December 2005 - January 2006
CHRISTmas and a New Year
We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas! Russians don’t celebrate December
25th, since they consider that to be “Catholic Christmas”. We had our regular
Sunday morning service in our home. After everybody left, we fixed up the dining
room for our Christmas dinner. We had baked ham, fixed up with brown sugar,
mustard, pineapple rings, and 7-UP. It was tremendously delicious! After the
meal, we had a great time opening our gifts. A big thank you to all of our
friends in America who sent us cards and packages! We saved many of them to open
on Christmas day.
New Year's Day is the biggest holiday of the year here. Russians celebrate the
New Year in just the same way we celebrate Christmas – trees are decorated,
gifts are exchanged, and they even have their own version of Santa Claus, called
Grandfather Frost. The celebration does not have anything to do with Jesus.
Their tradition is to stay up all night, drinking and partying until 7 or 8 am.
New Year’s Eve begins a long winter holiday that lasts for 10 days. Those who
have money travel south, and the poorer people stay home and get drunk.
We did some extra door-to-door visiting during the holidays because more people
were home. We visited some apartment buildings in our neighborhood. Most
buildings have 4 or 5 entrances, with 36 apartments in each entrance. We give a
Bible and tract to each person that will take one. We invite them to our
services, and talk to them about Salvation. One couple invited us in for tea and
cake, and we had a good time presenting the plan of Salvation. They were
friendly and interested, but they didn’t make a decision. They say they may come
to our Bible study. Pray for them – Oleg and Lubov.
This year the fall was unusually warm, and winter started much later than usual.
Snow started falling in November, but it was not very cold until the middle of
January, when temperatures plunged to 21 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and
stayed there for a few weeks. More than a hundred people froze to death in
Moscow this winter. We saw ambulances waiting at bus stops to watch out for
homeless people and alcoholics in danger of freezing. People here say that it
hasn’t been this cold, for this long, since the Nazis invaded Russia in
1941-1942.
We stay inside when the temperature is severe, but we still have had plenty of
opportunities this winter to enjoy ice skating, skiing, and hiking in the woods
near our house.
In December and January the university students are busy preparing for final
exams. Some of them that were coming regularly to our services haven’t been as
faithful.
Katya is a student who has only been here twice, but she really likes our family
and wants to learn the Bible. She asked us if she could invite her friends to
come! We assured her that we would be happy to have more visitors.
Another student, Enessa, has been struggling with the meaning of Salvation. Our
daughter April had another long talk with her, and she says that she trusted
Christ about a year ago, but really didn’t comprehend it all until recently.
Pray that she will have a clear understanding, and that she will grow in the
Lord.
We went back to two private schools that teach English to help them with their
final exams. We spent several hours talking with small groups of students. We
had conversations with them in English while their instructors listened and
graded their performance. It’s interesting and fun to hear them use English. One
girl was struggling to describe roller skating. She said, “These people have,
um, roller coasters on their feet!” It was hard not to laugh, but we know that
the way we speak Russian sounds funny to them sometimes. We gave each student a
Gospel tract. Pray for Nina, the director of the school. We have witnessed to
her several times, but she is not saved yet.
We rode 2 hours to the village of Dimitrovsk on a bus, and gave out 700 Gospel
tracts there. As far as we know, there is no church in this village.
A local department store staged a big public event on the square across the
street from us. They had a contest and gave away prizes. Several thousand people
gathered for the prize drawing. We went into the crowd with our Gospel tracts
and gave out about 900 of them. It was fun!
We found a piece of property for sale in the middle of town with a nice house
that could be used for our church. We would like to buy it, and we are
consulting with a lawyer to make sure all the paperwork is in order. This would
be a major step forward for our work here, so please pray that we will have
wisdom.
In the service of the King,
Don Ossewaarde