Recently, in the Yoshkar-Ola Seventh-day Adventist Church, in Yoshkar-Ola Russia, nine people were baptized. Most of those baptized first attended the “Ecological and Soul Ecology” program run by the Adventist Church’s health food store and café Lentil.

A little more than a year ago, the Health and Education Centers "Keys to Health" and the health food store-cafe "Lentil" opened in Yoshkar-Ola. The organizers and staff are Seventh-day Adventist Christians, who are known all over the world for their commitment to a healthy lifestyle. Counseling about healthy food, lectures on disease prevention, Nordic walking and cooking demonstrations have become popular among visitors to the cafe shop. 

During the year, there were weekly meetings of the Women's Club, “School of Health” and cooking classes, which are free of charge for everyone. “Sharing knowledge about health with people is not just our job, it’s part of our service to society as Christians and our responsibility as Russian citizens,” say the center’s employees.

The daily goal of store and center employees is to display Christianity. A warm smile, a sincere desire to help, a real concern for the needs of people are little things that do not go unnoticed by visitors. “I like to come to you, not only because you say the right things, but you yourself live as you say,” one of the attendees remarked.

Convinced of the usefulness of the health tips they receive, visitors to the store also become interested in spiritual issues. The Source of Life books, which are available to buy, along with  Your Keys to Health , The Hidden Treasure and 7D format newspapers , which are available for free, are made available as resources to visitors.

The program “Ecology of the Soul,” which was conducted by the director of the center Natalia Voronina, attracted more than 60 people, many from different religions. Together they learned to find information on their physical and spiritual health in the Bible.

After the meeting on health,  the church held 3 more meetings for those who wanted to attend. These meetings were held by Pastors Yevgeny Sedov and Sergei Pavlyuk who spoke about baptism, prophecies about the end time, the Coming of Christ and signs of God's Church.

As a result, 7 visitors decided to get baptized and change their lifestyle. Each of the people had a different story-- one saw God's help in getting rid of addictions, another, in solving family and personal problems.  They were joined in baptism by a young woman and a girl who had already been attending church. 

On April 20, a real holiday took place, on which 9 people made a covenant with God.