I like this thread by Motte Brown over at Boundless. He polls everyone about whether they’ve been “messed up” by a pastor, as in deeply convicted by a particular sermon, and moved to act.

While I can’t pinpoint a particular sermon, I can, of course, recall factors that changed my life.

“Ruined for the ordinary” is another phrase that gets tossed around, although I can’t seem to find the original source.

I can remember a few times when I wished I hadn’t ever gone to Russia or gotten involved. I was in too deep and I wasn’t sure if I liked that feeling.

I wanted to keep one foot planted on safe ground, but it was too late to go back. It wasn’t that it was bad, just overwhelming.

Since I was receptive to hearing about missions during college, I suppose Urbana 2003 would have held some of those sermons that “messed up” my life. I will have to find my notes again the next time I’m home. You can listen to some of the talks from that year in the archives.

Why is it that the messages that tear us apart the most often bear the most fruit in our lives?

The following verses come to mind:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise. (Ps. 51:17)

Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.

He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him. (Ps.126: 5,6)

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Psalm 133 is all about unity and how pleased God is when His kids play nice together. It’s so good for us as believers to have to work with people who don’t look exactly like us.

There are so many small points where we can differ, and those minor things can easily lead to major arguments, which lead to hatred, mistrust, and gossip.

The last 2 weeks, we have seen brothers dwell in unity together, and there really is a blessing there!

This last Sunday, the Brethren Assembly church and the Pentecostal church (the only 2 evangelical churches in Podgorica) had a joint service. The church was full of people, including many that I had never met. I enjoyed worshiping with these people.

Our teenage meeting two Fridays ago also featured some diversity! Teenagers from Niksic (about an hour away) came to Podgorica and we all had a meeting together.

We sang together and had a teaching, and played games so that the teens would be more comfortable with one another. We played blindfolded musical chairs, which is why the picture resembles a hostage crisis.

If we learn to work together with other believers in our lives here on earth, I think we will be less offended in the Kingdom when we worship next to people we didn’t like very much here. The world cannot understand the type of unity that we are called to as believers, but when the world sees it, they will know that there is power in the name of Jesus.

Revelation 7:9-10

“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”

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To be honest, I haven’t devoted a lot of time lately to researching the adoption/foster care scene in Russia. There was a time when I regularly sought information and was up on the latest laws and statistics.

We ran into a lot of seemingly dead-ends while trying to push for adoption in St. Petersburg. There were a lot of obstacles, such as the endless paperwork and the impossibility of providing a bigger home for each potential family. The law says that there must be a certain amount of living space per person, but offers no solution for obtaining such housing if the family’s income is too low. That’s one example. This is not to mention all of the emotional, psychological, and social implications.

As part of our research, we had traveled to Vladimir to learn more about a ministry there that had been fairly successful in “redistributing” children in families and group homes. But I was shocked as we got in the van the first day for the tour, and our guide, herself a Christian and former orphanage worker, told us, “I’m not in favor of adoption.”

Not in favor of adoption? That’s an attitude shared by many in Russia. Although there are public service announcements showing happy adoptive families, there is still a fairly weak infrastructure to support adoption. Foster families get more benefits and it is seen as the easiest and best choice all around.

Here’s an article about some of the efforts to promote domestic adoption in Russia. It’s from 2007, but is still telling.

“Sergei and Natasha say they hope more Russians will start to adopt. But they warn that apart from the complicated legal procedure, parents should think carefully about bringing a child into their home. They say they have made the decision never to tell Vera and Sasha they are adopted, which is why they asked for their names to be changed in this article.”

Meanwhile, I recently was alerted to this article about progress being made in Ukraine. An excerpt:

“As of Jan. 1, adoptive families are treated as birth families in the sense that mothers are given maternity leave, vacation time is allotted and families receive the customary Hr 12,240 allowance per child.”

This is good. However, with these changes immediately come consequences.

