Well, it’s another couple of days on the road. Sunday, January 27 I’ll be heading to Dallas, Texas. I’m a new board member for Orphan Outreach. We have our board meeting on Monday, January 28. I’m excited about joining this ministry.
I’ll also be traveling to visit with World Bible Translation Center and hopefully Buckner Orphan Care International.
I’ll be back in the office January 30.
(I wrote this on the plane on the way home and forgot to post it)
It was an incredible week in Russia. This is my seventh time visiting the country and each time I’m amazed at how God, in unique ways, reveals the Gospel to those who aren’t even looking for it. Pictured here is the team of guys who traveled into the tundra in North Central Russia.
Anatoli Mereichev is one example. His grandfather was imprisoned for having anti-Stalin views. He was sent to Salahard to serve his ten years. His family followed. Much later Anatoli’s Grandmother was saved. She shared the Gospel with her children and grandchildren. Now, Anatoli at 33 years old is the pastor of a thriving church that intentionally reaching out with the Gospel not only to Russians, but to the tribal people, too.
Peter Hudyi is another example. He left the Nyentsi people for broadcasting. However, God had other plans. Peter heard the Good News and went through the Russian Ministries training and now he’s an evangelist to his own people, who are largely unreached. Peter drove us all over the Yamal region of Russia. He has a passion for reaching his people, but there just aren’t enough people to help reach his people, which number about 30,000 in the Yamal region alone.
Paul Tokarchuk’s family come to Yemal from Ukraine during the Soviet days. His father was looking for work. When the family got there a body of believers found them. Paul’s mother and father came to Christ, then Paul came to Christ. Now at 33 years old Paul is a leader in Russian Ministries.
God’s Grace is truly amazing. He uses incredible ways to reach the lost and confound the wise. He uses people nobody would ever use. Why? Because it brings Him the glory.
I came on this trip to be a help to believers on the ground, but what happened was these believer became a help to me. They showed me that they’re willing to serve the Lord no matter what. They serve the Lord despite government oppression. They’ll reach out to the unreached despite incredible circumstances — like the vast tundra of the arctic.
Thank you for praying and for your comments.
We got up to a beautiful sunrise at about 10:30am. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. No wind. But, the temperature was -35. It felt much cold than the previous day. We awoke to more reindeer meat, more tea and more bread. Many of us had to use the bathroom, but there are no bathrooms in the tundra. So, we just used the outside. We had to be careful because the reindeer CRAVE salt. Guess what’s in urine. We had to strategically walk away from the herd and not look like we were doing our ‘business,’ otherwise they would RUN to you.
We got ready to hand out the Christmas gift boxes at around noon to the few children who were in this camp of three teepees. Then, we had church. One of the men in our group, Boris, preached a wonderful message, then we sang songs, ate again and prepared to head back to Beliarsk. This is the typical food you’d receive in the tee pee — raw reindeer meat, bread, crackers, and tee.
In tee pee living, the woman is the queen of the tee pee. She rules. She sets up the tee pee, keeps the fire going, cooks, takes care of the children, etc. Men are only guests in the tee pee. Their job is to care for the reindeer heard. This particular family owns 500 reindeer. They can sell it for $5.00 per pound, or $10 per pound in the city. The reindeer feed off the tundra, so when all the feed is consumed, they move somewhere else. It takes nearly a day to strike camp, move and set up camp again.
The ride back to Beliarsk was only 3 hours, this time, but still grueling. Each person on our team is sore and exhausted, but truly thankful for the opportunity to explore the world and have a small impact on someone’s life. We arrived back in Beliarsk at around 8:00pm, got warm, ate dinner, had some good fellowship, and traveled two hours back through the winter road to Salehard. It was a great adventure. Now all we have left is sightseeing in Salehard, travel back to Moscow for a little more sightseeing and then home on Saturday.
We began our journey to the Tundra from Salehard. We traveled on a rough highway, then a winter highway to Beliarsk, a city with a population of about 2,000. A winter highway is just that. It’s only around in the winter. It consists of frozen rivers, lakes and tundra. It was truly amazing the see what God has created in the extreme north.
We stopped at an orphanage on the way. Unfortunately, many of the children who would be there were on winter holiday and were with extended families. So, there were only a few children at this orphanage. But, out of all of our travels to date, this received the most resounding response. It was from one little boy — he was maybe 8 or 9. He opened his box and he about jumped for joy. He loved it. Another young boy opened his box an immediately opened his Bible.
From there we traveled the rest of the way through the frozen north to Beliarsk. We stopped at an apartment to eat and get geared up for our snowmobile ride of a lifetime. We snacked on sausage, cheese, crackers, etc. None of us were really ready for what we were getting ourselves in for. Paul Tokarchuk told us we were going about 12 kilometers to our first teepee. And, so we set off.
Unfortunately, this evening was full of excitement. The sleds we were riding on were more for carrying cargo, or packages, not people. We struggled to stay on the sleds. Each bump hurt. Each turn, we struggled to stay on. You would think they would stop to see how we’re doing — but they didn’t. They stopped only after someone asked to stop — me. Wow, it was hard. On one of the stops we saw the northern lights. How beautiful! 
