From Montenegro to Russia

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We recently drove home to Russia from Montenegro.  It was a beautiful drive along the Croatian coast and up into Hungary.  There we visited missionary friends and saw (rainy) Budapest.  The relationships were great, the city was beautiful and we hope to return.

Then we drove to Minsk, Belarus to visit Spring of Revival, a Stoneworks program.  Olga Goncharenko and her team are doing a great job there.  We enjoy our time with them and fully support them in all they do.  Visit the Stoneworks site to learn more about Spring of Revival.

Then we headed into Russia and are now safely back in our flat in St. Petersburg.

We really enjoy this traditional music from Montenegro.

Wesley Trip to Montenegro

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Here’s a slideshow I put together from our recent visit to Montenegro with the mission team from The Wesley Foundation in Athens, GA.

I realized that I don’t have too many pictures of the ministry times, because we were busy being involved in the work rather than being outside of it. Still, you can see the people and the land.

And I realized that my wife is in there a lot — I wonder why?  🙂

The music is tradtional music from the area. Zhelyan gave me the CD.

A Postcard from Montenegro

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We’re back in Russia after a great drive from Montenegro through Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Belarus. Along the way we visited new friends and old in Budapest and Minsk.

We want to share this amazing picture of the team in Montenegro. This was taken on a mountain overlooking the Bay of Kotor, thousands of feet below.

Here in Russia, we’re preparing for the next phase of the summer. We’ll welcome several teams to minister in summer camps and orphanages. The work at Elama continues, and we’ll host several Christian camps there over the next few months.

I (Mike) will be back in Montenegro with another mission team in mid-July. And, our connections with Estonia and Finland continue to grow.

We are very thankful to the Lord for giving us the grace and ability to be involved in so many fruitful projects. He gets all the credit for any good thing we may be involved in; Jesus said that apart from Him we can do nothing.

We hope and pray that we’ll continue to live in Him, being rooted in Him and built up in the faith.

A Postcard from Montenegro — Deep Love

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Yesterday, after two very good and full weeks, we said our goodbyes to a team from Athens, GA. Most of the team members were from the Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia. Jane Kilgo, from St. James UMC in Athens, GA, also joined the team. The team is pictured above with the Kid’s Club at church.

It’s impossible to say how loving, encouraging and gracious the team was. Many people were very blessed by their time here, including the team members!

The team was involved in many different aspects of ministry, all with the focus of serving the Brethren Assembly in Podgorica. The pastor, Vladimir Cizmansky, is pictured at right performing a baptism which we were honored to attend.

Vladimir and his wife Marijana are both great examples of disciples of Jesus who pour out their lives in service to Christ and others.

We were also helped in many ways by Violeta Pavetic (the sister of our brother-in-law). Violeta is picture at left with some of the kids from the church. Violeta is jewel of a person and a great friend and co-worker.

In addition to running the Kid’s Club, the team ministered in many other ways. They taught an English class at church; ministered at a small fellowship in Kotor, a city with about seven known Christians; and helped local missionaries in Bar, a city with about five Christians. Continue reading →

Meet Pasha

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Pasha made a video,

In the forest.

It was posted on the internet.

Many people saw the video on the internet.

Many people had questions.

What is he doing? Why is he there?

Only Pasha knows for sure —

From Russia to Montenegro

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Yesterday Olga and I arrived in Montenegro after driving from Russia. We covered 2500km in three days, and drove through the heart of Eastern Europe: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro. It was a great trip, and now we’re getting ready to meet a team from the US that will help the church here. I’ll post more about that trip soon.

Here’s a slideshow of our drive —

Family History

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Recently one of Olga’s distant cousins discovered an old photo of her ancestors.

Here is the photograph taken at the Silver Wedding of Nestor Grootten and Olga von Klemm. The celebration took place in 1899 in Riga, where Nestor worked at the time.

We are working on identifying everyone in the photograph.  Maximillian, Orest’s father is the boy standing on the extreme right, with a smudge over his face.

Orest’s father – Maximillian Grootten had thirteen siblings (four of them died in infancy according the best information I have which needs to be double checked).  The youngest sister of Maximillian, i.e. one of Orest’s aunts was called Adelaide (“Adia”).  She was married (since 1912) to a well known expert on hydrobiology Professor Dimitry Beling who headed a research institution in Kiev.  Germans made him to continue in this position after they occupied Kiev during WW2.  When the Soviet troops were close to liberating Kiev, Germans evacuated Beling to Germany.  After the war he and Adia worked at the Goettingen University and lived in West Germany. Their daughter Helena Beling remained in Leningrad amd married Vadim Regel of famous St. Petersburg German family. They had two children – a son and a daughter. In 1960 Adia started to commute between Goettingen and Leningrad often staying with her grandchildren . Although a West German citizen – she died in Leningrad in 1989.

Her ashes were buried in Goettingen.  A large part of Adia’s archive is preserved by the Regel family now in St. Petersburg.

Cleaning Estonia

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A friend just sent me this. It’s great and gives a glimpse of Estonian character and culture. It’s quite a contrast to their neighbor to the East. Russia has the same problem but has not yet addressed it (and probably won’t any time soon).

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“Half of Estonia’s territory is forest. Yet, these forests are plagued with a traditional acceptance of being the country’s dump sites. Watch how a group created a grassroots initiative to rid Estonia of 10,000 tons of trash littering its forests and natural environment. In one day, over 50,000 volunteers – or 4% of Estonia’s population – cleaned their country in 5 hours.”

A Postcard from Russia — Dedication of Mira

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Four yeas ago I  officiated the wedding of Maxim and Anya Zakharov. Two years later they asked me to oversee their dedication of their first born girl, Pelegea. This week they asked me to do the same for their second daughter, Miroslava (who is a real cutie, above). It’s a blessing to have been here long enough to share in their lives as they grow and change.

Olga has been teaching English classes. She started teaching just a few folks, and it’s grown into quite a group. Now she has several people from Street Cry attending classes a couple of times a week.

We had our first ‘event’ at Elama. Crimson Sails, a Christian shelter in St. Pete, took their kids for a cookout yesterday. This was my first visit to Elama this spring, and things were better than I expected since no one had checked on the place all winter. Someone had broken into two of the buildings and used them for sleeping and eating (I think it must have been ice fisherman during the winter). But overall everything is in pretty good shape.

In a week we’ll head off to Montenegro to be with a team from the University of Georgia for two weeks. Then we’ll visit friends and ministry partners in Hungary and Belarus.

Here’s a word from Olga: This year has been very good. We have seen a lot of life happening around us. God has blessed us with new relationships. I’ve enjoyed getting closer to people from our church and getting involved in church activities. Besides teaching English, I have been teaching single girls about married life, and it has been very rewarding and amazing. We do thank God for the life He’s given us.

Tallinn, Estonia

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We visited Tallinn a little while ago. Here are a few pictures from the old town, the well preserved medieval city that was a member of the Hanseatic League.  Tallinn was earlier known as Reval.

I’m learning how to make these simple slideshow videos. This is my first attempt.