Prayer Letter: March 2018

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated. We hope that you all are well and serving our Lord Jesus Christ. We’re thankful for His salvation, and the fact that He is the resurrection and the life. It never gets old to tell people that Jesus Christ saves, and our prayer is that people here would receive that free gift of eternal life. Many people will be visiting the Orthodox churches for Easter Mass, preparing meals, and having a Saturday midnight service. They will do all this, but not accept Jesus Christ in simple faith for salvation. One man on the street, a devout Orthodox, told me that it was prideful to have assurance in salvation and place all our faith in the written Scripture. He said this in spite of 1 John 5:13 that I quoted. The Russian Orthodox members claim to be the keepers of the “true faith”, yet they are not led of the same Holy Spirit that wrote Psalm 138:2. We continue to plow away in the hope that souls would be saved and break free from tradition and religion into new birth in Jesus Christ.

I read a book that a brother in America sent us called “Russian Bible Wars.” It was written by a university professor in a scholarly way, with no apparent leanings toward any particular Bible translation. He documented sources which show how the Russian Synodal Bible was a hybrid text, translated with a combination of readings from the Masoretic text, and from the Greek Septuagint. There are hundreds of places in the Synodal which incorrectly agree with the modern English Bible versions, and some readings with no apparent textual authority. These places have been corrected in the Russian translation of the King James, so many Russian speakers are becoming aware of this lately. We’ve heard from a few men in the penitentiary, serving life sentences. We were able to send them Bibles, tracts, and literature, and they said that they have an active group there, holding Bible studies and soaking in the information. Pray for these men, that others would be saved and that these brethren would grow in the Lord. Aside from those in prison, others have ordered Bibles from Poland, Russia, and Latvia recently, in addition to our usual shipments around Ukraine.

Please pray for our evangelistic efforts before Easter this year. Ukrainians observe Orthodox Easter, which is on April 8th. We’ve been active passing out tracts and invitations to invite people to the service, and offer them free New Testaments if they visit. We are planning to have a meal, and hope that it will be a blessing to our people, and that visitors would show up. Three people on the street expressed interest in coming by, with one man even asking us first if we had any Bibles available, before we said we will give them for free.

Thank you for continuing in your prayers, friendship, and fellowship.

Until His return, David and Naomi Lohman