But, after almost two hours, we arrived at, what we thought was, our destination. It was a tee pee owned by a Ynunsi Christian family. Ynusi are reindeer herders and nomadic. There are only about 30,000 Ynusi. They move their camps (homes) about 7 times each winter to find feed for the reindeer. At this teepee we ate raw reindeer, cookies, crackers, and bread. Tea is served with EVERYTHING. I know why, too. IT’S HOT. We also gave the kids Christmas Gift boxes from the church in Salehard.
However, this teepee wasn’t our final destination this evening. We had to travel another two hours. Unfortunately, the family we were trying to find had moved to find feed for their reindeer. They left a barrel with directions on how to find the camp. It took another 1 1/2 hours to find it. When we arrived at 1:30am, they were waiting for us with tea, raw reindeer meet, and a warm fire to ease the -30 degree cold we were encountering on our long snowmobile ride. After we ate, the fire was stoked, we were covered with reindeer skins to stay warm and we all went to sleep.
We flew from Moscow to Salehard on January 6. We stopped by this monument, which identifies Salehard as the only city centered on the Arctic Circle. It wasn’t as cold as it was when I was here four years ago. The temp was around 10 above — very unusual for this part of the world. But, that quickly changed. Salehard is a city of about 30,000. It’s separated by the Ob River. In the winter, the river serves as a bridge to the city of Lobitnangi, a city of about 20,000. Salehard was home to thousands of political prisoners during the days of the Soviet Union. Many Christians died in labor camps here.
Christmas Day in Russia (January 7) was a great day. We spent most of it in church and serving others. We started off at the Baptist Church in Labitnangi, just above the Arctic Circle. We heard from four speakers including Paul Tokarchuk, Moscow Regional Director of Russian Ministries. We also heard from Pastor Sergey, who was commissioned when I was here in 2004. The mood was that of worship. It was a blessing to celebrate Christ’s birth twice this year.
Part of our celebration was the annual Christmas program. I don’t think it matters where you all in the world, when you get microphones and kids together you have funny moments — moments that memories are made from. The program contained a little drama, little ones reciting poems, singing and the annual kids Christmas gift. This year the kids made out pretty well. It was a bag full of candy and treats.
Following the Christmas celebration at church, we accompanied Pastor Anatoli Merechev to two orphanages to hand out Christmas gifts. It was part of Russian Ministries’ Greatest Gift Exchange – Project Hope initiative. Russian Ministries provided the boxes and Bibles, the local churches provided the candy, toys and other goodies. The presents were handed out to orphans and poor children to allow the local church to share the Gospel. Without the gifts, the evangelical church isn’t allowed in the orphanages.
From there, we traveled to Pastor Anatoli’s church, Good News Church, which is almost completed for good Christian fellowship. Believers from both churches gathered together to celebrate the birth of Christ. They had good food and many people sang, shared a poem, or just enjoyed their time together as a family of believers centered around the one Christ. This serves as both a church and training center for Next Generation church leaders in the Yamal region of Russia, particularly the Arctic north.
Mission Network News and Russian Ministries are teaming up to hand out gifts during Russian Christmas (which is January 7). MNN’s Anchor and Executive Director Greg Yoder, VP for Radio at Cornerstone University Lee Geysbeek and Greg’s Dad, Terry Yoder traveled to Russia on January 3 to participate in handing out Christmas gifts to poor, orphaned and street kids in Moscow and the Yemal Region of Russia. The team arrived on January 4 in Moscow. Instead of going right to bed after being up 27 hours, we decided to stay up and get used to the eight hour time difference. That took us to Red Square to see the sites and sounds of that historic place.
On January 5, we joined up with Nathan and headed south to the Tula region of
Russia, just 150 km away from Moscow where Russian Ministries is sponsoring a Winter Camp for orphans and street kids. This is being run by Christians in the region. They invited 20 orphans from this orphanage, 20 from another and 20 street kids to this 10 camp. The goal of the camp is to spend time with these neglected kids, show them love and compassion and win the opportunity to tell them about Christ. It’s a ministry that’s not very accepted by the local church because of the stigma that comes with orphans and street kids. Pictured here is Pastor Paul who started the ministry. This is the second winter camp they’ve hosted.
This is Nastia. She’s been working part time with the outreach for about a year, while she attends university in Moscow. She has an incredible love for these kids who are often forgotten. She says it’s a challenge because the kids don’t respond right way. They don’t understand they need God. They also don’t understand God loves them since most of them have been abused and neglected by adults and not loved by society. Nastia, in many cases, is the first person to show these young people respect and love.
It was great to see these kids enjoying their time at the camp. They received gifts, played games, learned drama with Scripture as their script, participated in martial arts, ate well, learned how to play the guitar, cross country skied and much more. It’s uncertain if this ministry will have any spiritual impact on these kids, but one thing is for certain — they were off the streets for 10 days and experienced love first hand.
Some of the team also got involved. Lee Geysbeek played Twister with the kids and didn’t ‘squash’ either kid shown here. Continue to pray for our safety. We traveled back to Moscow and today will be flying northeast to Salakhard in the arctic circle to do more of the same.
Greg Yoder 