“It’s very sad when these families take children to exploit them for physical labor and money that comes from the state,” Krysa said. “We get signals that some children run away from these foster families and lose faith in all sorts of foster care altogether.” (also from the article)

Note the blurred sense of distinction between adoption and foster care.

I’m starting to meditate a little more on this topic again. Who knows, maybe there will be some developments.

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First of all, I’d like to start with the cooking class the orphanage. Teenagers from our church are very interested in helping out. Not only they became friends with orphans, but they are a great help in cooking classes and playing sports with the kids.

During those cooking classes, orphans learn basic skills of cooking a plain meal, as well as how to set the table and even how to make a dessert. They love it when they can do it themselves and we love to teach them how to do it as well as bring all the necessary ingredients.

Second, we had a great time with a group of orphans at the Belarusian Nature museum (it was my first time there as well). The children learnt about the animals that live in our country.

After the museum we all went to McDonald’s for lunch. Minsk Family Home girls have joined us, helping with orphans. It was the second time for Katya, who is 18 years old to be there.

After McDonald’s the girls as well as the orphans went to a Christian Youth conference dedicated to Love. The day was full of good impressions.

Another thing that we wanted to share was a visit to a foster family with 8 kids. SOR is getting a cow for that family. Nina, who is a mom, a single woman in her 60, is a new believer and loves the children dearly.  For our visit, she has invited 3 other foster families from the area.  She was an inspiration to them to start taking kids out of the orphanages.

It was surprising to see two kids from Stankovo, whom we met before, to be in one of those families.  Last year SOR provided pigs for all those foster families, this year it’s a cow and we would like to get them chickens as well.

We shared a meal together and heard a lot of sad stories about each child: the girls of 3 years old were not walking yet, and the boy of 10 was not talking; some kids had scab. But the joy is that now they are all doing well, talking and walking, healthy and feel safe in a healthy Christian atmosphere.

Here are our prayer and financial needs:

1. Please pray for summer programs and camps. We want to take 40-50 kids to camps this summer. The cost for 1 child to go is 215$.

2. We would like to get chickens for 5 families this spring. One chicken is about 3$.

Thank you for all your help and support that allows us to continue the good work in Belarus. May God bless you abundantly and fulfill the desires of your hearts,

– Olga and SOR

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I have been here in Montenegro for 4 months now! (Time for an update, right?!) Some days it feels like I have lived here for years, and some days I feel as though I had just arrived.

Ministry has not been “easy,” but it is an honor to be a part of the work here.

My teenagers now do not have parents who are believers or who attend church.

These teens all began coming to children’s programming at church and have now graduated beyond kids’ meetings.

It is a miracle that they are here, and we pray that God will continue to draw even more.

It is a challenge to show up as a foreigner and to try to minister to these teens. I am slowly learning their language and their culture, but I often feel like I will never catch up.

Fortunately, we serve a God who does not change with trends or cultures. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, never changing no matter how many borders we cross.

Lately, we have been partnering a bit with the teenage ministry in Niksic, a smaller city about an hour from Podgorica.

Because there are so few believers in Montenegro, we all have to work together if we want to see the Kingdom of God in this country.

We recently held a joint teenage meeting with teens from Podgorica and Niksic which went pretty well, and I believe that partnership will continue.

Plans are also underway for camp this summer, where we hope to see teens from Podgorica and Niksic, as well as some new faces who need to hear the gospel!

Thank you for your prayers and financial support, and please check out my blog, CMinMNE.blogspot.com

For more detailed information and pictures, and feel free to email me for any reason.

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About 10 days ago, my wife and I began a road trip from St. Petersburg, Russia to visit Stoneworks ministry sites in eastern and central Europe.  Stoneworks continues to expand, and it’s an honor to be able to visit so many wonderful people that God has put together as living stones.

Our first stop was in Minsk, Belarus where we visited with our ministry Spring of Revival. We stayed with Yasha and Olga Goncharenko and had a great time visiting several ministry sites.

