A Postcard from Montenegro

Leave a comment

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

Leave a comment

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

5 Comments

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

5 Comments

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

Leave a comment

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

1 Comment

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).

———

“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

Leave a comment

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

2 Comments

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.

Trusting His Methods

Leave a comment

John and Karen Bull have become good friends; they live in St. Pete with their four children.  You can learn more about them here and here.  This is a nice post by Karen that I wanted to share:

OK, this is really John’s revelation…but it was so good for me, that I had to write it.

Background:

I have often felt frustrated with “last minute” things that are done “by God.”  Sometimes, wondering—were they from God or did people just make it happen and it finally did.  OK, more than that, let me go even farther and say that I have chatted with the Lord(once or twice) about “why don’t you do things ahead of time and prove Your Hand is in things, instead of being so last minute—it does terrible things to “God’s reputation” when people think…well, you just have to wait for Him to act and it won’t happen til the end.”

Continue reading →

A Postcard from Estonia — Resting in Him

Leave a comment

I (Mike) am currently in Estonia again after a quick trip back to Russia.  Olga and I continue in a time of prayer and seeking God’s will for our next steps.  But, it is not a time of passive waiting. The Lord has given us good work, and we continue to see His hand in our lives.   We’re working in several areas, and over the next few months we will:

— welcome short-term teams to minister in Russian camps
— minister in Montenegro with a team from the Wesley Foundation in Athens, GA
— host several church groups and families at Elama, our Russian camp
— visit ministries and missionaries in Budapest and Minsk
— help several volunteers minister at Camp Gideon, an Estonian Christian camp
— continue to learn more about possibilities in Estonia

Above is a view of the medieval town of Tallinn. We’ve seen much wildlife here — storks, foxes, deer, hawks — and beautiful scenery.  And I continue to find watermills all over the place!

Recently Thomas Umstattd visited us from the US and created a video called What is MIR.  It’s a good oversight of MIR and the foundations of our work in Russia.  We’ve also recently updated the Stoneworks website.

Above all, Christ has been reminding us to abide in Him.  Apart from Him we can do nothing of eternal value.  Love and faithfulness are necessary, and the tasks and fruit of ministry will be a natural outcome of ‘abiding in the vine’.   Now is the time for us all to surrender our lives daily, trusting that our Father knows what we need before we even ask.