The Dean Family

My family, and the missionaries that we are working with, met last week to discuss the Vacation Bible Schools that we will be holding this summer. The theme is Diving for Treasure. The idea is that we will dive into the Word of God and find    our  treasure. I  look  to  have  a great turnout  in  our  village as  we  have  been working with a group of young people here for over a year now.  They are very excited about VBS. As you may recall, we held our first VBS here last year. Now, a year later, the children are still talking about it and are excited for the one this summer. I am really excited about this year’s VBS, because, after working with the young people of Shila for about a year, many of them have really progressed in their understanding of the Bible and salvation. Our goal concerning the VBS is twofold: First: To bring the young people whom we have already been working with to a place of decision. ...

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day. A group of ladies from the city church came out to the village for a visit, and to see the work here. Many of the ladies have not been out here since before the fire. They were quite excited to see the renovations. a lot has changed since the fire. A few of the ladies expressed an interest in coming out here and helping with Vacation Bible School this summer. This is really exciting for me because this is exactly what we need; more church member involvement.  The more that they can get involved the better, not only for their own spiritual growth but also for the growth of the village ministry. Someday, we are moving further north and will be transitioning out of this ministry; which means that the members of the city church need to catch the burden and vision of this ministry and continue the work. Please continue to pray for the work here.

As many of you know, we had a break in shortly after we moved to the village of Shila. We have taken som steps to prevent this in the future. The local officer in the village highly encouraged us to get a guard dog. He said that it is normal for most village homes to have a guard dog on the property,  and that we should get one soon. So we followed his advice and got a Caucasian Mountain Dog. They are not common breed in America, but are popular  in Russia and eastern Europe, and are commonly employed as guard dogs. They are a shepherding breed, that means that they will both protect our family (their flock) and the protect the territory. In addition to this, we also bought a insurance policy that protects against theft and fire.    Adult Caucasian Mountain Dog. Our Dog at 6 Months Old

Since we moved into the village house, we have had a rough go of it. It seems that every week since we have moved, there has been some kind of unusual problem. Here are a few things that have happened: We had some very cold weather, and my car froze up . When we lived in the city, this was not too big of a problem, I would just call a mechanic that I know, and he would come with some equipment and within an hour or less the car would be running. That is no longer an option. It took me about a day and a half to get the car thawed out, but then my battery was too weak. I ended up with three batteries, a jumper box and a whole bunch of jumper cables hooked up to the car. Finally, it started.   Some neighborhood kids were pestering one of our neighbors, who happens to be one of the village grandmothers. I am not sure exactly what happened or who was involved, as we were at the prayer meeting in the city when it happened. However, it sounds like there was some name calli...

We are excited to report that we have moved, and are all settled into the village house.  In our last report we were still in the middle of remodeling the house. All the major work is done now.  The walls in the upstairs are completed, doors are hung, trim is in place, and linoleum laid. The plumbing is finished as well. In the downstairs of the house there is a large open room that serves as a kitchen, home school room, and a place to hold service on Sunday. We also put in a bathroom in the downstairs. In the upstairs, we built two bedrooms and a small family room. I have included some photos of the project. Please continue to pray for us as we work with the people of this village.

We are planning to move from the city to village of Shila. There are several reasons for this, let me mention a few: currently we go to the village on the weekends. Saturday is a time of  visitation, and on Sunday we hold services. As a result, we are seeing progress, but for something to really be established in this village someone needs to live there; someone needs to build friendships with the neighbors, the  shopkeepers and all those  living in the village. If we move to the village we will no longer be “the Americans who come to our village on the weekends”, but “Americans who live in our village”. Another reason for this move is to more fully immerse  myself into the Russian language. To my knowledge, there are no English speakers in Shila, so we would be completely dependent on Russian. We would still be within driving distance to the city, so that if there were a real problem to arise; we would be able to contact someone. I am looking at this as a sort of...

Today's Sunday School picnic went really well. The children had a wonderful time of games, fellowship, and of course food. Please enjoy a few of the snapshots that we took.