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As I reflect on the idea of having
materials made available to the Russian speaking Messianic community,
the vision that I originally had was as small as a ‘mustard seed.’ Now,
two years later the Lord has enlarged that vision. On this trip with WMM
to Kiev the Lord reconfirmed in my heart how vital these materials
really are for the believers there, and sadly, I also saw the damaging
results of not having proper discipleship materials. Living here in the
States we sometimes take for granted the abundance of available
resources, and forget that this is not always the case in other
countries. In Kiev I realized that my small vision for the literature
was only a part of God’s big picture.
In Proverbs 22:6 the Scripture says, “Train up a child in the way he
should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” In the
same way when a person comes to faith, he or she needs to be trained and
properly discipled to mature in faith and bear fruit for the Lord. So
providing these Messianic discipleship materials is more essential that
I could have imagined when I began my translation work. This particular
conference was very important because of the many leaders present from
various congregations across the Ukraine, and other countries as well.
In fact, the turnout was greater than we had anticipated, and of the all
books we brought we only had enough for sample sets to each congregation
and ministry. The materials were received with great appreciation, and
the leaders expressed a desire to have more books shipped and made
available to their people.
Projects for Prayer
The Lord has provided volunteers for
translation on several projects. Please keep in prayer:
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Our volunteer in the Ukraine who is working on translating Sam’s book,
Messianic Wisdom, into Russian.
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Representatives from Slovakia who desire to translate, publish, and
distribute Sam’s discipleship and evangelistic books from Russian into
Slovakian.
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Several Messianic magazines and newspapers to publish our Russian
materials in order to reach out to Russian speaking Jewish communities
in Europe, the U.S. and Israel.
The need for books is so tremendous that we are now looking into having
the Russian books printed in Ukraine to save on shipping expenses and
facilitate distribution. Since our partner congregations there are not
able to pay shipping costs from the U.S., it will be a great blessing to
have the books printed there.
I was in Prison, and You
came to Me...
Alex from L’vov, Ukraine, not only assists
in planting a congregation, but has a vital prison ministry to a number
of prisoners who are Jewish. Alex related a story of a young Jewish
woman who, after having been witnessed to, came to faith in her Messiah.
For the next visit he wanted to share Messiah with the other eight women
in her cell, and he was excited to see our evangelistic tracts because
he could use them to reach out to the prisoners. “These tracts are
perfect for my outreaches,” Alex said. “Praise the Lord!” Alex felt that
our literature would be very helpful to communicate the Good News to
these Jewish prisoners. We are supplying him with all the resources he
can use.
More Blessings from
Israel
WMM has the privilege of working closely
with several leaders and believers in Israel where over a million
Russian Jews live. These faithful servants are volunteering with us to
translate and produce Russian and Hebrew versions of Sam’s books, and
are presently translating into Russian The Feasts of Israel. For this we
are thankful! By law, Hebrew-language materials cannot be imported into
Israel, but must be printed in Israel. Because of this, and that the
need in Israel for discipleship materials is so great; we are praying
that the Lord will provide a way to print our materials in The Land.
This would include not only the discipleship books in Russian, but in
Hebrew too.
One leader told us, “I received the books just at the right time. We are
having a Jewish seminar on how to share Jesus with your Jewish friends.
I was able to use your book as a teaching tool and guideline for the
forty representatives of different churches and organizations in
Germany. They were able to take these books back with them to further
their outreach and Jewish evangelism in their communities.”
So you just never know. You may think your participation seems small and
insignificant, but it can end up having an impact in the lives of many.
We are thankful for your prayers and support, and we want to encourage
you to trust Lord and never under-estimate what God can do for you, and
through you! Paka! So long!
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