Olga and her staff continue to do great work under difficult circumstances. They are very worthy of our help and support.

The highlight of our visit was at the Minsk Family Home.  The young ladies who live there are doing very well, and Alesya (the counselor, in front on the right) is doing a great job.

We had a good meal together, shared stories and were blessed to have a good time of fellowship and mutual encouragement.

We also visited a foster family we support. The home, for eleven children, is in a small village 30 minutes from Minsk.

We had a great meal there (this is a theme of our travels), and saw some of the pigs we bought for them. We’re now helping purchase a cow, and we’ve also purchased chickens and provided other aid for foster families.

From Minsk, we drove through eastern Poland to Budapest, Hungary after a long day.

The trip through that part of the world is quite interesting and the land is very beautiful, especially as we made our way through the Carpathian mountains of eastern Slovakia.

In Budapest, we continue to build a relationship with the Free Methodist World Mission.  I hope we will be able to place a long-term missionary to help the local church with outreach and youth ministries.

I had a good visit with the team there, and I am very hopeful that we can partner with them in the future. This was my third visit to Budapest, and I’m feeling more and more ‘at home’ there. And the Danube is always a treat:

From Budapest, we made our way to Serbia.  We visited our good friends Jan (pronounced ‘Yahn’) and Nada Dudas in Bachki Petrovac, a small farming town in the region of Voivodina.  Jan is an elder at the Baptist church.

I am hopeful that Stoneworks will be able to serve them in some way.  For now, we continue to build relationships as we discern how the Lord is leading us.

We also visited the old town of Novi Sad (left), which is nearby.  I’m enjoying getting to know more about the rich history of the area.

Most of the people in Bachki Petrovac are of Slovakian heritage, and the church service was in Slovakian.  Everyone also speaks Serbian, of course, and many speak English; we also heard some German and French, and several people spoke Russian with us. It’s quite a place.

From Serbia, we drove to our final destination — Podgorica, Montengro. The trip over the mountains was spectacular; we saw many dramatic waterfalls from the snow melt.

We’ll be here for three weeks, having fellowship with the church, helping any many ways, spending time with our family here (Olga’s sister just had a baby boy who is the pride of the family) and spending time with our missionary Christina Melton.  I’ve been asked to take over the teaching duties at the church for the next three weeks, and I’m glad to help in that way.

Today, I traveled to Cetinje with Vladimir Cizmanski, pastor of the Brethren Assembly. We had good conversations as we wound our way through the Black Mountains.  This is the view we saw as we returned home:

The Lord has given us so much beauty.  Of course, the places we’ve seen are beautiful, but even more beautiful are the people and the relationships He has established as we walk with Him.

In Christ — Mike Cantrell

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Please meet Tanya Zaikina, the NEW coordinator for the MIR hosting program. Here are a few words she wanted to share with you:

Hello, my name is Tanya.  I’m really exited to be on staff with MIR and be involved with hosting orphans from Russia.

I like drawing and traveling.  I like animals, especially dogs, cats and horses.  Also I like to walk and listening to good music.

One of my desires is to know English like I know Russian.

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This week, Russia celebrates 20 years of….McDonald’s!

I would like to leave the fast-food (health) debate for the moment and comment on the culture implications. This kind of anniversary is interesting when looked at in the light of what was going on the world at the time.

1990: I was almost 8 years old and probably didn’t know that the USSR existed. And I barely knew what McDonald’s was, as I wasn’t raised on fast-food.

Meanwhile, in Russia, an interesting “cultural” exchange was taking place. I enjoyed reading the accounts in Monday’s local paper (Metro) about people’s memories of the first McDonald’s opening in Moscow.

They speak of the lines, the intrigue, the scent of a new kind of food. People who had worked as servers describe the pressure they felt, then the relief as the idea took on.

I don’t know exactly which characteristics of American culture are represented by McDonald’s cuisine: Convenience? Mass-marketing? Consumerism? At any rate, in some ways this was a little crack in the cultural barrier. Something that could be “shared”?

