God is Good in every way

Here is a picture of us with Elena the lady who came and spoke to me.

Every morning before the kids are dismissed to their English classes there is an opening assembly which consists of music, an object lesson and prayer. This week John shared his object lesson on Wednesday. The theme this year is HOPE and what a great message to send to the children of Russia!

John walked up front with Will in his arms and began to speak about having hope in God. He put a picture of me up on the screen of when we first found out I was pregnant. He described to the children about how even though we couldn’t see that there was a baby inside we were trusting God that there was one. He continued to show pictures of the progression of my pregnancy and little by little each picture showed my stomach growing. Half way through the pictures he showed a picture of the ultrasound. It showed a perfect picture of Will’s head, eyes, nose, mouth and shape of his body. He continued to talk about how sometimes we can’t see what God is doing but we can hope and trust in Him because He is Faithful. In the end he showed a picture of me at forty weeks pregnant with a huge belly! To follow he showed a picture of Will just a little while after he was born.

There are many neat things that are attached to this object lesson. The average woman has one baby and that is mostly because it is so expensive to raise children here. There are people who have two children but it very rare that you meet a Russian family with four, five, six children! There is also not the same excitement for having children as there is in America. Most view it more as burden than as a blessing from God. This is why the average Russian woman has nine abortions. For the children to see a man who is talking about being excited to have a baby could be a once in a lifetime opportunity for them. Yes, once in a lifetime.

Later that morning a middle aged Russian woman walked up to me while I was outside with Will and in her thick Russian accent said, “I wanted to say thank you for your husband speaking. You can see that he loves his family by the way he smiles and talks. This is very good for the children to see because you do not see men talking like your husband has just done.” She then proceeded to explain that she was glad we came to Russia and was glad we were at the camp because it showed her that there are men who love God and there can be families who follow Jesus together. She said (with tears in her eyes), “It is no longer just something that we hear about happening but is now a reality.”

I myself could not help but want to cry! You just never know how the Lord will use you! And this was definitely an answer to a specific prayer we have been praying! We have been asking the Lord to use our marriage and having a baby to minister to people in some way and once again God has proven Himself to be faithful.

I still feel like I do not fully comprehend my conversations with this lady from the week but I don’t think it is for me to sit here and analyze every word she spoke. I keep repeating her words over and over in my mind. I keep thinking how is it really that a man talking about family could make an impact on others? To me this is so “normal” but I suppose that is part of my problem. Our culture is full of men participating in being the head of a family and here it is more than common for men to die early from alcoholism and children to be raised with no father. Perhaps this was just an event that was supposed to happen and I am to share it with others so that they see the Mighty hand of God working.

I pray that we have many more conversations and opportunities to minister throughout the next 6 weeks. We ask again that you would join in specifically praying that our marriage and having a child with us would be a witness to the many people we are trying to build relationships with. We covet your prayers!

By His grace,

Nichole

This is a video from John sharing during the second week of camp during the opening but it was the same story shared during the first week of camp.