Greetings to our Chita Coalition,

The following is an email from Pastor Leroy Welch, our Fall semester teacher in Chita.  He taught the men in Chita the Book of Romans during the first week of September.

Be praying for Pastor Wayne Wilson, our Winter semester teacher.  Wayne is scheduled to teach Expository Preaching II during the first week of December.  Chita has notified us that twenty seven students will be in attendance.

Enjoy Leroy's report, John

John,

My trip to Chita was a never to be forgotten experience.  After 32 hours of travel we arrived in Chita at 7:30 AM on Saturday, August 29.  We looked around for about 10 minutes for someone looking back at us and finally, Sergei walked past us smiling and we said "hello" to him and he responded by saying "Hello - there you are."  He was such a joy to get to know.

We stayed in an apartment while in Chita, and we were very pleased with our accommodations.  The worship service on Sunday morning was very enjoyable.  It lasted for 2 and a half hours with lots of singing, a skit, a baby dedication, a repentance of a lost person, a short sermon from me and a longer one from Volodia.  Everyone was very friendly and stayed to speak with us. The church was packed with people standing in the hallways.  Most of the crowd were under 40 years of age.

There were 22 men in the group that I taught.  Greeting time was so much fun as they joked with each other about things I knew nothing about.  Olga was great as a translater.  When I met her she immediately asked for a copy of my teaching notes and she studied them as much as I did so she could accurately translate my thoughts.  The men were very intelligent and asked great questions over the five days of teaching.  I never really felt that I lost their attention, which is really hard to understand.  It wasn't that my teaching was that good, but their spiritual interest was so amazing to me.

I discovered that there are some differences between the Russian Bible and our English Bible.  I would make some comments about some words in the text and Olga would say, "It's not in their bible."  An example of this is in Galatians 5 regarding the conflict between the lust and the Spirit.  The Russian Bible has a small "s" for spirit and when they realized that the English bible had a "S" (capital) it was an "Ahah" moment.

One of the biggest discussions was regarding the weak and strong believer in Romans 14 .  I was shocked to find that they identified with the weak believer and preferred that position over the strong.  It was a very good discussion and it led to an even greater discussion about women wearing a covering on their heads in worship services.

A group of men from my church (Wayside Chapel) send gifts to the students and some of send messages back to our men.  I took peanut butter crackers to the men for break time and they loved those as well.

I really became attached to many of the men and I feel that there is such potential in them.  They have a hunger to know the word and a passion to serve the Lord that was refreshing to me.

We were invited to four homes in the evenings after class time.  That was a real treat.  One of our invitations was to a student's home in a small village about 25 miles from Chita.  With meager means a wonderful meal was provided for us, all coming from their garden, and the fellowship time was great.  Misha (Michael) and his wife Leana, are supported by a German Missionary organization as evangelists.  I was very impressed with him.

Work on the church was being done every day that we were there.  I would say that at least 5 or 6 men were working every day on the entrance and in the area behind the entrance.  A lot of progress was made while we were there.  They mentioned to me that they were able to do the work because of gifts from the coalition in America.  Your money is going to good use.

Thank you for allowing me to go and teach.  I enjoyed it tremendously and would do it all over again.

Gratefully,

Leroy Welch