Exloring Life Eternal

Igor was 45 last summer when he suffered a serious stroke that left his right side paralyzed. The hospital sent him home after three weeks, and the doctors told his mother that he probably wouldn't live. Here Cheryl is giving him speech therapy, retraining his tongue to form words again. We give him rehabilitation twice a week, and now he can climb the stairs.

The handicapped and elderly -- "the poor, lame, maimed, blind, widows and orphans" who society tends to ignore -- these people receive high esteem and honor in both Old and New Testaments. We are striving to restore this lost emphasis to the church in the 21st century, both in east and west.

Just two days ago Viktor visited us from Ioshkar-Ola, and reported that their house church is still growing: now as many as 30 attend. He and another young man we knew when we lived in Ioshkar-Ola have decided now to "go all out" and grow the house church into a regular congregation. This other young man who has now finished at a Christian university, is married and they have one small child. Write us if you'd like more details and want to help out.

An amazing thing happened last Thursday: Before we left the U.S. I estimated our expenses through March and requested an advance for that amount. But when upon arrival in Moscow we learned that our expenses would be several hundred dollars more than estimated, leaving us about $130 to live on for the next three weeks. What to do? I couldn't use funds that had been designated for other people and purposes, and taking a cash advance on our credit card incurs huge fees. So we prayed that the Lord would send some money somehow. On Wednesday I received an email saying that a lady who we hadn't ever met but who found our website has a Russian coworker who's coming to Moscow, and she asked for our phone number. Then on Thursday she called from the U.S. and said she was sending some money with him for us, to be used however we wish. God answers prayer!

Today at church I spoke again with Dima, a young man who a couple weeks ago had raised his hand to indicate his desire to follow Christ. He told me that he has a gambling addiction that causes him to waste almost all of his pay at casinos and slot machines that are now found everywhere in Moscow. He would borrow several hundred or a few thousand rubles to live on, but instead be pulled by this inner urge to the casinos. Today, however, he prayed and was able to walk past those machines to church without stopping to lose his money in them. I plan to spend more time with Dima.

Moscow has had record snowfalls in February and March. The city is very good about clearing snow from the streets and sidewalks, but by now it's piled up higher than my head in some places, and people who don't move their cars, well.... We've seen other "lumps" under the snowbanks that are barely recognizable as cars. The forecast is for snow every day until the end of March, but today the temperature got above freezing and some snow melted, until the sun was hidden by clouds and it started to snow again! To (mis)quote Shakespeare, "Beware the I'ds of March" -- I'd rather be in Bermuda, I'd rather be in Arizona, I'd rather be in Hawaii.... But we love it here in Russia, because this is where God has called us.

- Robert (& Cheryl) Hosken [stargate@agape-biblia.org]

Agape-Biblia and Agape Rehab Society: http://www.agape-biblia.org