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God especially gave us his words throughout this year. Although I have studied Bible continually, I have not experienced the power of God’s words. This was my invisible, but fundamental problem. The words were just words and my powerless life continued. However, God helped me to learn that the word of God is absolute truth and to have faith in it. The more I tried to know his words better, the more I realized I did know anything about them. I praise God for his teaching and for giving me the holy desire to love the word of God.

 

2       Prayer

Prayer was the main theme of our chapter for this year. I feel awful when I look back at the lack of prayer life. No one really devoted to prayer. However, I thank God that at least we tried to pray more. We had early morning prayer time sincerely, the prayer time separately after Sunday worship service, and Friday prayer meeting. All of us recognized the significance of prayer and made an effort to pray. I pray that God may fill our chapter with burning desire for prayer continually.

 

3       Discipleship

We had the Spring Bible conference on May 6-7 entitled, “Discipleship.” The Summer Bible conference was held on Aug 9-12 at Angara riverside entitled, “The Love of God.” It was the third time to have a conference outside. Our Lord blessed the conference and all attendants could rest in the word of God and renew our hearts with repentance.

God sent some orphans to us. By serving them, we were enlightened seeing another world. Alcohol, drugs, stealing, lust, and lying were a part of their lives and these problems became serious and powerful to them. Although students tried to live before God, their sinful lifestyle was not stopped. The problem was that they loved the world more than God. They repeated their sin and their shepherds became tired of it. Sometimes we argued over these problems. We came up with a solution to live with them and finally S. Sasha took some days to live with them. Although I hesitated to agree with the idea, I joined in their decision. Some difficult accidents happened although we decided to do it by faith. Brothers’ stealing brought too many police involvements in church, and the police officers often disgraced our church and threatened to close the church. When we invited students to our summer conference, some of them robbed my apartment during the conference. We had to make a decision because we could not bear disgracing the Lord’s name any longer. Furthermore, it could be very dangerous for all and our church. By God’s wisdom, we agreed to send them to a recovery center, run by Christians, and suggested that they could come back if they completed the program. Some went to the recovery program but could not finish it and went away.

I suffered under the sense of failure and I felt guilty for not having served them to the end. Although they accepted the gospel and Jesus Christ and knew what would happen after death, they could not overcome their sinful life. When we fought the spiritual battle, we were defeated.  In order to serve all kinds of people, I realized that we needed to be prepared with power and the love of God. I pray that our church may grow stronger to serve any kind of person with the word of God and prayer. I thank God for Rocha and Sergei who remained in God.

 

4       Preaching the gospel

We could not preach the word sincerely. When God entrusted Irkutsk students to us to help them know the gospel, we did not do it well. I ask God for his forgiveness on our sin. I pray that God may give us another opportunity to serve these students.

 

5       Co-working

Regarding how to serve God’s flock, we were in arguments and disagreements many times, and even we fought with each other. However, I thank God because we came to a conclusion to accept each other by the love of God and for the glory of God. May God give us unity among us in his will for the gospel to be preached and to serve his sheep.

 

6       Prayer for 2013

Our key verse is John 11:40, “Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

We want to learn the foundation of the gospel with fullness. We truly want to believe in the power of God who transforms people. That’s why we chose this key verse.

 

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One word: Always pray!