This is little Daniel, and were thankful to the Lord that Daniel only walked away with two fractures in his leg as a car hit his baby stroller. It looks like my soccer partner is going to be out for the season. We usually kick the soccer ball around before the Bible study. Daniel has some serious kicking talent. He is expected to make a full recovery and so we look forward to seeing him in action next season. God Bless.
Our little Tuesday Bible study. Daniel's Babuska is on the far left, and her friend Mila first time to the study. Lisa, and Valya Daniel's mama, with baby Masha. When I left for America Masha was still crawling, and when I returned she was walking like mad!!!
One of the opportunities we have is greeting those who are traveling trough Moscow. Fred (Florida) and Blair (Wisconsin) traveled to Moscow and then on to the far east to meet with church Pastors and lay workers for a week of leadership training. We gave them the 10$ tour of our city..... of course for free.Greetings from
Perhaps the greatest highlight of my visit home was the opportunities to share what is going on here in my neck of the woods. I was taken back with the sincere interest in the work here in
My meeting with the College Career group was the one group I really had the desire to speak with. Because they are at the age where not too much holds them back for going full out for the Kingdom of God. It was a special night and I believe the Lord was in full control. Thanks John for inviting me!!
A picture is worth one word"JESUS" What a privilege to come and share with the greatest kids at CC 7th street about Russia. I think I had a room of future missionaries. What a great work God is doing. If you want to be where the action is at talk to Pastor Leif, the Lord is up to some amazing stuff in that fellowship. The one picture I don't have is when Pastor Leif had all the kids lay hands on me and pray for me....It was a photo recored in heaven.
Share night at the church is always a highlight of my visit, Special thanks to Jonathan, Jeff and KathyE for making it a great night.
Dead Eye Dave on the left, and Man handler Mark did a great Job M-SEEM the CC MODESTO CHILI-COOKOFF!! special thanks to Dave for all His computer skills! My hats off to ya dudes!!!Dear friends and family, we now have our photo albums on the net, with our old and new pictures. It will be kept updated and more new pictures will be coming soon. I recommend you to view the pictures as a slide show, this way you will be able to see it all and with the comments. Here is the link http://public.fotki.com/ccsokol/ and I am going to put it on the side bar as well.
I hope you will enjoy meeting people from our church:-).
God bless! Natasha
I received the following message today: 
Another story written by Mira, about the Celebration of three Jewish feasts. It took place on September 29th and I had an opportunity to participate to take some pictures and videos. It was a great blessing, be blessed as you read about it and listen to the beautiful Jewish praise songs. Natasha"The Jewish congregation in Mitino started its services in July, and we openly declared about ourselves when we celebrated Sukkoth, and it was really a great joy for everyone. The Lord filled everyone with His joy abundantly. The idea of a celebration was born in parts. I clearly knew only one thing, that the birth of Jewish congregation in Mitino, a distant district of Moscow, was a great joy!
But let me tell you everything step by step. The idea to speak about three fall holidays was born during the fellowship at church that ministers to the Jewish people, where I was invited to speak in August. And I tuned to the joy in the Lord in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan), where I participated in a campaign. The Lord's ways are marvelous!!! As I dreamed of getting to a church service in
When I came to
to open and closed, to old and young people... I called to a lot of people, as I made more than 400contacts. The Lord literally tied me to the phone. At the same time, I wrote a script for the celebration, and when it was almost done, I even became angry with myself for choosing such a difficult task, because it would have been so much easier if I had chosen to speak only about Sukkoth... I had many things to do and not enough time, but I realized that the Lord was going before me, and it was delightful to follow Him! We received the hall for 80 people almost
for free; an American missionary Mary Chase gave money for meal. Volunteers were also open and promised to help.
Now September 29 came.
I was the first one to arrive at the hall. While I was luxuriating in the sun, the security guard started himself (!) asking me questions about God and ... made a decision! And it was just the beginning! We prepared the hall; we had enough volunteers, and people started
coming. 84 people came! There were 20 believers, a children's group of 4 people, who participated in the concert, and 60 Jewish people! A group of young people from Word of Life Church (which is the base for Zhabotinsky Operation) sang and danced for half an
hour, and I'd like to believe that we will minister with them again. Then our service started. I spoke about the ancient holiday traditions and told people about Messiah Y'shua, and about the salvation that He brought to the world. We sang a lot and danced (our old volunteer Olya Oreshkina came with her dancing group), but the most important thing is that we reflected on God and repentance... And then we prayed and called Y'shua our Savior! When I asked who had prayed, almost everyone in the hall stood up! 12 Jews opened their heart to Jesus for the first time! Wonderful and marvelous Lord, thanks be to You for Your mercy! The holiday service ended with the joyful Sukkoth; we praised the Lord and only lacked place for everyone to dance... Precious Jews were filled with joy and God's peace; they left in peace and thanked for the celebration. People, who had lived almost their whole lives in the Soviet atheism, got to know God's life at the end of their lives. All glory be to You, the Living God of Israel!"
