Greetings beloved brothers and sisters in Christ!

We are sincerely grateful for your response to Asa Greear’s request on our behalf and for allowing us to share information about the mission in Karelia.

Thank you for all your prayers for Karelia and for your support of the mission in Russia. Thank you for answering Jesus’ call to spread His word even to the ends of the earth.

Evangelizing over such a large territory as Karelia requires much effort. Thank God for bringing us together through the blood of Christ and that together we may spread the Gospel to those in need of salvation. Thank you again for forwarding the information about this mission to the church and for sharing the videos we sent.

May the Holy Spirit move every member to take in the mission in any way they can. We need your support every day.

Our goals for the next mission trip to Karelia are:

1. Visiting with Christmas presents
2. Organizing a support network for “Gospel for Karelia” among our Russian brothers and sisters in Christ (in Russia).

We are always thankful for your monetary contributions to the mission and welcome anyone who wishes to dedicate their personal time to God and go with us overseas to participate in the mission. Our next trip is scheduled for January of 2012 and we would like to know if you would like to be a part of our efforts. Is your church ready to support God’s word through prayer, financial means, or a personal contribution of time and effort?

We are planning to send updates on the mission every month through our website and through letters such as this one. Please visit http://www.GospelforKarelia.org and look for updates that will come soon. Send any correspondence or questions to sergeyvalov@yahoo.com or call (386) 506-9236 and ask for Paul.

“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” Romans 10:14-15

God bless you!

Gospel for Karelia video 2011

Beulah Baptist camp – Summer 2011

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The mission to evangelize Karelia continues
This project started in 2007 when God answered our church’s prayers and pointed to Karelia as the next place He wished us to spread the Gospel. The republic of Karelia in Russia needed, and still needs, serious work. Here are some quick facts –

Republic of Karelia, capital city: Petrozavodsk

The republic of Karelia has 808 cities and towns and a serious problem that the people are facing is that the death rate is twice that of the birth rate.

In the summer and winter of 2008 a missionary group first traveled to Karelia from Florida. The vast majority of people living in Karelia are far from the Living God and many small towns still practice paganism (the worship of nature) and the shamans or witch doctors that keep these beliefs alive hold great power over the people. These are some of the reasons that the Holy Spirit moved us to take interest in Karelia and strive to spread God’s word to the people living in darkness.

Accomplishments from 2008 – 2011
Starting in 2008, there have been 3-day-long and week-long evangelization events around Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia along with events in the actual city. During the summer, we organized day camps and during the winter, evening Christmas services and other holiday activities. Overall, a large amount of work was done to bring Christ to the people of Karelia. Other parts of our mission to Karelia include ministering to people in nursing homes, children in orphanages, women’s shelters, elementary and middle schools, and places like the ‘invalid house’ in Ladva where adults and children with down syndrome and other disabilities are sent from all over Karelia to live and be taken care of. Also a part of our mission is to evangelize to the special needs children’s center in Derevyannoe. All of these efforts have made us well known among the people and local governments and we called our group of missionaries “Your Family”.

2010 was a big year for this mission: a missionary and his wife and child permanently moved to Karelia in order to provide constant spiritual assistance to those in need. Also in 2010 a rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics sponsored by our church was opened not far from Petrozavodsk. Its existence has been a huge blessing and visible result of the mission in Karelia.

In the spring of 2011, the first evangelical Christian Baptist church was officially registered in Petrozavodsk. Hallelujah!

Summer 2011 brought about the first baptism of those who had previously accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts.

Each of those who traveled to Karelia to do God’s work left a part of their heart behind after seeing how badly those people, and especially children, need to be saved through the love of God. Our Lord has put it upon our hearts to never stop and be satisfied with the victories He has given us so far but to bring this project to another level – to visit and evangelize to all the people of every one of the 808 localities in Karelia, to bring them the word of God and other Christian literature. In the places where we are welcomed, we will organize summer day camps for the children and if in other places, God has not opened their hearts to receive His word, we will continue to pray until He answers.

We are currently earnestly praying about this next period in the life of this mission. We ask you to join us in our efforts and ask God to touch the hearts of his children to provide spiritual support through constant prayer, financial support through donations to the mission, and for Him to send those who would dedicate their time and efforts to travel to Karelia and carry out his work in the field.

Our almighty God continues to free the people of Karelia from the chains of their sin and lights His fire in their hearts, but he requires us as his children who have already been accepted into His grace to go and be His witness “…to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). May God’s blessings be upon you!

For more detailed information about this mission, please visit http://www.GospelforKarelia.org or call Paul Marchenko at (386) 506-9236.

With love in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Republic of Karelia is located in North western part of Russia. It is one of the most famous Russian territories for international travels. The Karelian territory could comprise of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia together. Of course this is not what inspired us to do missionary work in this region of Russia, what inspired us most is that despite the vast territory of the region, there is almost nothing spoken of the Gospels of Jesus Christ.. Missionaries that started work there earlier, hit a wall of resistance by means paganism and in result lacked response in the hearts of the locals.

Three years ago the Lord has called us in the area, inspired us with the will to work with children and young adults with the new program which involved different strategies and approaches in help of development of the local mindset. While getting acquainted with the Bible young adults came to understand the meaning of their existence: answering questions such as where did humanity emerge from?, What’s going on now? and what’s to come in the future. Who is Jesus Christ and what was his point coming here? All of this they view in the form lessons, hand-made crafts and through various drama skits. All these things are heavily captured in people’s minds.

