Luban, Minsk region:
Ëþáàíü. Ìèíñêàÿ îáëàñòü
Alexej Kalman
Olga Kalman
Natalia Petrushko
Alexandr Savchuk
We had our practical period in the town of Luban. It is a small town with 20 thousand inhabitants. The former graduates of Minsk Bible College Olga and Vitaly Chushev have their ministry here. There is much work in the church but its members are mostly elderly sisters, that is why they all were very glad to receive us. As Christmas was approaching it was decided to organize a Christmas party and invite non-believers. We went along the streets of the town and began to invite people.
The attitude was even aggressive sometimes, one woman cried at us telling we led people away from the "true faith". Later on we learnt that the Russian Orthodox priest spoke about our church as a cult.
Nevertheless we managed to organize Christmas parties in the local school and in the kindergarten. It was very sad that practically all children did not know anything about Christmas and Jesus from Nazareth. At the end of the party they were able to tell a story how the Savior came into the world. Many teachers and parents were present and they thanked us.
Our next task was to visit the children that missed the lessons at the Sunday school. So we reminded them about Christmas, the presents the church had prepared for them and their friends, some parents met us rather politely, some said they were against going to Sunday school though they could not give any reasons why they objected. One woman said that Baptist church was not a church at all. We also visited some sisters and brothers that stopped visiting the church, we had long talks with them, spoke about their problems, tried to give advice, find a solution together with them. It was our first experience in
councelling.
Once in the evening there was a knock at the door of our house. There were parents of a sick girl, they were looking for sorceress to cure their daughter. It was so nice that God brought them to us. We invited them in and told them about God and His love and how much God hates occult. We told them about the wonders of a prayer and we prayed together. Our guests promised us never to seek for such "help"
We also took part in the visiting of small village churches, in a funeral ceremony. We showed Christian films and helped at the women's conference, we were not afraid of physical labor - cleaning the paths from snow, unloading lorries.
For some of us it was the first experience in practical ministry and it was very learning.
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