November 14, 2007

Dear Friends in Christ,

Drawing Psalm 29 during seminar devotions.

One of the hardest things I do in my mission service is explain what role I play as the regional liaison for Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland while living, not over there, but here in the United States. I use the metaphor of a “bridge” to help the explanation. It is my joy as a mission co-worker to serve as a “bridge” between our Baptist, Orthodox, Lutheran, and Reformed partner churches and my fellow co-workers in the region and all those pieces of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that are engaged in mission in the four countries, including individuals, congregations, presbyteries, synods, the General Assembly Council staff, and mission support groups. Such a complicated explanation! It would be so much easier to say, “I teach at the Lutheran seminary in St. Petersburg,” or “I am the pastor of the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy.” But, the simple explanation just doesn’t work for me. My role is to stand with my arms spread wide and, with God’s help, to enable deeper partnerships and programs between Presbyterians and brothers and sisters in Christ in these former communist states.

For five years now, I have been blessed by the friendship of John and Deb Burgess of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you are a regular reader of Presbyterians Today, you’ll remember the April 2006 issue that highlighted the Burgess family’s year with the Russian Orthodox in St. Petersburg. The Lord’s call has continued to tug at John and Deb and their family. They have returned often to serve in summer camps, to help with visiting groups, to teach, and to learn.

Just weeks ago, Deb concluded her most recent visit with partners in Russia. Her reflection, “Sharing in the Gospel,” reminds us all that mutual encouragement, compassion, sympathy, and sharing Christ’s love is why we are engaged in mission. Here is Deb telling her story of Moscow, Kirov, and Perm.

Hope Baptist Church in Perm, Russia, enthusiastically hosted a vacation Bible school.

Clouds hung low, heavy and gray, as is often the case, when we landed in Moscow. It was fall, after all, with winter close behind. The three of us had arrived, ostensibly to present a seminar for small Baptist congregations on organizing and planning programs for vacation Bible school and day camp. My traveling companions were Lynn, the director for discipleship from our congregation in Pittsburgh, and Brenda, a soon-to-be pastor. We were in Russia at the invitation of Ellen Smith, PC(USA) mission coworker living in Moscow. We were scheduled to make our presentations in Kirov and Perm. But as God would have it, the purpose of the trip went well beyond our meager efforts and experiences with camp.

Our travels were peopled with believers who, in amazing but somehow familiar ways, are heeding God’s call to go into the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. Lena, a young Russian Orthodox woman, asks how she can share the faith with her 2-year-old son when he is so active and doesn’t seem interested when she shows him the icons in the church or talks to him about what is going on in the liturgy. Nastya, another young Orthodox woman, wants to know how young people in our churches meet one another. Marrying within the faith and living out her faith in a marriage is very important for her.

Pastor Boris works very hard in a small town to attract and keep young people coming to church. Some criticize him for his contemporary worship style. But he relates, with sadness in his voice, that when, in the early nineties, the churches were first allowed to have services and teach publicly, peopled flocked to them in search of some foothold in a rapidly changing social climate, that they didn’t know what to do. Any training that they had received had not prepared them for the challenge of sharing the gospel with non-believers.

Yuri and Nadya have 7 years of experience running a summer camp that draws 30 percent Christian young people and 70 percent non-believers. Sergei and Nadya, a young couple just beginning a Christian camping ministry, have been called to ministry with orphans. Both couples feel keenly the differences between children who have been brought up in a Christian home and those who have not. They know the struggles of sharing the gospel and yet are determined to do so for the sake of the children that come to them.

Inna is the mother of two young daughters. She’s seeking an apartment with her husband Misha in order to begin a ministry of outreach. Inna grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father who rearranged her internal organs with his beatings. She never went to more than one grade at the same school.  She lived off and on with various relatives. When she came to faith her grandmother kicked her out of the house. She has suffered more pain than is comfortable to think about, but her face tells a story of joy, the story of repentance and forgiveness, of God’s abundant mercy. She now looks forward to meeting the people in her neighborhood with whom she will be able to share the gospel.

Our seminars went just fine, but they were clearly not the point of this trip. My colleague Lynn asked me about halfway through the trip, “What exactly is the mission of the Presbyterian Church in Russia?” At the time my answer was a bit disjointed, but on reflection we bring to share whatever skills and resources God has gifted us with, but more than that our mission is one of mutual encouragement, compassion, sympathy and love so that we may be “of one mind … the same mind … that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:2,5).

Thank you, Deb. Thank you very much.

Yours in Christ,

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.187