These are the seeds that have sown in the hearts of over three years of hard work of God Children: our youth. While the youth was involved in the program for the vast majority of the day, many of them endured hardships such as feeling sick and being ill, and all in mean while sleeping in conditions not suitable for normal environment. and thought there was extreme the loss physical strength, we found refuge and relief in prayer support from the much felt prayers of the American and Russian churches back home, and all thanks to our Lord Jesus. All this to deliver the Gospel of love in the spiritually dark and pagan Karelia.

By Gods Awesome grace we were introduced to a missionary organization called The Good Samaritan. They also have been connected and doing missionary work in terms of evangelization in Karelia in their own special way. They run and organize Rehab centers for the drug and alcohol bound souls. Once we were introduced to the work they do amongst the people of Karelia, and witnessed with our own eyes how these captives of sin were set free by the grace and shed blood of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ they quickly got our attention and we were intrigued to work with them and support them and their cause, further more we saw a great opportunity in to utilize them in Petrozavodsk and unite the two missions together. We purchased land and a small house in Petrozavodsk area to start a Rehab felicity. The Lord has abundantly blessed us in this service! We now successfully organize not only camps in Karelia for children and young adults, but also a rehab facility for the drug and alcohol impaired!

Once again we would like to start off by saying thank you for praying for our team! The prayers are truly felt! We have finished up with two successful camps. The Camp in Ladva was a absolute dream, the kids remembered us , the town welcomed us and we got to spread the message, there were No problems from the officials and people just seemed to help us out everywhere we went. Despite some technical issues, Once the camp wrapped up and we said our goodbyes as we set out on another challenge, and a challenge it was indeed! It was called “The good Samaritan Soccer tournament”. We got a chance to do two things, Play soccer with all the youth of Karelia, and witness the salvation through Jesus Christ via channel News broadcast! The locals were so involved they asked the national news broadcasting company to do a segment on our mission. At the end of the day it all just seemed like a success that we did not plan for nor could take credit for! We are thankful for your support in prayer, please continue to pray for us.

Best regards,

Andrey Kravchuk
Sergey Valov

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

Hello brothers and sisters! I greet you with the love of our Savior Jesus Christ. It is the 12th of July. Today we left the camp grounds of Derevyanoye. Our first camp has been successfully completed with the unstoppable power of God through those who are praying for this mission trip. The entire camp itself was an enormous blessing. The first day we had around 55 people! We had all ages; from 5 to 18. We turned out to have four perfect groups that day. Gladly, to our surprise the oldest group had the most people in it. From the very first day we had many great things accomplished, the sports and entertainment of the camp won the complete friendship and trust of the young children’s hearts. Next we had lessons, the most stressful and difficult operation. However with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ from the very first lesson we had the full attention of the kids, and their willingness to accept our great message to them. The second day was not as easy as we expected, due to the physical hardships and emotional distress. But the wonderful power of prayer gave us the ultimate strength to tackle these difficulties. As we taught the children we ourselves learned many valuable lessons as to how a Christian should think and act, and this was reality not just in theory, we had practical lessons and I mean very practical! We had encounters with the local adult population to whom we had a great time speaking about salvation through Jesus Christ. To tell you the truth no visible change occurred in the peoples reaction when we told them the gospel. But we pray and know that the word of God will do its job through the Holy Spirit. (Isaiah 55: 11). The third and final day which was the 11th, we came to the culmination of our entire camp. We invited all the parents to a service we had at 7pm that day. Surprisingly many parents arrived and even some people that didn’t have kids but got invited. Many words were spoken about Jesus and His blood that brings salvation and His never-ending eternal love. Many people that night left with hearts filled of happiness and joy that there is a God that loves them to a point they will never imagine. A lot of Christian literature was given out to the adults as well as children and youth. We had many parents sign up for a Christian journal they would receive every week. Over all, the camp has been a real blessing and I beg you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ not to weaken upon the prayers about this mission. Because the farther we, go the harder it gets. Our entire group greets everyone who is reading this short informatory article about the Mission in Karelia!
May the Lord be with all of you a shower you with blessings… AMEN!

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

Greetings everyone! We are all thankful for the prayer support that you have all graciously provided us with! With Gods Help we all made it to KARELIA! At Last!!! it was a LONG trip, the trip its self took about 13 hours in flight followed by a 11 hour car ride to our point of destination Karelia.

When we came to Karelia we were reunited with other missionaries from all around the continent. Few New Names that joined us are: Andrey Vezikov, Eugine Zinin, Oleg Bragin, Irina Bragina, and Lubov Pilipchuk. We are extremely pleased and thank God that he has provided us with extra help and honestly from the looks of the collective help, we are blessed with a Yet another Dream team.

Our first camp starts tomorrow, and we ask all if you to pray for the camps NOW, because as you may read these updates its quite possible that because if the time lap difference as you read this we may be at War with the devil and his forces. So please pray for spiritual wisdom, Physical strength, and the number one thing that the devil goes after FIRST is unity in the team. Pray for us and we promise to keep you updated.

Blessings and best regards.

Andrey Kravchuk
Sergey Valov

Time has come for our Missionaries to leave for Karelia. Andrey, Venya and Alex are already in Karelia doing preparation work. Sergey, Natalya, Yulia, Nadezhda, Andrey V, and Lyudmila will be departing Monday July 5th from the Miami International Airport. Please pray so that God will keep them safe on their journey.