To our dear brothers and sisters in Christ at Son Light. Hello again from Ray, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Dara, and little Ray in Tambov, Russia.

THE VISION

To bring Russians to knowledge, faith, and maturity in Jesus Christ, so that they can bear lasting fruit unto God, and thus glorify Him forever. We’ve found this is most effectively accomplished here by planting Bible-teaching churches, of which has been our calling for over 8 years.

REGULAR EVENTS

Ray is currently teaching through the book of Romans on Sundays, and the book of 1st Samuel on Wednesday evenings. It’s a joy to see the church members’ big appetite for God’s Word as we begin each study as well as the great growth in their faith.

Every Friday evening, we have a Bible study in our over-filled living room on topical and practical issues. We just finished a 5-week series on Christian man-woman relationships. We set a box up at church and let people put their questions in it and then planned a Bible study to answer those questions, such as: “What is true love?”, “What if you’re in love with a non-Christian?”, “What if you love someone and they don’t love you?” (and vise-versa), “What if you’re in love with a married person?”, “What is the ideal man or the ideal woman and how will you recognize God’s chosen mate for you?” These and other questions came in for five weeks and we found that the Bible had an answer for them that the mostly single people in our church very much needed to hear.

On Monday nights, we have an English class at church using a Bible story in English as our text. This turns out to be like a whole other church for us to lead in a sense as a group of about 40 people come of whom almost all don’t regularly attend the other church services. But they get a Bible study each week in English. Many from the English class have later become church members.

RECENT SPECIAL EVENTS

In October, a small Calvary Chapel Church Planting Mission team of Americans visited us for 2 days. They included 5 firemen from “Firefighters for Christ”. They visited the Tambov Fire Department here and shared the love of Christ with them. The Russian firemen were delighted to meet their American counterparts and they spent two days together getting to know each other and sharing fire-fighting experiences..

In the evening, the American firefighters came to church in their dress uniforms and told about themselves. One fireman gave another fireman friend’s graphic eyewitness account of what happened at the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 and how he himself barely survived. The Russians were greatly touched by the story.

Ocober 10, 2002....The visiting American firemen and our son Dara

Along with the firemen was a professional artist of modern impressionism who painted lovely bright and textured scenes of tropical seashores and still life.

October 10, 2002....professional artist Steve Barton paints as church members watch

I think what was so beneficial by the visit of this particular group of Americans was the Russians saw strong men in skilled professions who also followed Christ.

Not long after the visit of the firemen and artist, we had a baptism at an indoor pool. Six young women were baptized who had been coming to church since the summer. They told at their baptism how they had come to believe in Christ and how their lives had changed.

Here is a testimony of one of them named Masha:

“Once my friend invited me to an evangelistic event. It was there I met Alexei (one of our members who is currently studying at the CC Bible College in Moscow). He started telling me about God. I was amazed at God’s love. I read the New Testament to learn more. I became filled with love for people and prayed with Alexei to receive Jesus. I started to come to church and my eyes were opened. I saw all that Jesus did for me. Now I’m a believer and I’m glad I’m here.”

Here is another from Anastasia:

“Someone invited me to the English class. I studied English then went to the other Bible studies. I started to go regularly. I always believed in God but Ella (another current Moscow Bible College student) started telling me how God had changed people and how they gave up smoking and other bad habits. Before, I used to often get in arguments with people but God is changing me. Now when something bad happens, I know I’ll get the answer later because everything is in God’s hands now.”

After the baptism we returned to church to hear a sermon and have a burrito lunch. The Russians love burritos. Together, we made almost a hundred of them to feed everyone. While we ate, the drama group performed a series of Christian skits.

October 27, 2002.....water baptism at a local swimming pool

FUTURE SPECIAL EVENTS

We plan to have a big Thanksgiving celebration at the church on Sunday, November 24th. We’ll prepare several turkeys to eat and we’ll invite unbelievers. Ray will teach about the American thanksgiving story and our great gratitude for our Creator and Redeemer. Then we’ll eat, perform skits, and play games. It should be a lot of fun like last year

FAMILY

Our growing family is well. 8-year old Elizabeth is in 2nd grade at a local Russian elementary school as well as in 4th grade now in English homeschool. 5-year old Dara is in Russian kindergarten. 3-year old Ray stays home and loves to learn too.

Rebecca is now 4 months along with our 4th child. She will give birth in California in early April. We look forward to visiting all our friends in California and Oregon at that time.

Currans....October 2002

We consider it a great privilege that the Lord has graciously called us to serve Him here in this country at this time. We want most of all to be found faithful to that calling. We sincerely thank you for your prayers and generous support that enables us to be here. May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

With love,
Ray & Rebecca Curran
11/14/02

Russian home address:
392000, Russia
Tambov
Proletarskaya St.,189
apt. 29
Raymond Curran

phone/fax: 0117-0752-71-90-83

e-mail: rcurran@mail.ru or rcurran@pub.tmb.ru