broke into the church house to sleep there and set it on fire. Praise God, neighbors noticed the trouble in time. The fire brigade arrived very quickly and only an auxiliary room was damaged. But the church has purchased another house for paperwork. The services are still held in the old church building.

Right after lunch, we sent some people from our team to the central park to set up the sound equipment. The service was planned for 6 p.m. It was a working day and it would have been better to start later, but the time was set so we decided to begin the meeting. Not many people came. But there were many militiamen who came and left in shifts. We thanked God for the opportunity to have these men with us as they had an opportunity to hear about salvation. Gradually more people came. We were happy to feel an atmosphere of kindness and attention. Not many people were there, but they were very receptive to the Gospel message.

Two elderly ladies sat by Piotr Ryazanov, and after the service Piotr invited them to the church. They said they attended the Orthodox church, but they had never had a Bible. One of them said that while she was sitting at home, she felt an impulse to stand up and go somewhere, but she didn’t know where. As she passed the park, she heard music and went there, and then sat on the bench. It was not in vain. She received a Bible and found out where she could study the Word of God.

During the service, Leonid Kartavenko noticed a young lady with a child. She was recording the service on a video camera. After the meeting, she came up to him and asked several questions. Leonid asked her if she attended the church. She sighed and said that she lived far away in a very little village in the Primorie area. Her relatives from Bikin told her about the planned meeting, and she took her little son and came to Bikin to the meeting. Then she would go back home.

The meeting was planned for 90 minutes, but three hours passed and still people did not want to go home. They asked us to sing more songs. How much we wish that the church would grow here, and that the light of Christ’s teaching would reach many local inhabitants!