[Photo Courtesy of the Euro-Asia Division]
Russia | Alexander Stepanenko

Every New Year’s Eve, the Seventh-day Adventist group of the Crimean community in the city of Krasnoperekopsk gathers together to plan events for the upcoming year. 

This year, in talking about health, the first thing we came up with as the theme of the evening was, “If you can, help! It's good to take care of your health, but how about becoming an active volunteer in this area?” It was this idea that I wanted to sow in the minds of those who came. In order for the idea to become practical, it was decided at this event to open a healthy lifestyle club and declare those present to be its participants, because in fact they are already its members. What remained was only to organize it somehow and distinguish our dear friends from other people of the city. To do this, they came up with the club's emblem and made badges that were put into a gift set.

Next, in order to stir up the people who had been sitting for a while and once again immerse them in the world of the Holy Scriptures, several competitions were held. In addition to fun, there were also Bible tasks; each table was given quotes with Biblical stories and they had to either stage a photo for a given plot, or act out a scene. This way, people in the game came into contact with the Bible and comprehended the essence of its plots.

There are only 11 people in the church group of Krasnoperekopsk, but they want to experience the idea of ​​the Adventist Church, in the global sense of the word. Therefore, several different guests have been invited to several events over the course of the past year. Representatives of the Garden of Eden health food chain, a high-class dentist, an emotional health specialist (psychologist), a masseur - all of them from other communities and cities, have visited here. This shows the geography of the church and its scale. 

During this New Year's Eve meeting, the question arose again: who to call? It was determined that the majority of the speakers so far have focused on the mind and the body; thus, it was decided to invite guests that would nurture the emotional and spiritual.

So, we invited musicians from Yevpatoriya and they came to us. Their level of singing was truly heavenly!

Another family invited for spiritual work was a ministerial couple and their daughter. 

The local pastor has already been heard many times, both in health group classes and at summer camps. As a bonus from him, at his sessions, everyone who was not a member of the local church community received the first lesson from the "Thus the Bible Says" set.

The guests left satisfied and filled with impressions and love shown to them. Participants of the event from other cities left admiring the work that is being done by a small, but well-coordinated, group of believers. 

Thank God for this community and thank you to the speakers who participated! Praise God for the people who attended the events and please pray for their salvation.

This article was originally published on the Euro-Asia Division’s news site.

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