Belarus Update • Demas Lazouta

We are very grateful to you for your prayers and support. We need that as never before. We live in the most challenging time facing both Covid and political crisis. Please, pray God would give us courage and wisdom to bring encouragement to our churches. Many people are depressed, unfortunately. 

Baptism in Light of Truth Church

Last summer Dima baptized several people in our church. One of them (his name is Max) is a member of our small group. He visited our small group for the last two year. When we met him, his marriage was nearly broken, one step from divorce. Today through fellowship in christian community he not only became a follower of Christ, but also a caring husband and a great father of three kids (with one on the way).

The second person, Lena, has read the Bible with Alyona for couple of years. Her husband did not approve her decision to follow Christ, she obeyed him for a long time regarding this issue, but then decide to be baptized anyway. Praise be go God!

Church Camp.

Every year we dream and plan to have a church camp. Praise the Lord it happened this year too! there were 127 people for 7 days! It is practically impossible to leave the country now so many people were looking for an opportunity to have a vacation inside the country. So our camp provided such an opportunity. We focus our teaching on marriage and had lots of great and fun activities. We felt like it was a week in heaven. It was so special to be together 24/7 of the whole week. We believe that tim there helped many to strengthen their marriages, and for single people to feel that they belong to a church family. Some people are attending church services after the camp.

New Church Plant in Baranovichy

Please, pray for Denis and Karina as they are starting new church in Baranovichy. Denis just finished this time with IFES (InterVarsity). We have been trying to plant a church there for 10 years, but were not successful. Please, pray for them. 

Leadership retreat for new churches.

We just had three days retreat for leaders of new churches. We were growing in skills of prayer. It looks like leaders were encouraged a lot. Praise be go God!

Alona’s women retreat. 

Dima's PhD studies.

Please pray for Dema as he started his PhD work at the University of Pretoria (South Africa). He is making research about the role of one of very influential evangelical leader in initiating and developing missional movement at the beginning of 20the century in Russia. He thinks that the result of the research might be very useful for the contemporary evangelical church here, in Belarus as well as in all former Soviet Union countries.

Your prayers are making difference.

We know that you never cease praying for us! We feel supernatural support through that. Let God continue to bless you by His Presence and guidance in all issues that you face today.

Yours, Dema, Alyona, Bogdan and Daniel Lazuta

Belarus Update

I am glad that I can share the latest Belarus news with you. Our people are still protesting. At the same time, there are more repressions from the government. People are put to jail even for alternative news channels subscriptions. People’s phones can be checked anytime. Sometimes policemen call people and make them come to the police station as a witness, but in the end, they arrest them anyway with a fake protocol.
At the same time, it a good time for church to reach young people. We have already provided financial help to four victims of the arrests.
We are happy that our church services have an atmosphere of support and encouragement. In October we had a retreat for active church members. There were 14 people there. This event improved spiritual and emotional state of our church. Here are a few testimonies.

Nadya Severinchik:
The weekend that has been so lacking! It was a great time to socialize well, to relax physically and spiritually, to free oneself from politics, study and, in a sense, people. Get to know each other not as ministers, but as friends. Singing, sitting around the fire, debriefing and just free time helped a lot to recharge for a while ahead. Thank you for this opportunity to go to the retreat with such different people and come so similar)) after all, spending time together brings us together very much!)

Maxim Logvinov:
It was a great time to relax and recover from the tough government news in the circle of loved ones.

Sveta Nenasheva:
Retreat. The place where the soul sang and rose from the ashes, where the body rested and faith was strengthened. Two days, and according to the amount of happiness received, a whole small life. Thank you
Please pray with us for the opportunity to have a winter English camp for the church and our friends who don’t know God. The situation in the country is changing every day which makes it really difficult to plan anything.

Please pray for the repressions to stop. Pray so we could do our best at sharing the gospel in given opportunities and for the winter English camp to take place.

Link for retreat video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GLIX4WfN3_-Ne5qz4uoTIwJ5FK-o7YQv/view?usp=sharing

We love you and praying for you!

Slava

Interview with Slava from Belarus

Slava is a movement leader in Belarus. The country’s population is 9 million people and the country has less than 1% of evangelical churches. Please pray for them to find mature leaders and to grow to be church planters. Pray for the government to grant permission to plant churches.