Faithful, Focused Servants!

Faithful, Focused Servants!

One such ‘faithful focused servant’ is Valery, who along with his wife Valentina, has been taking the Gospel to broken and downtrodden people for more than 37 years. Valery is an SGA-sponsored missionary pastor in Far East Russia.  He writes of his ministry: 

“This winter was very cold, and temperatures of -56 Centigrade (-68 F) lasted for a while. That made travels with my wife Valentina quite difficult, taking into account our health and age, and absence of indoor toilets along the roads and in villages. 

We focused our visits to groups of believers in places without ministers, and also preached the Gospel in villages where there are no believers. For a long time, we prayed and had a desire to preach the Gospel in even more villages of our area. 

In order to do that, we talked with another missionary pastor named Mikhail. Mikhail and his wife Uruydana [SGA sponsored missionaries], and a few other believers from churches in our area, 

went to many villages of the area, even to the most remote village.

Mikhail entered the village and asked the mayor if the village had believers in Jesus and there was one named Ilya. Mikhail with a team went to visit him, and Ilya told them that he believes in the Lord and that about 20 years ago that we (Valery and Valentina) had visited his village, visiting his house and left him the Bible and other Christian books, as well as Christian audio with songs and video.

He reads the Bible and prays together with his wife. We are really grateful to God for His wonderful work in their lives!” 

Out of great love for God and others, Valery and his wife Valentina, who were newly married, moved to this frigid village during the Soviet Union era. 

It was a harsh and impoverished life, but they have never ceased to preach the Word and make disciples. They have never considered the thought ‘What’s in it for us’, but only seek to love God more and make Him known.