Glory to Christ, my beloved brother!

1. IMMERSIONS. There are very many men in Krasnodar, who took part in different kinds of wars in the Balkans in 1990 – 2005. Most part of them participated there quite illegally, violating the UN decisions and international treaties, etc. Now these people are rejected by the official Russia authorities (though namely those authorities secretly sent them to fight) and even by the icon-worshipping church (though the fighters thought, they were struggling for the orthodoxy)! These numerous outcasts have created their own “Balkan Brotherhood”. I discovered this unofficial network in January. In February I immersed two members of the Balkan Brotherhood, thus making them the members of our Brotherhood of Lord’s Friends. Even in comparison with the prisoners, whom I have immersed, these men of war were the terrible sinners. And now Christ has “made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15).

2. PRISONS. The DOM ARM ministers had 6 visits to prison and prison camps this month.

On 16.02.2010 a portentous event took place: I was officially invited to speak at the conference of the public prison inspectors’ commission (entrusted by the Public Chamber of Russian Federation) for Krasnodar Territory. The event took place in the office of the Chief Directorate of Prisons for Krasnodar Territory (Krasnodar, Gorky street, 76; 14-00 – 17-00). There were 16 public inspectors; the Territory ombudsman; the police chief of the detention cells system, the representative of the Territory prosecutor, the first deputy chief of the Territory Prisons Directorate at the conference. I was the only Christian minister and the only former prisoner there. In ten years after my imprisonment I was in the dragons den, and they listened to my speech, full of the Bible rhetoric. Even more, I received the official letter of thanks, signed by Irina Dubovitskaya – the secretary of the named public inspectors’ commission. Faithful is God: “the dragon shalt thou trample under feet” (Ps., 91:13)!

3. MOSLEMS. On 09.02,2010 I made the main report at the big conference on the Evangelization of the North Caucasus. My report included the area from Taman (on the border of Crimea) to Daghestan (on the Caspian Sea bank) and the time period from the Pontus kingdom (first century BC) till the present day.

On 20.02.2010 the Adyg (Circassian) emigrants in Vancouver had a demonstration to protest against the holding of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi (Russia, Krasnodar Territory), because millions of victims had been killed by the imperial troops during the Caucasian war of Russia in 19-th century AD. The true picture of the Caucasian war horrors was given in our book “The Land of Adygs” (1-st ed. – 1996; 2-nd ed. – 2004; presented in the USA Congress Library). Thus, a massive attack against this our book took place in mass-media (especially in the internet). Even more, the State Duma of Russian Federation (the lower chamber of the Parliament) has issued a special statement, that no genocide of the Adygs and other Caucasian natives had taken place in the 19-th century AD.

4. MISSION  TRIPS. The DOM ARM ministers have established the contact between the community, supporting R. Aushev (the former president of the North Caucasian republic Ingushetia, which is situated between Chechnya and Ossetia), and Ali-bey Hamzin (the Qirimtatar National Mejlis foreign affairs department chief).

5. MEDITATIONS. On 11.02.2010 I and my wife Nina celebrated the 27-th anniversary of our marriage. The chaplaincy had a special praying meeting in this connection. We read the Holy Scripture: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Gen., 2:18); “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt., 19:6). Indeed, all the work of the Directorate of the Mission of the American Rehabilitation Ministry in Russia (DOM ARM) is our mutual responsibility.

6. DIVINE  ACTION. Moscow idolatric patriarch Cyrillus (Kirill) had a special service in his main temple to ensure the victory of the Russian national team at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. He prayed to the icons; he gave a special “icon from the patriarch” to every national team member; a special priest was appointed by him to go to Vancouver with the team and to organize there the special icon-worshipping shrine; the “miracle-doing” icon was taken to Canada to help the Russian team. The God Almighty has replied at once: the Russian team has not appeared even among the top ten teams! These games result is the worst for all the history for Russia. The icons are the flat wooden idols. “What say I then? That the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God” (1 Cor., 10:19-20). And “the devil … speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John., 8:44). The devil through Cyrillus has deceived the Russian team. And the manifestation of this fact is the Divine Action, indeed!

7. YOUTH  MINISTRY. The “NIKA” youth ministry of Krasnodar, led by our daughter Nike, was invited to take part in the all-Russia youth Christian conference in Ramenskoe (Moscow area) on 01 – 08.02.2010. The conference was organized by the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) (which left Krasnodar; no its’ minister or missionary is now in our city; Nike’s ministry is an independent one; CCC has invited her, because they had some mutual projects in the previous years). There were about 200 participants at the conference. The biggest delegation (20 persons) was from the South Korea. The 2-nd by the quantity of the participants delegation (15 persons) was the one of the Nike’s ministry from Krasnodar. The CCC Moscow, Petersburg and other cities branches brought the groups, consisting of 3 or 5 persons.

8. PUBLIC  RELATIONS. On 20.02.2010 I was invited to take part in the public meeting and demonstration of about 400 ecologists in Krasnodar. I was the only Christian minister to be there and to pray.

On 26.02.2010 the candidate, running for the office of the Krasnodar city mayor (the elections will take place on 14.03.2010), Zakharychev, asked me to accept him. I gave my agreement and we had a long talk.

One of the closest contacts of DOM ARM – Theol. Dr. h.c. S.V. Ryabchikov – has published a big scientific article, in which he gives the new translation from Latin of the so called “the correspondence between St. Apostle Paul and Roman philosopher Seneca”. He also comments and analyzes the significance of this literature and history monument. The publication was impossible in Russia, because of the icon-worshippers resistance. Thus, the article has been published in one of the Ukraine journals.

9. REPRESSIONS. One of our chaplaincy members was publicly threatened to be murdered by the group of icon-worshippers.

Numerous letters and articles appeared in the internet, accusing me to be “a sectarian” and attacking my publications (especially – “The Land of Adygs”).

On 16.02.2010 the unknown persons tried to set fire to our house. We managed to stop them. We called to the official firemen rescue team. They came, but rejected to write down a protocol and to investigate the case.

10. SUPPORT. We received the January ARM support through Max Goins “We – Go” system OK. We received also the letters, e-mails and phone calls of support from pastor Dr. G. Leiser (Germany), Rod Farthing, Max Goins, N.G. Plutenko (USA); A. Novosyolov (Switzerland); E. Novozhilov (Poland); E. Filipieva, A. Hamzin (Crimea, Ukraine), S. Shapiro (Ukraine).

We received the new issue of the German-language journal “Glaube in der 2. Welt” (G2W; in Engl.: “Faith in the 2-nd World”; published in Zurich, Switzerland) – pastor Dr. G. Leiser has donated a subscription for us for 2010.

We spread among the prisoners of the Krasnodar prisons 80 items of clothes, donated by the local brethren.

Our chaplaincy members not once served to the Lord, transporting our ministers with their private cars.

In Jesus our hope!

Dr. Nicholas E. Alyoshin