2 and 3 March / English

Sunday morning we went to the service at the Baptist Church. Heaven was celebrating, as five persons were baptised.  I was asked to tell my story. During the meeting we sang “God, I give all to You” (in Russian J). Last autumn we sang a Dutch song with similar wordings (Jesus, all for Jesus / Jezus, alles geef ik U) during a meeting at Operation Mobilisation.

In the afternoon we went to visit an orphanage. One of the members of the Baptist Church works there, and they go there regularly to play with the kids. It was a group of approx. 25 children, aged between 4 and 6, and a few that were a bit older. We played with the and told them the story of Noah.

Today we went to visit a gipsy family. (The family asked us not to place photo’s on the Internet.) We met the grandmother (aged approx. 65), her daughter (mid 30) and a friend (mid-30 as well). There were three children playing around us. A pair of twins, aged 5 or so) and a younger girl. The twins have a younger sister, who is just a few weeks old and who stays in hospital because something is wrong with her hart. The twins also have heart problems. There were no men. The friend told us that she had left her husband, as he had an alcohol problem and spent all their money on alcohol.

The family lives in two small rooms and was very greatful for the clothes and the food that we brought. Their only income is a partial allowance the grandmother receives, which is by far not enough to feed everybody. The younger women have problems finding work as the Russians don’t trust the gipsies. They ‘make an income’ by begging and digging through te garbage for food. Grandma only gets a partial allowance because social services say that she has no work experience and therefore not deserves a full allowance. The contact man of the Baptist Church has promised to help her get the full allowance, so that they would have a bit more income.

My interpreter told me that the gipsies are a big problem in Russia. There are lots of families (also non-gipsies) who live under similar or worse conditions. Next week we will bring a visit to another family who lives under similar conditions.

We went back to the church for lunch, and were asked if we would like to be interviewed for a Christian radiostation. Well, yes. So about an hour later we were giving interviews for the radio. I don’t know when it will be broadcasted, but with the help of my fellow-translator Google, I’m sure you can find it here (http://sdradio.ru/).

In the evening we joined the Bible study of the young adults of the Baptist Church. It was a nice group of 10 persons. The study was about Luke 6.

I’m beginning to recognise words from the Russian language. During the Bible study I heard a nice one: суббота    (pronounced as: sobotta).  The word we use for it can be found in Luke 6.