Torch, Fall-Winter 1998 optimized

(continued from page 5) a changeless truth. But, if all we can convey to our culture is what we are able to achieve on our own, then we are falling short. Don't misunderstand me, I am not a proponent of going back to the Stone Age. What we enjoy in technological advances has the potential to make ministry more effective. But, if we get to the place that we feel that we have seen and done it all, then we fail to communicate to the culture His ability and His power through our lives and ministries. Recently one of our families was forced to leave Vonina, Russia. Vonina is way out on the far east of Russia. In fact, it might help you to understand that if you began a trip from Seattle and moved through New York and changed planes and crossed the Atlantic, changed planes again in Paris and moved on into the western border of Russia and arrived in Moscow, you have passed through ten time zones. Now, if you were to continue your trip from Moscow out to where our people are on the other end of Russia, you would pass through eleven more time zones. It is a gigantic piece of geography, and what is happening to our people out on the eastern seaboard is not necessarily consistent with what is happening to people on the western side of the country. We believe that we have fallen under the scrutiny and the objections of a bureaucratic leader who has said to us from our beginning there more than six years 10 Torch ago that he didn't want us there. We have been told that as our accreditations expire, they will not be renewed. Understand, accreditation is necessary for resident visas. It has been a roller coaster ride, being told one day renewals were possible, then the next they were not. This went on for months. We asked our praying constituency to pray that God would intervene and demonstrate Himself powerful. We asked that they not pray that Baptist Mid-Missions would win this wrestling match, rather that God would demonstrate Himself powerful to intervene and superintend and preserve His work. Folks began to pray. Mr. Nekulnikov went back to Habarosk, and in a couple of days he called and surprised our people by announcing to them that he had changed his mind-he was going to give them their papers. A couple of days later he called and said, "Come get them, the papers are all drawn up." Before they could get to the train station, he called again and said there had been a new rendering of the law that was recently passed regarding religious and state affairs in Russia-don't come. Soon after that, Russian immigration agents began pursuing our people. By the end of the week, our people were in fact forced out of the country. One family is already out and others remain, but their accreditations will expire, too. We are praying that God would intervene in this situation in a way that He would show Himself powerful. It is intriguing how Moses appealed to God in the referenced text. He said in verse 18, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory." Moses had been no small participant in what God had done to demonstrate Himself powerful and glorious. His first 40 years were lived in Pharaoh's household. That was arranged by the intervening, miracle-working power of God whereby a three-month-old baby was rescued from death by Pharaoh's daughter. He lived the next 40 years of his life on the back