CIS Prayer: Good Days

[CarlaSun@aol.com]

Dear Prayer Partners,

The Lord is providing us with good days here in the CIS.  On February 29 we had the privilege of being in St. Petersburg with Jon and Kathy Mowry and our wonderful leaders there.  God is really blessing the work and raising up wonderful servants together in the ministry.  On that Sunday Arsenij Ermakov was officially inducted as the Pastor of St. Petersburg, First Church of the Nazarene.  Jon Mowry has been working with a Pastoral team in St. Petersburg until now when Arsenij has felt the call of the Lord to take up the full-time leadership of the congregation there.  We praise the Lord.  Please pray for Arsenij and his wife, Lena as they lead the church.  Arsenij is just finishing his Master's thesis and will be going on to PhD studies at Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, England.  Not only is he a great preacher, but a great teacher, as well. 

On Wednesday the Ukraine District held their District Assembly.  What an incredible time of praise and sharing.  The district is growing as more and more people are being saved from their drug and alcohol addictions.  Fifteen pastors shared their reports at the Assembly. 
Bob and Colleen Skinner, along with Cliff and Heike Wright and Roxanne Alexander are doing a terrific job of leading the work in Ukraine.  We came home to Moscow rejoicing over all that God is doing.  Both Volodymyr Massyuk and Svitlana Kleschar graduated from the course of study, receiving Christian Service Certificates from EuNC and will be ready for ordination in 2005, when a General Superintendent will be able to be in attendance.

Today is the day of the Kazakhstan assembly.  While you may be thinking that winter is over, the temperature this morning in Astana was -30C (-27F).  However, that did not keep them from their assembly.  Leaders from new churches in the South and west were there to be a part of the assembly.  Kazakhstan is so large that the new congregation in the West had to travel 3 days by train to make it to the assembly. 

Thank you for lifting up the work in the CIS.  God is moving and continues to move! 

Please pray for the Russia South Assembly which will be held on March 23 and the Russia North Assembly which will be March 27.  Dr. Jim Diehl will be here with us and we will have ordinations at both of those assemblies.

Please pray for all the travels this month.

May God bless you all!

The Sunbergs -- for the whole CIS gang.