As it is customary in many countries, some people move from their native regions to warmer places. So it is in Russia: those who are tired of living in our cold frozen Siberia, they move to live closer to Black Sea, to Sochi area or to Krasnodar region.
Many of our parishioners from different Siberian towns moved in there. But we do not have a parish there, and we do not still know what to do.
Of course, the Church is aware of the responsibility for her children. But to begin a parish so far from Siberia is a very difficult and expensive task for our small and poor Church. Therefore, we pray for those who have moved and hope that we can somehow serve them.
However just these days Fr.Vitali Gavrilov of the parish of Transfiguration (in Tuim, Khakassia) has reached those places, he visits our parishioners, listens to them, hears their confession and gives them Holy Communion.
His eldest son lives there with his family. And on August 4, Fr.Vitali (it was also his birthday) baptized his granddaughter (she was born on June 4 and was waiting for the priest to come for baptism for exactly two months). One more Christian now, so rejoice with us!
Fr. Vitali said:
How fleeting is our earthly life, its values are ephemeral, its dreams are ghostly. But among all our worries and interweaving, there are moments that change us forever. We give birth to children, and this makes us completely different. We learn to love, we acquire a sense of responsibility for the lives of our kids, and this becomes the work of our whole life, and sometimes (when we do not have money for food, or when the children are sick) it becomes a real “heavy burden.”
We live, passing from one stage to another. We are kids, we are teenagers, we are young men, we are adults, and we are parents. And our worries only increase, and not about ourselves and not about our well-being. And the time reminds us of old age, when we are called as “grandparents.” So unfamiliar experiences appeared in my heart. And this is a new part of my life. I seem to be the same, but I just have been changed, because I began to be called “grandpa.”
The “pandemic” seems to be over, good people collected money for my travel, and on August 4 in Tuapse (Krasnodar region) priest Vitali Gavrilov baptized Barbara Gavrilova. It is replenishment in the Kingdom of God!
And then I go and serve our parishioners. Please pray, my beloved Christian Brothers and Sisters, for those who are saved, but pray even more for those who are still outside the Church!
Please pray for the ministry of Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, and for safe travels of her priests.
“Faith and hope”
