One United Eurasia!

From Minsk, Belarus in the West, to Vladivostok in the Far East, from across 9782 kilometers or 6078 miles, leaders of our Eurasian churches gathered last week at a retreat center in the south of Moscow. It was the first time in five years that all the Eurasian churches' leaders -- full time and non-full-time ministers -- met together in one place, representing roughly 3800 disciples in 32 cities and 11 countries.

At this gathering, the encouraging decision was made to shift from functioning as three separate families of churches in Eurasia (the St. Petersburg church family, the Moscow church family, and Siberia and Far East church family) to functioning as one united Eurasia, in order to share resources and best practices more effectively, and to more effectively meet the needs of the small churches spread across this massive territory.

All of these churches can trace their spiritual history back to God's powerful response to the bold, specific prayer of thousands of disciples on their knees at the August 1989 World Missions conference in Boston, Massachusetts, for the Iron Curtain to fall; and to the subsequent fall of the Berlin Wall just two months later, which opened the way for plans to be laid for the historic Moscow church planting in 1991. Sustained by the prayers of the saints around the world (whose attention was focused on Moscow at that time, thanks to the political coup which ushered in the end of 70 years of communism and broke apart the USSR right after the mission team arrived) that team of 17 people -- mostly 18- to 25-year-olds -- gave rise not only to the current 29 churches in Eurasia, but also to another 14 churches and 2730 members in the nations of Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. So, starting from those 17 disciples in Moscow in 1991, thanks in great part to your prayers and support -- there are now 6530 faithful disciples, not to mention the hundreds who have already finished their earthly race and passed on in the last 27 years. "All you have made will praise you, O Lord; your saints will extol you. They will tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that all men may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations." Psalm 145:10-13