Following is a testimony of Mira Grachiova, who is serving with Jews for Jesus ministry as well as her story about the beginning of new Jewish fellowship in the Northern part of
"The birth of a new Jewish church in
Though the services so far have been conducted in my small room, 7-8 Jewish people praise the Lord in the new church with joy, and the Lord again and again adds new Jews!
How did everything start? When you fly through your life and don't notice days, or months, or even years, it's sometimes helpful to stop and look back in order to see and try to realize how the Lord is working. Only the 7th year of my ministry with JFJ is ending, but the Lord had been preparing me for it for my whole life. He led me the way of Joseph.
My mom passed away when I was 16 years old, and I became child who had lost both parents. Then, after 21 years of good family life, my husband betrayed me. During all that time, both in joy and in sorrow, my God was with me, who didn't know Him! I would tell myself during my difficult, but rich life, "Someone has been protecting me." I was so stupid and my mind was dulled with the Soviet atheism, godlessness that I even didn't think about Who was holding me by the hand and leading through the life's tests. It is such a great happiness to know now the One whose name is Love.
I was an astronomer by profession, and I worked as a programmer, but suddenly, I became enthusiastic about school and kids, and I became a teacher. It wasn't just a school where I taught kids; it was a great God's school where the Lord Himself taught me to love the kids with
the sacrificial love. He taught me not to encroach on the free will of "my kids", but to love them, at the same time remembering about strictness and exactingness, you can't teach them otherwise. He taught me to devote all my heart and all my time to the favorite job. Unbelieving parents would tell me, an unbeliever, "You are a teacher from God!" At the very peak of my career, the Lord showed me very clearly, that one candle burned out, and a new one was lit: I underwent my first and the most difficult JFJ campaign (St. Petersburg), I came out with broadened heart, saying that God was alive and He stood next to me(!) and I ... left my school and my students, and went to serve with JFJ, shocking to many people by that, even my daughters, who decided that their mom's gone crazy.
My earthly school was a wonderful place where the Lord melted my heart, and I have many times recalled with gratitude the training that the Lord conducted with me, who didn't know Him yet. I was carried away, and I carried away my students. I taught them to work with joy and admire the beauty of mathematics. Those very qualities helped me in my work with my adult students. I was in the Lord for just one year and I thought myself as I was teaching them. I was overfilled with the Living God, I "ate" His Living Word, and infected everything around me with His life. People that were looking for life began to gather to me seeing His light! We saw films, listened to sermons on cassettes, but the main thing is that we studied His Word. I don't know when exactly the Bible group was started, but once Galya Barbanel said, "We wanted to start our group, but the Lord started His group," and suddenly everyone saw that "the born baby" was already growing and getting stronger. Thus, our studies gained the status of Bible studies. And then there were years and years of struggle for people: prayers, phone calls, talks.
.... Can I describe this? Those are all my reports for these years, and so many things remained unwritten... We began to celebrate Jewish holiday services and now 60 people gather, but n the beginning it was so difficult to gather even 5-6 people... Before, and sometimes now, I often lose heart because of tiredness and exhaustion, and I think, "I cannot abase myself anymore before these vain people ... But again and again, being prompted by the Holy Spirit, I keep knocking to hearts. My kids grew and began to receive the water baptisms. We faced a serious issue of church where they could be all together. Once, I almost accidentally received addresses of Calvary Chapels in
Later, we began inviting Dean to our holiday services and studies. He became our pastor long before we began to call ourselves a church. My precious students keep growing in the Lord; to tell the truth, they don't grow as fast as I'd like them to; they prepare holiday services with me, make phone calls to people, learn how to receive by giving..., but it's often difficult for me with them, as all of them are 55-80 years old. I pray God for a helper and for a room, as so far all services have been conducted in my tiny apartment, and all the ministry of Martha has been on me. I'm very grateful to Maxim (the branch leader) and Anya (our former administrator) for taking the worship on them. I trust in the Lord and believe that He will be glorified through His work, the Jewish church in
