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.

Trusting His Methods

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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.”

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A Postcard from Estonia — Resting in Him

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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.

What is MIR?

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We believe that the Lord sets us together as members of His body, as living stones.  As we honor the relationships that He establishes, then the work naturally flows.  We made a video to help people see and understand better what MIR is and work to which we’ve been called.

Many thanks go to Thomas Umstattd for making this video.  He came to Russia and lived with us for a month, helping in many ways.

God’s Love in Action

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Olga and I have three young ladies from our church staying with us, Zhenya, Anna and Natasha.  I’ll post some pictures of our ‘new family’ soon.  Natasha works at Crimson Sails, a Christian children’s shelter.  Here’s one story of the way the Lord uses His people to save the lost. This is from Street Cry’s update —

Dasha (in the photo at left) was sent to this Christian shelter by her district police station officer.

Her alcoholic mom’s alcoholic boyfriend attacked Dasha with a knife.  She managed to escape almost without injuries with her grandmother’s assistance. With no time to even get dressed properly, and without a coat or boots, this young child ran through the snow and frost to the police for help.

As the police inspected Dasha’s home, they found a destroyed apartment, with almost everything sold in order to buy alcohol.  There was no food and not only Dasha did not have a desk to do her school homework but she did not even have a bed where she could sleep.  The court case began by denying Dasha’s mom parental rights.  While the case proceeded, Dasha was placed in the Christian shelter.

Very soon, she received Jesus and began attending Sunday school at our church.

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The Face in the Mirror

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More from Liz Hulley

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

James 1:23, 24 (NIV)

This verse came to shouted at me one morning recently as I finished up my Bible reading.  The cares of the world were already infiltrating my thoughts, and I felt as though I had been studying the Word in vain.  I had to approach the Lord all over again and ask for forgiveness.

What does it mean to forget what one looks like?

It’s absurd.  The only time I didn’t recognize myself was after I got contacts and looked at myself in the mirror the first time.  I had only seen myself in glasses for most of my life.  I think one would have to be literally blind to not know oneself.

It’s sad.  Being uncertain about one’s identity can be heart-wrenching.

It’s careless.  I am not promoting vanity here, but not being familiar with one’s appearance may say something about character.  Maybe it’s a lack of organization, lack of attention, or lack of purpose.

I believe that the Living Word often works in our hearts undetected.  We don’t always experience an emotional or otherwise conscious reaction.  Yet when we test our hearts, I believe we will find evidence as to whether or not the Word has taken hold.

The passage in James is talking about action.  Good deeds testify about one’s faith.  We could also talk about bearing fruit.  But there are also simple commands in the Bible such as casting all our cares upon Him.  Surely this also is an act of obedience, and a starting point for other acts of faith.  If I can’t emerge from my prayer closet with an attitude of trust, perhaps I haven’t paid attention very well to what I’ve just read in the Bible.