Dostoevsky described it best when he wrote to his brother in 1839, "Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man." What a clear picture of the Russian (and subsequently Belarussian) mindset. This is a strength in many Belarussian people. But as with many of our strengths, they turn out to be our biggest weaknesses as well. The Belarussian people do search out this mystery. The problem is many continue searching even when they’ve found the answer.
These are just a few of the problems we run into as we present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to students here. But amidst such resistance to accepting this Gospel, there are some bright spots. Thank you for your diligence in praying for those who are struggling with Christ as well as the Belarussians who are following Him.
And thank you especially for your prayers as I have been traveling. You’ll notice that this letter covers two months. The month of January was exam month for university students here, so that made for little time for meeting with our students. Since we couldn’t do much around here, our team has been traveling through more countries than I can remember (I think 10 in the last two months!). For Christmas, we met in Switzerland with all the other Americans in our program that are stationed throughout Eastern Europe. It was a good time to hear the struggles that the other teams were experiencing and to be encouraged with how God is working on these campuses in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and other places. It was also refreshing to just "get away" to the West for awhile.
While we were in the neighborhood, our team took our vacation in Belgium and France. It was exciting to see all of the famous sights and to spend New Year’s eve in Paris with about 500,000 Parisians! Less than two weeks later, our team traveled to Hungary to Campus Crusade’s Eastern European Staff Conference. Here, along with 600 other American and native European missionaries, we were able to hear some incredible Bible teaching (of which we don’t get much in Minsk) and hear the story of how God has opened up Eastern Europe in the last 25 years. All in all: a very encouraging trip.
Finally, the first part of this month was spent in Kiev, Ukraine. There we accompanied some of our students to a student Bible conference. This was a good opportunity to build relationships with some of our key students and be alongside them as they learned new life-changing principles. And finally we returned home to Minsk (with nothing to declare but travel weariness) just in time to begin a new semester of ministry.
And so here we are, and just two weeks into our new semester and things are already happening. We’ve had two of our large group weekly meetings so far, and we’ve been able to keep in contact with most all the students we worked with last semester.
The Bible study I lead with three Belarussian students is moving along very well. We’re all comfortable with each other now and learning how to challenge each other to let Christ reveal Himself to others through us. We’re still studying the Sermon on the Mount and having some great discussions. One goal of this Bible study is not to just study the Word, but to apply our lives to it. One of the guys, Yuri, got a great opportunity to do that last week as he shared his personal testimony at our weekly meeting. It was his first time to share his faith before a large group (which included many nonbelievers) and it’s encouraging to see him taking steps of faith like this.
In December I wrote about a guy named Pasha, who was investigating the Bible and Christianity. Pasha is still investigating, along with his friends from his class named Misha and Ivan. They are all very interested in spiritual things and I hope to continue meeting with them. Please keep their salvation in your prayers.
So, let’s get to work. Again I can’t thank you enough for your gifts and prayers. I pray that God will bless you as He has blessed me and my team.
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