Report from Vlad Rozhkov & Novo Alexandrovsk: June - August 2007

June

I greet you dear brothers and sisters! Another month of our ministry has passed. 

This month we continued the active preparation for the camp. Our meetings turned into a new way – at each meet we covered two days of the camp’s program. Each week I lead two meetings. And I see that people become more and more interested in the camp.

I distributed about 200 letters to the organizations, companies, private firms and people of the city with the idea to participate brining up the kids through an organized rest on the nature and studying the Bible.

Tomorrow I’ll go to Kholmsk city to meet two people (who are eager to help) personally. One of the men – is the head of the territory where we will set up our camp. The second man – is the head of the orphanage in Pravda village. We will take the kids from this orphanage to our camp. I have found the financial support and I can take four guys who don’t have parents to the camp. This month we managed to buy one more tent for six people for the offerings we have got. We have a very difficult financial situation in the family. My wife didn’t get her salary since March. She found an additional work, but the work there was only for two weeks. It was the work for one American company. They worked 11 hours per day, and she got about 13.000 rubles. And now she is again without job. That’s why I am very thankful that you regularly take care of my family.

We have a few people in our church, in total five people as the rest went to the mainland for the vacation. But we continue our meetings and we continue to study the Scripture.

I continue to visit Sergey Sukhorukov – he prepares the program for our ministry together and we do some things together. Here is the list of our ministry together – visit hospital with outreach program, have fellowship with the believers, have special fellowship with the families.

This week I’ll have a meeting with the pupils from school number 12 they are on day care at school. I asked the head of the school to advertise the camp myself to the pupils.

Also this month I helped to clean the territory around the Revival church. We together with other believers cut the old grass, removed all the garbage from the sidewalks and delivered it to the damp. My daughters helped me with this, I liked that – as they brought some fruits to the God by helping to clean the territory.

Still we are concerned about the sister who lived in Sovitskoye village and who left her husband. She came home and we all thought – Praise the Lord that You unite the family again!, but this woman (Olga) stayed at home for 4-5 days and after the meeting with me, she decided to leave the home again and came back to another man with whom she is committing adultery having left her home, disabled husband, children and grandchildren. We continue to pray for her for her repentance. Thank you for your help and prayer.

July

I greet you, brothers!

All July we were busy preparing for the camp that will take place in August. We spent lot of time praying, thinking, discussing and planning.

In several days we will be in the camp together with the kids. All the camp staff is ready. Many camp staff had to solve the problem of their vacation through a strong prayer, as their managers didn’t want to give them vacation days. It’s a pity but we couldn’t find a doctor for the camp but we hope that there wouldn’t be any diseases. This year there will be 32 kids. The camp will be located on the sea shore.

I strongly believe that God will use our work for His glory. I am very thankful to Aleskey Zanin for his help in camp preparation. He spent lots of time to develop this ministry in our Sakhalin brotherhood. Some time ago he gave me his idea and vision of the camp ministry and inspired me to take this ministry. Also he constantly persuades the churches to participate and support this ministry.

Our church in Novo-Aleksandrovka has a good desire to develop the relations with Lord. Last month new people didn’t come to our church. People don’t want to go to somebody’s apartment.  The population of Russia was scared by the information about various religious sects (groups). People who are not good at this questions just say “No!” after we tell them that we are meeting in the apartment.

Today it’s very difficult to reach by the Gospel a Russian person. I think that we need longer meetings so that to build more confidential relations and so that a person will be ready to accept and respond to God’s Word.

But we don’t loose hope and our prayer about new people never stops.

We had one bad event in our church – one of the brothers in Christ, a husband of the sister who provides her apartment for our church meetings, got lost. Neither police, nor neighbors could find him. We also were looking for him; we distributed lots of his pictures in our area, talked to the people, but no results. Now Galina (the name of his wife) needs support and encouragement. We spent lot of time talking to her explaining how she should live after this. It’s seems to me that she became better after the conversations. Still no information regarding her husband, and she is ready for the bad things. The situation is more difficult as her husband has Parkinson’s disease. 

August

I greet you brothers and sisters.

I am writing to you right after the camp (which was in August) came to it’s end. As I have already mentioned there were long preparations for the camp and lots of prayers were sent to God asking to bless this ministry. The camp went well!!!

We had 32 kids and were ready to go to the location of the camp but there became a storm – big sea waves almost reached our tents and it rained heavily.

In this situation we decided to stay at the Revival church in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk for two three days. Kids and cap staff stayed overnight in the church and did all the things that were planned to do in the camp. Food and all the games were without any problems. We spent two nights in the church and then on the 3rd of August we were ready to go to the camp on the sea shore – from the radio we learned that there was a strong earthquake on the sea shore and lots of buildings were destroyed. Especially in port-city Nevelsk. 

After my meet with the head of Regional Rescue department I learned that nothing threatens to the place where we planned to set up the camp and we made a decision to go to the camp.

The weather was hot and sunny. We came to the camp and another life has started – tents, kitchen with the coil, sea near the tents and many new things.

On the second day one girl got sick, on the third day another girl got sick. One of them had some serious problems with her ear and this made me send her home. I was concerned about her. But she cried, she wanted to stay in a camp, but her health was more important.

When I got back to the camp it turned out that four kids needed remedy – someone got flue, someone got stomach problems (unusual meal and water that we use to cook the meal). So we went to the village nearby the camp (there is a small hospital) where the kids got treatment.

In three days two camp staff (adults) burned themselves with the hot water. The burns were strong so that’s why we had to take them back to the city and they didn’t come back to the camp. The wife of one of these guys had to go home as well to take care of her husband. Finally, there were without camp coordinators and a worker.

We started a prayer so that God provided His protection to us and saved us from all the diseases and problems.

This year four people from America were working with us, they were invited by Aleksey Zanin. It was a good experience in the ministry together. All the kids were happy that people from USA managed to be there in the camp. Together with them there was Natalia Zanina who served in a camp as a translator.

On a repentance day in the camp there repented seven kids. One of the girls was my youngest daughter – Veronika. She was in the camp with us though she is 8 years only. All my family was in the camp this year, my wife was a cook in the camp and she said that she liked the camp. Hope next year she will be a mentor for the girls in the camp.

After the camp many kids started regularly to attend youth meetings and became interested in the friendship with the Christians.

Why do I explain all these things to you? So that you can see the picture of what happened in the camp, what problems and trials we faced. I am happy that all the camp staff had a desire to come to the camp next year.

I pray that the next year we can have a possibility to rent a building in the camp that has all utilities and supplies and built on the sea shore. I know that it’s not cheap but I have lots of prayer time ahead of me. Also I have a desire to make a camp of 2008 year for the youth starting from 15 years and then for the teenaged guys.

The children who were in the camp last year as teenagers are growing but still they have a desire to go to the camp again. This year 3 of these teenaged guys worked as a mentors assistants. I know that children need God and they need to see Christian love and we need to be patient to save their souls. That’s why I am ready to lead this ministry and develop it in all the areas in spite of all the difficulties.

Thanks to all your churches for the help.

After camp I took the vacation and had some rest with my family.

Today is the 1st of September and my kids went to school. It was difficult to buy all things they needed for school but together with God’s help we did it.

On September 9th my church and I will participate in the outreach. There will be sermon, worshiping part, dramas and we will distribute the bulletins with the invitation to study the Bible.

I am happy that soon we will be able to see each other and speak without electronic post officer.

Be healthy and happy in Lord!

Kind regards,

Vladlen Rozkhov.