Russia Update

Sunrise Bible Fellowship

Red Bluff, CA

Well, we made it to Penza... Unfortunately some of the luggage did not, yet. The Red Bluff group did not get any of their luggage that they checked on. It took us just about two c They said yesterday that it was on it's way to Moscow, and they said today that it is on it's way to Moscow... No, you did not read that wrong... They told us today the same thing they told us yesterday. They said that it will be on the next plane to Penza. We are supposed to call tomorrow am. There are two flights to Penza each day. We will see how long it takes to get it on the "next flight" to Penza! :-) So, you can be praying for that to get resolved soon.

We had another unfortunate thing happen... but Praise the Lord, it all worked out. We were at Mac Donald's getting dinner, and preparing to go to the train. Steve took 3 men and went to get the luggage at the hostel we stayed at. We were going to wait a little longer, then head to the train station to meet them. I decided to count the tickets, and found out that one was missing. It was Beverly's (because we did not have her passport when we got the tickets, and we had to get it later, but put it in the wrong pile, and left it in Penza). So, we left immediately to go to the train to get a new one. The metro (subway) traffic was the worst I have ever seen it. When we got off the metro at one station to go transfer to another, We were in a heard of people. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the escalator!!! Anyway, we all made it and I got them settled down to wait while I ran off to deal with the ticket... Praise the Lord, with my limited Russian, I was able to figure out where to go, and what to do. It took 3 lines to wait in, but I got a new ticket and we got on the train with plenty of time to spare!

Moscow is a unique place, and it is a very new experience for half of the team. The other half have been here and it is all familiar. We had another new experience though. The team all got off 1.5 hrs earlier than Penza, in the Belinski train station. That is a 2 minute stop. So they were all ready, and got off. I even got a chance to give my girls a hug, before heading on to Penza with 15 large suitcases... But did not have a key to get in my house! Praise the Lord for cell phones... We got it figured out so Matt did not have to race back to Penza with a key. I had help getting the bags to our house, and all is well.

I have been very busy with team, retreat, luggage issues, so I have not heard much from Steve about the team. I hope to hear more tonight and get back to you about how they are. When I left them they were all excited and ready to go!

Right now I have a bible study in my living room. One of the men from our church is teaching it. You can be in prayer for the team, and for the weekend plans. The weather is not very good. It is rainy. It snowed a lot in Moscow. No snow here. But we are trying to figure out what to do with the men's event. The ladies event plans are going fine, except we do not have enough places to house all those who are interested. We found another place nearby that we can use, so we will try to make those arrangements tomorrow. Praise the Lord that about 80 women say they want to come!

Well, that's enough for now. I will get this off. I have NO pictures to send yet. But hope to when Steve comes home tomorrow. I talked a little to Steve and it sounds like everyone is doing well. They were doing cement work past dark, so they set up lights and worked. Fun, fun, fun!

The luggage has arrived safely in Penza. Thank you for your prayers.

Next prayer request. Brenda is planning the ladies event for this weekend and she has had more ladies want to come than she can accommodate, so some will have to sleep on the floor. Please pray that she will be able to finalize everything quickly. The weather is not conducive to the men having an outdoor campout, so Steve is trying to plan something else for the men.

Working at Belinski was so fun. Pastor Jenya is so fun to work with. It was amazing to see all the work we got done in 2 1/2 days.

Now we are working at Saglasia, one of the churches in Penza. It is way fun so far. There are 2 guys that have been there every since we have been working there 4 years ago. They were there again yesterday working as hard as ever. It is amazing to how dedicated they are on working on the building.

Today all of us ladies are going to the ladies retreat.

Hope everything is going well in Red Bluff.

Well, it has been a busy couple weeks! We have really enjoyed the team that is here. It is such an encouragement to us, as well as the Russians, to have American believers come along side us and work together to serve the Lord! The team is doing very well, and really enjoying themselves. We met them in Moscow, and from the moment we met them it has not been boring! First, the group of 4 from Red Bluff did not receive any of their 8 pieces of checked on luggage! So, we spent two hours dealing with the paperwork for that. Praise the Lord it arrived in Penza 3 days later. The team enjoyed their visit in Moscow before we headed back to Penza... but we accidently left one of the tickets in Penza, so we had to run around to several places at the train station to get that replaced, just in time to catch the train! The team spent the first several days in Belenski. They enjoyed helping Pastor Jenya and his family with the building.

Painting the heater pipes...After hours of painting with very smelly paint, they are still smiling!

After they finished there, they headed to Penza for about 4 days. Here they worked on two different churches, Saglasia and another small baptist church in another area of Penza. Our two events were on Sat. The men enjoyed a picnic in the forest with some of the Russians, and the ladies headed out of town for an overnight retreat.

Brenda worked with a group of ladies to plan this retreat, and had to organize everything, including transportation and buying and organizing the food for this time. It was a wonderful time with the ladies. There were 65 ladies there, and they varied from 12 years old to 75. There were Christians from various churches, as well as many (at least 1/3) unsaved/unchurched ladies. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable time. Marilyn Snyder (the pastor's wife from Hayden Friend's Church in Idaho) was our guest speaker, and she did a wonderful job of sharing practical advice on how to be content. We also had time to make craft projects, sing, eat together, and play games. On the last meeting time, we asked for ladies to raise their hand and come up to us afterward if they had prayed to accept Christ as their Savior for the first time. Praise the Lord, that 3 ladies came up to us and let us know that they had prayed. Please pray that Satan does not discourage them, and that they get involved with a Bible study and church. One of these ladies was the grand daughter of the 2nd baptist pastor in Penza! The ladies from our church were so excited to meet her. Another interesting thing that happened was that one husband came out in the morning to check on his wife. He was wanting to check out this crazy group of ladies that went to a retreat place to have a conference, because it is very unusual. He was very upset that she was there. Anyway, the next Bible study we had, he came with his wife! At first we were afraid he might be there because he was angry with us, but he seemed genuinely interested in the study. He acted like he had never opened the Bible before. Please pray for this older couple to come to true salvation.

