Ministry update: "Messiah's Family" project and other news
The Negev
It’s been 15 years already since we started our first Bible study groups in the Negev. We worked among Russian-speaking Israelis, who were very open to the Gospel in those days, and in a short period of time small congregations were planted in 5 Negev towns (where no churches had existed previously). The groups started to grow, but did not become independent churches as we hoped they would – for different reasons, including lack of trained, mature leaders. We did have several potential leaders (even potential pastors), but one of them died of a major heart attack, and two followed their own doctrines and caused splits in our church.
Recently, however, God has given us an opportunity to work with a young Russian-speaking pastor who is a mature, well educated, energetic and gifted leader. Together we developed a work plan for the next 10 years and called this project “Messiah’s Family.” Our goal is to see at least 7 fully developed churches in the Negev – on the basis of our existing Bible study groups and hopefully some new ones. We plan to accomplish this goal by developing the groups, leading discipleship programs, seeking for potential leaders and training them. Please pray for this project and for all the co-workers involved. We are grateful to the Lord that besides the Russian pastor, a Hebrew speaking leader of a European background has recently joined our ministry. He is a mature, talented and dedicated man of God. We trust and pray that his ministry would bring much good fruit and that the language barrier would not be a problem (regretfully, very few people in our congregation know any language other than Russian…).
Tel-Aviv Outreach
We praise God for the possibility to resume our table evangelism on the streets of south Tel-Aviv. It is taking place on Wednesdays. We found a new location where many drug addicts hang out and we go there to set our table with Bibles, Christian literature and some food. We do that before our Wednesday evening Bible study, and therefore can not only talk to the addicts but also invite them to come to the Bible study right away! We have many good conversations. Please pray for this ministry. (By the way, our main co-worker in this area – Maxim – is getting married in the end of July, so please pray for him too!)
Sadly, we had to stop our Bible studies for prostitutes, since their brothel’s owner suddenly cut off all relationship with us – and we don’t really know why… Please pray for these women and for an opportunity to resume the Bible studies.
Thank you all for your support and prayers!
May God keep you and bless you,
Dov and Olga Bikas
