News from Europe / Eurasia

NEWS FROM NORWAY

Some readers will live in societies where it seems materialism and postmodern indifference to the Bible is almost over- powering; our message seems almost doomed to rejection. But God's word doesn't return void; there are some who are increasingly searching for meaning in the coldness of our postmodern world.

KIM

our material in great depth? Kim finally contacted us via a Facebook group.

We usually report baptisms of asylum seekers and refugees in Scandinavia, driven by their plight towards the Lord Jesus. But here is a local Norwegian driven by the spiritual plight of this modern world to come out of atheism, to be deeply impressed by the argument for creation, the power of Bible prophecy and the compelling logic of the true Gospel- and thus come to the Lord Jesus.

With joy we met with our brother and baptized him in a swimming pool in Kristiansand. His testimony, part in English and part in Norwegian, is from the heart and a triumph of God, His Son and His word over the emptiness, apathy and ultimate boredom of this age in the Western world. You can hear our brother on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eem5OI KHbE8

Please pray for our brother in his relative isolation, and for all those other people, unknown to us but known to the Lord, who are likewise piecing together the Truth doctrine by doctrine but are shy to come forward. Here's our new brother in the cafe of the swimming pool after his baptism:

NEWS FROM UKRAINE

Baptism with an Ostrich as witness!

Another fruit of this work of distributing Russian Bibles is the baptism of PASHA in the Ukraine. Pasha works for a pittance as a nightwatchman at a deserted collective farm in a really remote rural area of Ukraine. The collective farm doesn't function much, but there are whole fields of rusting combines and heavy machinery which would otherwise be stolen for scrap value. So our brother, along with three other men, just sit around all day and night watching over it all. The tracks to the farm are overgrown and it'd be quite hard to steal anything in any case. The other three men live together in a room which has a wood stove. Since he came to Christ, Pasha doesn't want to be around the talking and behaviour of the world, where drinking home made alcohol is the main occupation. So he lives separate from them in what was once the gathering room in this once bustling collective farm, this is not heated and the temperatures are below zero at night. He has a bed, two bags of clothes, and a table in the corner of the huge room, where he eats what little food he has:

At 31 years old, life seems bleak- single, geographically isolated, no family. But he has one prized possession - a cell phone and internet connection on it. Sitting through the long days and nights, he came to think about God and Jesus, and so he went in search of a Bible online. He has a tiny screen and the connection is agonizingly slow. But he came to our site and asked for a Bible, which brother Maksim sent him. He studied further with us and came to a strong desire to be baptized. Despite the very low temperatures, Pasha was willing to do this in a river - there was no other option. It's very wild there, and we found a place with a disused fishing platform. The cows come to drink there and the ‘beach’ is basically cattle excrement. But we had some unexpected opposition from a huge ostrich. Ostriches were kept for meat at the collective farm, but with it breaking up, they escaped and now live wild. They are quite aggressive and very big, far taller than a man. Pasha had had experience with them before, and knew how to talk to the ostrich and calm it down- they can run fast and will chase if you run from them:

We performed the baptism in the very cold and dirty water, with the ostrich as witness. We just marvel at the power of the Gospel to compel a man to make that commitment to the invisible but so real Christ, and at the constant work of the Lord in "adding daily to the church / ecclesia such as should be saved", calling each in different ways.