Having fun at the retreat!

We are praising the Lord for the fruit of this retreat. One lady shared at our study how valuable this information was and how she has continued to re-read the material and see how she can apply it in her life. This is a woman that we have seen slowly growing spiritually, but still struggling with discontentment in her life! Praise the Lord that she was ready to receive this information! We feel so blessed to be part of this work here. Thank you all for your part in this ministry! Your prayers as well as gifts are invaluable to us!

This week the team has spent a couple more days working on the churches here in Penza. Yesterday we had a picnic in the forest to celebrate Steve's birthday! We had a great time, and the weather was very nice! The team headed out to spend their last 3 days in Gorodisha, helping finish up several jobs there at the church. On Friday they will have a dedication service for the church building! This is exciting! We have had many teams help on this church, so it is a great celebration that the building is complete! Again, thank you all for your part in this! You can celebrate with us.

On Friday, we will be sending part of the team back to the states, along with Matt and Luda. They will be going back to Idaho for a while. They are going to have a baby in late April, so they will be there till next summer. They will return to Penza with their baby next summer. We will miss them a lot! It has been great to have family here with us. The girls have really enjoyed having an uncle and aunt here in Penza. It will be sad to see them go, but we are happy that they will return next summer. After they leave, the four from Red Bluff will stay one more week and help at the churches.

We mentioned about the situation in Russia last letter. We are finding out more about a new law that was signed early October. It may very well affect our getting our visa, so, please pray for us as we wait to get our invitations processed, and then go out to get our visas. Pray for us to have peace that God is in control, and we can trust Him to do what is best for us! We are willing to serve Him wherever and however He desires! Among the news we also found out that our landlord will be selling our apartment, and we will not be able to live in it after we leave in June for our summer furlough. Our girls have lived here since they can remember, so this is not pleasant news for any of us!

Thank you all for your prayerful support! We are praising the Lord that we received several extra gifts again this month, which has helped greatly to keep us out of the hole. We really need about 20% more monthly now to sustain us, because of the rising costs. Our God is great and He will provide! Thanks for praying for us!

Please keep in touch. We know you are busy, just like us, but we love to hear how you are and what's new with your family.

In His love,

Steve, Brenda, Rachel, and Hannah Hines

It's been a busy two weeks and just now do I have time to sit down to type --well, actually even just think about writing something to you. I have really enjoyed our work in Belinski, Saglasia and Garadisha. I feel like we have accomplished much more than the previous two trips. Probably just because there are more people on the team so we have had more hands doing the work! That's always a good feeling.

I have loved getting to know the Idaho group! Each person is so different and it has been a pleasure to have the opportunity to interact with them and get their stories. These past two days in Garadisha I worked a lot with Mary Jane. She is a sweet lady and I love how she always did her work with a smile. The rest of the team is great as well, and you will hear all about them when we get home.

I am taking lots of pictures! So don't worry about that. Already I have somewhere around 500 on my camera and will probably take another 100 before the trip is finished. Hannah has also been having fun and taking some, so every night I get to sift through lots of silly ones to get a few good ones to keep.

Right now some of the team is out shopping. I decided that since tomorrow we (Red Bluff team) are planning to do that, I would stay at the Hines' and relax!
I hope everything is going well there in America. See you in about a week.

Dear Ruth Ann,

Well, just wanted to let you know that the team Is on it's way, and all is well so far. Jenya was on the train till midnight (she is going to her hometown for a wedding) and Dima (the one who interpreted before and is a photographer) we saw and he was actually on their wagon! The driver said that it went well and by 10 am he had already dropped them off at the airport. He has our numbers if he needs anything. I am sure it will go fine. We hope that they don't have any problem with all the luggage we sent. We made sure that they weighed just under 50 pounds each so he would not have to deal with what to do with extra stuff... Anyway, he had permission to through out any books etc that were a problem! I can't believe all the stuff we have here that we want to send back. We sent back about 100 pounds of books with Idaho, and about 200 of books and stuff with Cliff and girls. Our shelves still have much on them, but of course if we really get stuck we will give lots away to our friends here. It feels good to get some of the most important stuff sent back though. It is possible we will get our visas renewed, but even if we do, we can only be here for 3 months before we have to leave for three months. We are changing our Indian visas that they had already issued to be 6 month visas so we have a better chance to get the Russian visa while we are in India... No guarantees, though! Pray for us as we wait and see what the Lord's will is for our future.

They spent the last two days here in Penza. They worked one day on the new church that they had worked on earlier in their time, and they also enjoyed their time shopping and relaxing. We went bowling on Friday. They went go-carting on Sunday! So, we had a lot of fun and got a lot of work done, too! After they went shopping we had to rearrange stuff because the suitcases were over weight, but still not full...

Love,

Brenda

PS Sorry that I did not send out more letter and photos this trip. It was a very busy time, especially with the craziness of our visa situation, etc added to it.