May - June 2011

Sveta Trusts Christ

Sveta is the director of a private school that teaches English and other languages. She came with some friends to our English language Bible study on a Thursday night. I suspected that improving her English was more important to her than knowing the Bible, but she started coming regularly. She came for several months, and listened very carefully, although she never said very much. Ruth had a talk with her after the lesson one night, and went through the plan of salvation with her. Sveta said, “Yes, I believe all that, and I am ready to ask Jesus to save me.” They prayed together, and we are so happy that Sveta took that step of faith.

We have been giving out about 1000 tracts every week. We print them ourselves. We put many of them in the mailboxes of the high rise apartment buildings in our city. The tracts have an invitation to our services and a clear Gospel presentation. Ruth likes to bake desserts for the neighbors in our apartment building, and she gives the treats with invitations to come to church.

Ruth and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary by having a picnic with the church people after the Sunday service. They had a great time helping us observe this special day. We cooked chicken kebabs over a wood fire.

The kitchen countertop in our apartment was falling apart after 9 years of use. I decided to try my hand at rebuilding it. We chose ceramic tiles for the surface, and a new stainless steel sink. Although we don’t have anything like a Home Depot here, we found everything we needed. We are very happy with the way the project turned out.

We have now paid $56,552 on our church building loan. We hope to pay off the remaining balance, about $5000, by the end of this year. You may want to help by sending a gift to: BIMI, P.O. Box 9215, Chattanooga, TN 37412. Designate it for “Ossewaarde - Project Russian Church Building”.

In the service of the King,
Don Ossewaarde