Slobodian's Prayer Letter: July - August 2004

Dear Pastors and Friends,

We are writing from Ukraine where we are enjoying the blessing of touching base with church planting efforts as we travel with the pastor and deacon chairman of a supporting church from South Carolina.  From here we move on for some teaching sessions in both Moldova and Romania.  This is always a special blessing since our reports, presentations, and prayer letters just cannot describe what God is doing in our field in the same manner as seeing the results first hand.  The Lord really does put his mighty hand on the ministry of planting churches.  Not that there are no problems.  There are plenty of problems and awesome challenges which often drive us to our knees.  However, we do not kneel alone.  Through our prayer letters and our monthly prayer and praise sheet, we kneel before God’s throne of grace together with many of you!  Praise the Lord that He is a God that hears and answers prayer and is faithful in keeping His Word.

            For example, just now one of the churches that we have planted in Ukraine is emerging from a great trial. A man who previously served and loved the church, turned against the church after he was gently approached about the fact that his messages were getting too politically orientated.  His opposition was so intense that it stunned everyone.  Despite the fact that Christians even from other churches tried to dissuade him from his malicious intentions, he filed a number of baseless charges against the church with the local police department.  Even though the charges were completely without merit and indicated this poor man had lost touch with reality, this is a serious matter in Ukraine.  Especially in this specific region where many authorities are still communistic and very much against Baptist churches.  As a bewildered congregation met to discuss the situation they thought of everything from church discipline to marching down to the police station to fill out affidavits in support of the church.  However, our church planter there, a very humble and Godly man, said “No, let’s do nothing yet… except pray.  This attack is not against you or me, it is against God’s church and He did say, “…I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Within a few days two events transpired which demonstrated the awesome and fearful power of God.  First, the official sent by the police to investigate the situation turned out to be the boyhood friend of one of the members who quickly was able to absolve the church of all the charges.  Secondly, the man who made the charges suddenly died!  A good description of the result of all this is in Acts 5:11, “And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.” 

Now we shift from what God is doing in Ukraine to some exciting developments back home.  God has met one of our ministries greatest needs!!!  As some of you may know, this ministry has operated for years out of a residential garage.  While this started out being economical, it was hampering our ministry and was becoming increasingly impractical since we eventually had to rent 3 other storage areas.  Recently, we had an amazing opportunity to obtain a facility in west suburban Indianapolis that would meet current and future needs.  Since the Lord has supplied about half of the funds needed, and we have a year to raise the remainder, we were able to move into this facility quickly.  This building project was helped greatly through my father, BIEM founder, Dr. Peter Slobodian who has moved to Indiana after conducting his ministry from Colorado the last few years. We are thrilled that God has now brought most of our family to the Indianapolis area and that the facilities that we have just moved into will house all of our ministries.  A joint dedication involving both BIEM and Dr. Peter Slobodian’s BGM ministry is being planned.

This facility is only 5 years old and with 8,000 square feet of office and warehouse space will meet not only current but future needs.  Due to a foreclosure and the graciousness of those who ended up with this property, we were able to obtain this building for hundreds of thousands of dollars below the appraised value.  Some who have the seen the quality construction of this building have used the word “miracle” to describe the $400,000 purchase price. Subtracting the value of the land we ended up obtaining an excellent facility for only $37 a square foot!  Rejoice with us in this exciting development and please pray that the Lord will enable us to raise the rest of the funds needed.  We will be providing more information about this exciting development in our next Challenger including pictures and information on how you can participate.  In the meantime, please note our new address and phone numbers on this letterhead.

The Slobodians