This is my 9th ‘chapter’ or installment of the 40 years of history that we have been blessed with at this church. From 1984 when Patty and I moved here, until now. Thank you for reading along and indulging with me in this reflective journey.
In the last couple of articles I have already spoken of our work in Bryansk, Russia a few times and how that international missions had already made such a huge impact in our personal lives but also for our church. There is much more to this story that is not only important for me, but still has enormous impact on our church today.
After returning home from the meeting at the International Mission Board that I wrote about in the previous article, not only was I deeply moved, but some important people came into our lives from the IMB, namely Buck Burch and Tim Wicker. Buck and Tim were IMB missionaries in Russia and they were seeking for a new way to engage regions of Russia with the Gospel. For a time Buck and his wife Leslie actually were assigned to live in Bryansk in the days soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. These two men were trying to develop a way for local congregations in America to immerse themselves into Russia missions with a program they developed called “Virtual Strategic Coordinator.” Out of the Richmond Virginia IMB visit, and because of our already 6 years of engaging in work in Bryansk and the developing Christian Camp Yolochka, they ask my wife and I if we would play the Virtual Strategic Coordinator (VSC) role. This task was to help develop a plan and implement that plan to bring focus on church planting and development to that entire region of Russia. Buck and Tim came to visit our church, lead us through some basic training, and guided us in these early steps. It would require some extra time from me for sure, and this of course was not a ‘paid job’ in any way. It would just require our LifeWay Church family to ‘give up’ some time from me as Pastor to help dedicate to this. I remember well our Elder team in a couple of important meetings discussing this and trying to decide if we as a church should place that much time on working on the other side of the planet. Even though we all loved missions, this was a bit of a stretch for us at LifeWay, far more than just an occasional mission trip. I will never forget that Rik Budd, and Elder at that time and a very long-time member and leader, came to me and we prayed about it and he just felt that God was leading us to take this step. He challenged the Elder team into this new step. The Elder council agreed to allow me the extra freedom of time beyond my normal pastoral duties to not only work on developing of mission partners for Bryansk but physically I was given the freedom to spend more time in Russia. In some ways its almost embarrassing how many times I have flown into Moscow and then caught the train to Bryansk. I have added it up though and I’ve spent about 2 ½ years of my life on the ground in that region of Russia over the 20 years. We were able to develop other partnerships of American Churches other than LifeWay to the work in various communities, villages, and cities in the Bryansk region and beyond. We have been able to bring along about 30 different American churches into mission work in Russia and now other connected regions. Out of this work we have seen many new churches planted, many newly resurrected churches, and multiple local Russia church leaders who have become church planters and missionaries themselves.
There is no such thing as a glowing big success story here as there are plenty of bumps in the road and failures too. But let me highlight one of my favorite stories. It comes out of an email update that I just received this morning from Russia.
In the 2008 – 2012 years we developed some ‘conferences’ for Russian Church leaders that we held at Camp Yolochka. One of the men, Vova Nsedekin, was a furniture designer by trade but also felt so strongly that he needed to be an evangelist and church planter. He had not yet been “blessed” by some of the church leaders to act on this and wasn’t sure what to do. At one of the conferences that we were leading at Camp Yolochka, Vova met with Don Turner and myself for some direction and advice. We counseled him, prayed with him and encouraged him on how to walk through wisely the doors that God opens and be careful when God closes a door. Soon after that He was ask by local leaders to help resurrect a church that had an old run-down building, but the congregation had died. The small community is called Rognedino. This small Russian village is a pretty insignificant spot and easily overlooked in the greater Bryansk region. You will never hear about it on any news reel. But is a powerful story of God’s hand at work in the world. Vova accepted the role as church renewal Pastor even though his job and family lived about an hour drive away. This of course was a non-paid position and did not include any gas money he would need for travel. The humble church building that was run down, had a giant crater hole in the backyard of the property that was left over from a WWII German bomb that exploded there. And there was only lady that had any attachment to the congregation. (Sounds a whole lot like the Palisades Church when we moved to Federal Way in 1984). Vova and his wife Irina faithfully served in Rognedino for many years. Out of this church they also saw new churches and mission outposts in other villages surrounding it. Dozens of LifeWay short term missionaries have spent time in Rognedino. Vova has taken bus loads of children from non-believer families over the years to Camp Yolochka for summer camp with dozens who have come to faith. When my daughter and son in law were assigned by the IMB to be missionaries in Bryansk, of course they were already close to Vova and helped in many ways in that ministry. Scott is the one that encouraged and arranged for LifeWay to help develop a gasoline travel stipend for Vova for a few years, and even helped pay for some of the seminary education for Vova. We at LifeWay eventually bought a van for Vova’s ministry which he uses even now. Vova has also followed open doors and has led ministries for Russians as they now take the gospel to other parts of Russia including Siberia, and even to the farthest eastern part of Russia called Chukotka. That’s the remote part of Russia that almost touches Alaska and is inhabited by the same native tribal people groups in western Arctic Alaska! Those places are so remote that non-Russians are never allowed to go, and even Russian citizens must get special permission. Currently Vova and Irina felt led to be part of a church planting ministry in the NW region of Russia not far from St Petersburg.
The war between Russia and Ukraine has of course deeply complicated so many things, but Vova remains true and faithful to the work, and we hear from him regularly. We are not able to support his work anymore financially, but our prayers are with him as we follow this partner carefully.
Thank you Buck Burch and Tim Wicker for not only guiding us into a VSC plan that has opened so many doors, and has led us being part of taking the Gospel to the most remote parts of our planet. And may God continue to bless our dear friends and partners in the Gospel, Vova and Irina and many more of our dear friends in Russia that I don’t have time to mention in this brief article.
