| Donald and Laurie Marsden
Varshavskoe Shosse 12-A
Moscow 117105
Russia
Email: Don and Laurie Marsden
Don & Laurie ended their service as PC(USA) mission co-workers on May 31, 2008. Don now serves with Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship.
Donald and Laurie Marsden, together with their children, Hannah,
Christiana, and Jeremiah, were chosen by the Worldwide Ministries
Division to move to Moscow in August 1997. They began their second
term of service January 2001. Donald is the founder of the Narnia
Educational Center in Moscow, an interdenominational non-profit
organization dedicated to producing Russian-language resources
for children’s ministry and training leaders for children’s
ministry. The principal denomination with which Donald works is
the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the Russian Federation.
The Narnia Center also supports ministry training centers for
Russian pastors and missionaries in Bryansk, Kirov, Surgut, and
Maiekop, Russia. Donald collaborates with the Presbyterian Frontier
Fellowship in training leaders for evangelistic outreach to the
non-Russian native reindeer-herding people groups of western Siberia.
Laurie works with OPORA, an interdenominational Christian
ministry that trains church and other professionals to confront
the acute problems of alcoholism and drug addiction by helping
them start Christian twelve-step programs for addicts and their
families. Laurie is working to develop the ARK, a drop-in center
for At Risk Kids of alcoholics and addicts.
During his first term of service, Donald worked with the Union
of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the Russian Federation in
coordinating and resourcing the sister-church, or "twinning,"
project. (Donald’s ministry in church twinning is now carried
out by PC(USA) mission personnel Al and Ellen Smith.) Laurie’s
appointment during the her first term was to ministry in the home.
She also helped supervise the Russian language program at the
Hinkson Christian Academy, an English-speaking school serving
the children of mission families in Moscow.
Prior to his appointment as a mission co-worker, Donald was associate
pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. Donald’s
passion for mission work in Russia began with his involvement
in the Mission for Biblical Literacy (MBL), a group committed
to partnership with established churches in Russia. In 1993 he
traveled to Russia for the first time with an MBL group. Through
Third Presbyterian Church, Donald led short-term mission teams
to Russia in the summers of 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Curricula
he wrote were translated into Russian so that children in the
Russian summer camps could study the same lessons as the children
at Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia. |
