Recently, the head of our mission, Taras Prystupa, together with our Persian employee, Mani, visited Georgia and another country.
In Tbilisi, our brothers met and supported a family of Persian Christians who minister in the International Church and work with refugees from different countries, providing humanitarian assistance and evangelizing them. On Sunday, our leader and pastor had an opportunity to preach in that church with translation into Farsi, and this service was live-streamed to Persian-speaking countries.
God gave them the opportunity to visit a refugee camp near Tbilisi, where there are people from Uzbekistan, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, and African countries. Some refugees have been living there for over five years – they are poverty-stricken and very confused, with no documents, no citizenship, and no prospects. Most of them abuse alcohol. But the exciting news was that a Persian Christian woman, who also lives in this camp, gathers children of different nationalities there and shares with them the Good News.
As a multinational country, Georgia is a great mission field, and there is an urgent need for God’s workers. Please pray for it!
In another country, our ministers met with missionaries and together they expected the arrival of a group of believers from the Middle East. The good thing about serving the persecuted Church is that people who have come to believe in Christ are often forced to wait for years for the opportunity to be baptized. As you meet with them, you can see a true living faith, and a strong desire to follow Jesus. And the following Jesus always has a price – someone can lose their job, someone can be disowned by their relatives, someone needs to endure physical and moral oppression, someone can be thrown into prison, and someone might even lose their life…
Praise the Lord that no difficulties, prohibitions, threats, or persecution can destroy God’s plan, because “there are no chains for the Word of God” (2 Timothy 2:9). So His Name was glorified through our joint ministry as these believers got baptized. Over twenty people drove to the meeting place, and more than half of them were baptized as believers in Jesus Christ.
In this group, there was a woman who was sick with cancer. Brother Mani said that it was she who always wrote encouraging comments to him. It is so amazing that a woman who is in a difficult situation herself and is faced with a serious illness encourages others.
Another woman is a widow, who raises three small children. Please pray for her good influence on the children, that they will have a desire to entrust their lives to Jesus as they see her changed life.
The older man, who was baptized last year, brought his wife, daughter, and granddaughter this year, because all his family members are able to see his changed life, so they also wanted to give their lives to Jesus Christ. During the conversation, the grandfather confidently said, “I don’t know the answers to all your questions, but I know for sure that Jesus loves me very much!”
Young sister, whom our ministers knew last year when she came to get baptized and enter the Covenant with the Lord, was faced with a lot of troubles throughout the year: she was evicted from the dormitory, she had some difficulties at work – but the girl bravely and faithfully has gone through all the trials.
During the preparation for this trip, the Lord was merciful and He saved ministers from great danger. It turned out that one man was only pretending to be a brother, but was actually trying to find out about the other believers who had to come in order to cause trouble for these Christians.
Please pray for the protection of our brothers and sisters and for their faith to grow stronger and stronger every day and as they go through every trial.
