2 day prayer walk near Vadsø
Hello dear friends and partners,
Let me share some of our latest joys and challenges of our life and ministry here in the Arctic.
The greatest joy is that I know we are at the place we must be and doing the work we are called to do together with our Heavenly Father. We arrived in Vadsø June 16. Summer here is a pretty laid back season; most people are away on vacation, so there’s not too much work in the church. Although, this is also a season of larger meetings and conferences in the area.
Me and Pastor Jan from Rosvik. We first met back in 2007 during my first trip to Sweden.
At the end of June, we went to Sweden to our friend church in Rosvik village. The church used to be very small and quiet but now it has grown. They focus on refugees/immigrants, and they have a lot of folks from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, former Muslims, who got saved there in their church. We also have a lot of Muslim immigrants in Vadsø.
They shared their experience with us and we have decided that they send a team of former Muslims to Vadsø to help us start the outreach for them. Most likely in late Fall or December. Please pray for that.
Having returned from Sweden we got deeper in church work. I continued series of sermons about the Nature of God on Sundays. We have begun preparing to start our free cafe – discussing details with the elders and praying a lot. We are also planning to do a branch of it for the youth. In addition to that I have an idea of building a skate park in church yard, so we could invite teenagers to skate and to have some snacks. We will build relationships with them, sing some songs and share the Gospel in an easy way.
We also started visiting people in their homes. This is a kind of difficult here, because people are not accustomed to that. But anyway, we have visited a man who was in a difficult situation and was feeling down. We prayed for him, shared a meal and talked a lot. Last Sunday he came to church after being away so long.
Preaching on Sunday morning
After the service a few weeks ago. Sunny but chilly.
So, things are going good. We are doing some things now, with some plans for the nearest future.
We will appreciate if you pray for the free cafe for the city we will start in August, for the work with the youth of the area, for building relationships with the people in the church.
There’s also a particular prayer need. Please pray that we have a vacation someday. We haven’t had one since 2015 and are pretty tired. And this summer has been very cold, didn’t get warmer than 50.
Another particular prayer request – please pray that God open the doors for the men’s ministry here again.
And the third one – we are applying for temporary residency in August. We need prayer support with that.
Thank you for your support, for your prayers and your friendship. We appreciate you, indeed.
Yura, Masha