Calvary Chapel Philadelphia
One of our home churches Calvary Chapel Philadelphia will be sending a team to Smolensk once more this year! We're so excited to hear the good news and what's even more special about this group is, that half of this new group is coming back again! Last year we had CC Philly's high school (29 kids in all) come for an outreach in Smolensk. All of us, the staff included were awesomely blessed by the conduct and behavior of this youth group from Pastor Joe's church in Philadelphia! One of our dear translators Lena Bensen was so impressed with this group! Lena worked with CCCPM for five years conducting hundreds of teams as one of the translators. When she saw the conduct of this youth group she couldn't help but thank God and tell us about how impressed she was with CC Philly! Needless to say we did have a wonderful time with CC Philly and Carlos the missions pastor, and Rob Paoletti the worship leader. They really blessed us and were so evangelistic!

The dates for this year's outreach are: June 12th to the 23rd. We'll be having four nights of concerts an English Club during the first week, and some time at an Orphanage just outside our city! Also we're hoping to visit a rehabilitation center for young men who have given themselves over to drugs and alcohol. This center is run by a local Christian organization and we want to share the Love of Christ with them! Please keep us in prayer for all of these events to have an eternal impact on Smolensk and their lives!

Prayer Requests
Also pray for continued open doors for my family and me. We've had some difficulties during the last 2 years with our visas. But God has always granted us time to live and serve in Smolensk. But we ask that you'd pray specifically for the local Ovir (this is the agency that permits us to invite). We have run into opposition sometimes with them, many times without any real explanation as to why we are having troubles?

Also we ask you to pray for our church and body. We continue to look for a place to buy, or rent long term or build a church within the city limits. We ask you to continue to pray for our brothers and sisters to continue their maturity in Christ.

Praise report!
Back in February we let our Russian staff organize and run their very own outreach. A two night concert with some special groups (all Christian of course) and what was a special blessing was its success! Several young people responded to the outreach, and several young people have committed their lives to Christ, and continue to serve and help the church out! One additional blessing from this outreach was that Dema (our worship leader) organized a small prayer group to pray for fruit from the concerts! He started with two other men and this little group continues to pray long after the concerts have finished!

The blessing behind this is: we had nothing to do with it! The Lord Jesus laid this burden on them, and they continue praying to this day! What's unusual for them is, very seldom do young men arise early in Russia! But our worship leader and others rise up and start to pray at 8 am!

That's about it for now, I'll try and keep our home page a little more current and keep you informed about (CC Smolensk) Blagavest and all the things the Lord Jesus is doing through us!

Pastor Mike