To our dear friends and family:


Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on
whom his favor rests."

We hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season. Our Christmas
season has been filled with blessings! However, spending Christmas in
Russia has helped us to realize how much we appreciate, miss, and love
you all very much. We want to send our blessings to you and yours this
season letting you know you are in our thoughts and prayers. We pray
that this season has been filled with Jesus more than anything else,
in your hearts and lives. We love you all and wish you a very Merry
Christmas.

Luke 2:10-11 "But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring
you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.Today in
the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the
Lord."


With love from Russia,


Rayma, Dave, Elias and Sarah

Привет!! Hello!!

Greetings from Russia! It's been a while since our last update; we have several awesome things to share. God has continued to bless Calvary Chapel Perm in so many ways. He truly is faithful to build His church. We often catch ourselves amazed at what the Lord is doing here.

We continue to minister to those who got saved as a result of the outreach concerts in September. There are about a half-dozen that continue to come faithfully to every service. In addition to these there are several others who drop by or call us to let us know how they're doing. The concerts in September have continued to bear long term fruit.

October was an eventful month. I quickly learned to preach through a translator and actually began to like it. Sarah and Rayma started teaching English to 6 girls every Sunday night and the church transitioned our Monday night new believers group into our first home fellowship. We are working our way through Genesis on Wednesday nights and Matthew on Saturday mornings.

In the first part of November Campus Crusade for Christ came out from a nearby city (5 hrs by train) to do an outreach for the church. It was a lot of fun and very encouraging to have another handful of young people join our new fellowship.

About half way through the month we were informed that CCCPM (Calvary Chapel Church Planting Ministry) will be holding their annual women's conference here in Perm! This means that, in February, women from all over Russia and the US will come to Perm for this national Calvary Chapel Women's Conference. It will be led by Debbie Bryson and, in addition to that, our own Marleen Smith (Pastor's wife of McMinnville Calvary) is planning on coming. They expect about 150 women. Wow, that's a lot of women! Praise God!

On the subject of women's ministry, Sarah and Rayma have just recently decided to turn their English class on Sunday nights into a girls' Bible study. Both Rayma and Sarah have been doing such an incredible job! They are constantly ministering to these women among many other ministry-related activities. A couple of weeks ago Sarah was given a possible job opportunity teaching English at a nearby school. The pay is almost nothing but this would give her a 10-year working Visa and open a number of doors. She continues to pray about this opportunity.

This last weekend our church had its first Baptism service. We baptized four individuals in an inflatable pool the Baptist church uses for their baptisms. Two of the four were new Christians that received Christ at the concerts in September. Each of them shared a short testimony before they were baptized. It was awesome to hear how sincere they are about their faith. Overall it was a very powerful time and a definite mile marker for all of us.

The weather has finally become cold. We have about 3 feet of snow on the side of the roads and three inches of ice on the sidewalks. It's difficult to walk anywhere without slipping once or twice. The large Kama River has already frozen solid and people have begun ice fishing among other things. They predict a cold winter this year. We have begun to get used to –23 C weather at least as used to it as a person can get, cold is cold no matter how long you've been around it.

As cold as it is though, the weather gave us a great backdrop for Thanksgiving. Rayma and Sarah cooked turkey and stuffing with all the other classic thanksgiving foods. Some things we couldn't find and had to be made from scratch but the idea was basically the same. The girls cooked four pies apple, pecan, banana cream and pumpkin. It was all such a treat after five months of eating Russian food.

We will have to leave the country by Dec 15th. We have one-year religious visas and are required to exit and re-enter the country every 6 months. Originally we planned on taking a train to Finland since it would be the least expensive, and we have friends along the way in St. Petersburg. However, some good friends in McMinnville have a European time-share and offered to let us stay at a resort for a week in Finland. The Resort is in a city near Helsinki. We got online and found airplane tickets to Helsinki for about the same cost of the train tickets we were looking at. It turns out that "Turku" the city we'll be nearest is called the "Christmas Capitol of Finland." It's also the oldest city in Finland. They have all sorts of Christmas festivities going on the entire month of December. I can't tell you what a blessing this is for us. We were not looking forward to being so far away from our friends and family over the Holidays, but this is such a treat and makes the distance feel so much less.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. God continues to bless and encourage His church here in Perm. In Matt 16:18 Jesus says, "I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." We cling to His promises, we hold to His word. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is faithful and true. Our hope is in Him and in Him alone. We wish you a blessed Holiday season and pray that in this season's hustle and bustle you will, "Draw near to Him in all sincerity…and faith."


With deepest love… Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Your Russia Missionaries,

Dave, Rayma, Elias and Sarah

Latest Photos from Russia...