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Cross-Cultural Workers Helping a New
Congregation
(July 2001)
Our team is growing! God is answering our prayers
for cross-cultural workers to assist us! We are Rock of Israel,
a Messianic ministry reaching out to the Russian Jewish immigrant
community of Philadelphia with the love of Jesus. Our organizing
pastor is Ilya Lizorkin.
The first to join our team are Jonathan and Tracy
Eide. They serve with Mission to the World, an agency of the Presbyterian
Church in America. The Eide's come to us from Nikolaev, Ukraine,
where they helped start a new congregation in the growing Ukrainian
Presbyterian Church.
Jon is a graduate of Biblical Theological Seminary
in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and Tracy is an experienced nurse. They
have two young daughters. After their three years in the former
Soviet Union, the Eide's are now a bilingual Russian-English family.
They have a love for Russian and Ukrainian speakers, and a great
desire to bring the good news of God's plan of salvation to them.
God has obviously prepared them for work in a place
that's even more exotic than Nikolaev, Ukraine - Northeast Philadelphia!
More Russian Jews live here than in any city in Ukraine. This would
have been truly unimaginable one hundred years ago.
Jon and Tracy are looking forward to learning about
all things Jewish. When they begin working with ROI at the end of
this year, they will become Young Adult and Youth Assistants. Jon
will assist with outreach to Russian Jewish gen-Xers, and he'll
help young men grow spiritually in the Lord through discipleship.
Tracy will be helping the children in our congregation, as time
permits in her busy schedule of being a mother and a wife. Pastor
Ilya, Fred Klett, and myself welcome them to the ROI team.
The MAIN goal of the entire Rock of Israel cross-cultural
team is to disciple new Russian Jewish believers so that they grow
in the likeness of Messiah Jesus. We trust that through our efforts,
many new believers will increase in maturity, and become our future
elders, deacons, and ministry leaders. This will help ROI to become
a healthy, reproducing, and self-governing congregation. Our prayer
is that within a few years, our leadership will come mostly from
within rather than from without, so that Rock of Israel can become
an effective part of a worldwide Russian Jewish congregational planting
movement.
Please pray that God would bless the Russian Jewish
people by calling other cross-cultural workers. We have need of
a bilingual evangelist/worship leader, an evangelist/translator,
and part time English speaking disciplers. Also pray that the Eide's
would be able to raise the additional financial support they need
to devote themselves full-time to Russian Jewish ministry.
Standing on the Rock,
Marko Malyj
Pastoral Associate, Rock of Israel
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