July-August, 2007

“And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is Christ Jesus”  I Tim. 1:14 

Dear Pastors and Friends, 

Warm Greetings in Christ!  We rejoice in the privilege of serving Christ and for the way God has provided for and increased this ministry through the faithful prayers and support of God’s people.  We are glad to report that the Lord has blessed us this past summer in some significant ways.  We have seen an amazing number of Muslims saved including 14 in a two-week period.  Our summer camping program had many youth saved along with other important decisions and this years efforts included a camp in the country of Georgia where some of our missionaries have begun church planting efforts.  We have also sent off another container of humanitarian aid, ministry equipment, Gospel literature, and a 15-passenger diesel van! 

When you receive this letter we will be at our long awaited Missions to Muslims Conference in Kiev, Ukraine.  This is a historic event as we hope to have a crowd of 1,000 of which many are Ukrainian college and career young people whom we are praying would be called and challenged for missions.   Specifically, mission work to the surrounding Muslim countries since they would be far better accepted than Americans.  Enthusiasm is building and many at BIEM feel that God has so greatly blessed our work in Russia and Eastern Europe for a specific purpose.  Perhaps the purpose for which God has used BIEM to raise up so many churches and develop such a large network of dedicated servants of God in Russia and Eastern Europe is to be a launching pad from which to reach out to the surrounding Muslim countries.  If so, this conference could be the most important event in such an outreach for the glory of God. 

Therefore, when it comes to this conference we very much need your prayer and would like to take this opportunity to list several items for which you can pray:

1. Pray for traveling mercies as folks will be traveling to Kiev from 10 different countries.
2. Pray for God to enable visas for those coming from places where the visa requirements are problematic.  Currently the visas of some key conference participants are in the hands of bureaucrats who often say “No”.
3. Pray for those involved in the logistical details of such a meeting. Local church folks involved in transportation, preparing meals for 1,000 people and opening up their homes to receive so many guests need prayer for their tasks.
4. Pray for those involved in the sound, audiovisual needs and filming of this event and for the equipment involved to work well.
5. Pray for the translators who have an enormous task of interpreting so many sessions.
6. Pray for the speakers of the conference that God would use them greatly.
7. Pray for God to work in the hearts of all of us at the conference.
8. Pray that God would specifically call laborers for the harvest field of surrounding Muslim lands.

 

Thank you so much for joining us in prayer.  May God bless you!

                                                                                      The Slobodians