An interesting excerpt from Metro (Feb.1, 2010).

How many hours do you have to work, to buy a Big Mac?

-in 1990: 2 hours, 10 minutes
-in 2010: 30 minutes

-in 1990: average salary was 297 rubles a month, a Big Mac cost 3 rubles, 75 kopecks

I asked a friend recently what her favorite restaurant was, and she said “McDonald’s.”

I suppose it is cheaper than other establishments in St. Petersburg, but it is still considered “eating out,” not something most people can afford to do regularly.

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A couple of kids whom I know in one of the orphanages are both expecting to be adopted soon, after having spent some time with American families.There is a light in their eyes now, or maybe a sense of confidence, that they will soon belong to someone.

It’s bittersweet, because as teenagers, they are making a huge life decision, and they will be missed here.

They come up to me now chattering in English, eager to hone communication skills.

The other day, I was helping Lena write a letter to her potential family. She wanted to write about the rough plane ride home.

I was dictating the words. “Difficult. D-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t.”

I didn’t look at her paper until she was done.

She had written, “Diff I see you lt.”

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————-

There are five girls involved, in addition to Alesya the counselor.

Katya S. – Studies in vocational school for the shoe-making trade. She is a new believer and attends the ABC (basic) Bible training at church. After some rough times with personal issues at the beginning, she is now fitting in well. She and Alona are good friends.

Alona G. – Was studying insurance, but has dropped out and is looking for a job.  She will apply to school again in the summer.  Alona’s birth mother has cancer, and Alona often visits her as well as her brother and sister on weekends.  As you might guess, this takes her away from church and Family Home activities, leaving her as the least “plugged in” of the girls – although she is good friends with Katya.  Imagine the stress Alona must be under.  Please pray for Alona, and that the other girls will know how to minister to her.

Alla S. – Studies chemistry at the Belorussian State University.  She has finished a Bible training course at New Life Christian Church (NLC) and has become a member there.

Tanya S. – Is taking evening courses to be a sales clerk. She plans to take qualifying tests during the summer so she can apply for the teaching program at Belarussian State Pedagogical University.  She attends pastor Tamara’s church in the village.

Masha I. – Studies marketing at a college in Sennista village, near Minsk. She is at the MFH on weekends. She loves the Lord and has completed part of the Bible training course at NLC.

So you can see there are four girls full time. One leaves, but another joins, on weekends.

Aleysa is doing very well. Olga says the girls respect her as a leader and listen to her counsel.  Alesya keeps Olga informed about how things are going, and Olga gives input as needed.

Finances

The expenses are running about $1100 monthly, a little less than we had projected. A few furniture and supply needs remain, but basically things are going well . The girls are contributing on the average of $35 each monthly. It’s good to enhance the participation of each girl by having her contribute something.

Training

The girls go to church on Sunday, and they are offered the ABC course – six basic lessons in Christianity. Following that is a Beginner School (which Alla has completed).   On Monday they have home group at the MFH, which includes Bible study, prayer and fellowship.  They also have a study weekly, with video and study guide.

Ministry

The girls are involved in the orphan ministry – going to shelters and participating in programs at orphanages. How wonderful it is that they are learning to minister to others.

Prayer Requests

Well, praise first.  Olga says they are growing in unity, love, and friendship among themselves – an extremely important aspect of the ministry.   The girls love and respect Alesya, something so critical in this context.  Olga and the others are very moved by those in the U.S. who enable the MFH to flourish through their prayers, gifts, and encouragement.

In terms of prayer – Alona’s situation, as mentioned above, is a big concern – for her mother, a job, and in time an open door for more study. Pray for schooling, health and spiritual growth for all the girls. Remember also that these girls all come from families broken in some way. Pray for their integration into the Family Home family, that they will experience healing of hurts, that they may become vulnerable and trust and love others, and that they may be prepared even now for their life post graduation.

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