The Gospel News

NEWS FROM UKRAINE

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

Jan-April 2014

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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.