The month was full of the evidences on God’s power and mercy and how He uses everything for His purpose in a long run!
A couple months ago I have reported that Zhisa private TV Company we broadcasted our materials at weekly for many years have been sold out, its entire staff was fired, and the new owner refuse to partner with us because he ‘did not want to do anything with any religious propaganda’
As a result we had to switch our broadcast for another company, Neapolis. It use to cover the same residential audience (about 1.5 millions), but in the different region. It mostly covered Southern Coast of Crimea (Yalta). We have lost some audience in the central regions, however got the access to the millions of people from Russia and other former Soviet countries who are coming there for the vacations, and it increased our audience few times during the summer season.
Any way, we were sorry to loose our audience in the Northern region. However now, after few months, Neapolis TV company experience considerable development. They have launched a powerful transmitter in the northern part of the area this month and cover all the territory Zhisa used to! As a result what we considered a minor lost turned out into a great gain we would not have keeping to stay with Zhisa! Praised be the Lord! “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Another good news: CNL (New Life Channel) has started broadcast our materials! CNL (http://www.cnl.info/) is the greatest Christian television channel in the Russian language. They say they are reaching 300 million Russian-speaking people of over 100 different nationalities throughout the world with the gospel. They broadcast through four satellites and many regional air and cable broadcasters. We tried to develop a partnership with them for many years, but without success. Finally we just sent them our materials with the rights for broadcast with no strings attached. And now through responds we got we know that at least some of our shows were broadcasted there. The message is spreading, praised be our Lord!
Additionally to those news, we have received very good feedback on Urok (The Lesson) movie from Rev. Timothy Alferov, a leading apologist of Russian Orthodox Church:
“The most valuable merit of the movie is its persuasive but unobtrusive style. The audience is not getting moralized, but simply clearly reminded of the consequences of the sin. The message is expressed not through the words only – there are perfectly arranged sequences of visual images and byplays. The Lesson is made in the way so the audience would experience a simple human compassion towards the characters and according to this could reevaluate their own actions and motifs.” Timothy Alferov (Novgorod region, Russia). Russian Orthodox Church priest; author of the books on apologetics, ethics, ascetics, general and comparative theology.
Such a review opens a wide door for us to spread the message, regardless of many of Russian gentiles’ tendency to relate to ROC culturally and refuse any work done by evangelical Christians as ‘sectarian’ by definition. It is also ironic now to recall the problems we have with the cast during the production because the actor’s parents (mostly – unbelievers) did not allow them to work in the ‘sectarian’ project.
Another portion of the extremely encouraging news is coming from the Uzbek team leaders of Eurasian Apologetics Society. After field testing of our camp curricula at their children day camp, now the apologists travel across the country to various children, teenagers and college students summer camps with the workshops on creation, age of the Earth, the flood, dinosaurs, science and the Bible, problems of the school textbooks, etc. The workshops are accepted with a great interest (see the picture attached). This is a great opportunity to reach the youth in the country practically closed for the Good News! Please join our prayers with us for the harvest those boys and girls produce growing mature.
The next news from Uzbekistan is almost unbelievable: the Apologetics Society activists there have started Creation Park right in Tashkent, the capital city (see the pictures attached, the info in Russian is at http://www.church.uz/page_id1168/)! It is suppose to be a families’ recreation zone, but everything is going to work for spreading the Biblical Creation ideas. The officials look indifferent to the idea, since nothing there opposes Koran as well as it is about recreation, not salvation. But this is a great opportunity to tell people about the Bible and Biblical view of the creation, fall and need for the salvation! The evidences on the local initiatives like this one encourage us considerably! It is a good sign that we are going right way in the next generation Biblical apologists who care development.
The new multimedia production facilities roofing is completed right before the rainfalls got started. Or, in other words, the rainfalls did not start till the roofing was completed! God have His perfect timing for everything. The facilities are getting its shape already (see the pictures attached).
One of our first publishing projects ten years ago was ‘After the Flood’ by Bill Cooper. Our publishing skills were very immature back then and the publication was pretty modest. However we run out of the book pretty fast and were thinking about the need of the reprint for a while. The impact that finished our hesitation was finding out that there are several people whose opinion I respect were positively impacted by the book in their spiritual journey. We finally decided to reprint it.
At the same time our Russian affiliation has received the rights on the reprint of two other books that impacted many, but was published in Russian across the ocean during the times of communism only. The books are ‘Eternity in Their Hearts’ by Dan Richardson and ‘Everlasting Man’ by Gilbert Chesterton.
As a result, we have decided to print four back-up projects all together: Cooper, Richardson, Chesterton, and my book on the basics of Christianity ‘What We Believe In’ (we run out of it as well, but it answers the questions people who are convinced with apologetics but ignorant in the Bible ask). Printing four different books covers from one mould will reduce the individual book price.
As you already know, the biggest and most unexpected challenge of the month was Olga’s gall surgery. We highly appreciate your care, prayers and the words of encouragement. Praised be the Lord! The surgery was fast and easy. And it was extremely timely the doctor says. There were three ball-shape pebbles half-inch each blocking the bladder for a while. No gall was going in and no liquid out, and the gallbladder hydrops was progressing.
After the surgery Olga staid one day at the intensive care room, one more day at the regular clinic room, one more day she staid in the bad at home and next morning she raised up for the house cleaning and shopping, which I consider as a sign of pretty good recovery :). Thank you very much for your prayers!