Return to Estonia

We've just returned from another ministry trip to Estonia. This was the third class of a satellite school StreetCry has planted in Sillimae, Estonia. We are teaching on topics related to hearing the voice of God and prophetic ministry. Over-all, the people in attendance this past weekend, were very encouraged and seemed to receive the ministry and teachings very well. We are seeing dramatic growth in the people who have been regularly attending the classes.

Visiting Estonia is always a breath of fresh air, both literally and figuratively. This trip, Crystal and I took some time to walk around the town and absorb the peaceful atmosphere. Sillimae is situated right on the coast-line of the Gulf of Finland, and inhabited by around 17,000 people. Pace of life if very slow, and the people we've encountered are genuinely kind and hospitable. It's a nice change of pace from life in St. P.

Click here to view more picures from Estonia.

Healing Ministry - Part 2

Since the last post, there have been more developments in the Gosha healing. After the sores in Gosha's mouth were instantly healed he was left utterly flabbergasted by the love and power of God. Needless to say, his faith level received a boost. After the meeting, Gosha was walking home thanking God for what had happened to him, when the idea came to him to call a friend named Olga who was at home sick with a high fever. He thought, "If God can heal me, then he can do the same for her."

After calling Olga and telling her about his healing, Gosha prayed and commanded the sickness to leave her body. As soon as he had finished praying Olga felt something hot start to come over her body. In a matter of minutes the high fever broke, and the sickness that was keeping her in bed left her body! Praise God for chain reaction healings!

The picture above is of Gosha. You can read more about him in StreetCry's November newsletter (www.streetcry.blogspot.com). He was formerly a drug addict and Nazi-skinhead, and now helps oversee a drug-rehab in St. Petersburg. Olga, pictured on the right, is a worship leader at StreetCry, a second year student in the Ministry School, and a devoted mother of two children. Her, and her husband Sasha, are a huge blessing to the ministry here.

Healing Ministry

This past week, we began a healing class at StreetCry for anyone wanting to become involved in healing ministry in the church. We had around twenty-two people sign up, and express interest in receiving the training. Although there has always been some form of healing ministry at StreetCry we are trying to provide more structure and training to it so more people get a chance to become involved.

After each church service two ministry teams are set up to pray for and minister healing to people who come forward. A number of healings have occurred as a result of these ministry times. Just last night, a man named Gosha came forward with sores and swolleness on his tongue. After a team finished prayed for him he suddenly ran off not telling us where he was going. We found out that apparently he had gone to the bathroom to look in the mirror to see if he had been healed. After checking, he came running back into the sanctuary exclaiming, 'I've been healed! I've been healed!". It was quite a scene.

We hope to grow in understanding and authority in this ministry and see many more people healed. Our long term goal is to train and mobilize teams to be sent out from the church to minister at drug rehabs, hospitals, and on the streets. There is a huge need here for healing and deliverance, as HIV, Hepatitis, and other diseases affect many people. Please pray that God would give us wisdom and understanding as we help to develop this ministry.

StreetCry Office

In addition to teaching in the ministry school, Crystal and I are putting in a good number of hours in at the StreetCry office. Most people would be surprised at how much administrative work is involved in keeping a small ministry like StreetCry running. Although small, StreetCry is quite diverse in that it offers a ministry school, church, audio/video recording, drug-addict consulting, and evangelism outreach. It's enough to keep an army of about 7 people busy throughout each week.

In the office, Crystal currently works on donation receipts, prayer updates and foreign visitor correspondence. Chris keeps busy with 'English Communications', which means taking care of StreetCry's website and monthly newsletter.

From our apartment, the office is about a one hour commute by metro. We usually make the trip three times every-week. We try and do as much work from our apartment as possible as it minimizes travel time and helps us make the most of our day.

The picture on the left is of a guy we really wanted to tell everyone about. His name is Sergei Tovstopat. He does an incredible amount of work at StreetCry, including Audio/Video production, drug-addict consulting, tech-support, and ministry to the homeless. Before becoming a Christian, Sergei served in the Russian military, was a drug-addict and was involved in organized crime. Unfortunately, as a result of his previous lifestyle he is HIV positive. He now works full time for the ministry and is one of the most devoted Christians we know. Please pray for Sergei as he helps advance the work here in Russia.

Meet the Students

We thought it was about time we introduced to you the School of Ministry students we have the honor of teaching every week. There are about 30 students in the class, each of whom have incredible testimonies of how they met Jesus. Some of their backgrounds include drug use, physical and sexual abuse, promiscuity, and violence as the norm. There are two male students, who prior to salvation, were drug-addicts involved in a neo-Nazi skin head gang. They are the only two members out of 15 who are still alive!



These details are easy to forget since you see no evidence of it in their lives today. When you look into their eyes all you see is light and love. It is living proof of the miraculous power of Jesus to transform a soul. There are times when we listen to testimonies and almost refuse to believe them because of how drastic the changes are.


The times we spend in prayer and worship with the students are our favorite. The passion and sincerity they express in these times would reduce the strongest man to tears. It has challenged us in our own pursuit of God's presence. When looking out over the class you see some weeping in intercession, others dancing and shouting praise, and others with their hands lifted in surrender. The intensity of the Lord's presence during these times is on a level we've not experienced before. We know that it's God responding to the purity and sincerity of worship coming out of their hearts.

Please keep these students in your prayers as we believe they are the leaders God is raising up in Russia to bring in the coming harvest. Our hope is that each of them is equipped in the school and then sent out to be in full-time ministry. We consider it an honor to be a part their lives.

Ministry in Estonia

This past weekend I (Chris) had the opportunity of visiting the small country of Estonia to teach on prophetic ministry and hearing the voice of God. The town we visited is a 4 1/2 hour bus ride from St.P and is called Silamie. Estonia's population is around 1.2 million and formerly was a part of the Soviet Union.

Although influence from the days of communism can still be seen, the feeling of Estonia is much different than Russia. Immediately when you cross the border you notice neatly manicured parks and boulivards, smooth newly paved roads with signs and painted lines, and newer buildings. The people of Estonia are also generally happier and friendlier than in Russia.

The team doing the ministry was made up of myself and John and Sara Russell (Directors of StreetCry). StreetCry is starting a school of prophecy in Estonia and will be doing a full day of teaching every four weeks for the next seven months. Upon leaving St.P we were told only fifteen people had signed up for the school, but when we arrived in Silamie we found out that almost fifty people were registered!

The crowd was made up mostly of people in their mid-late twenties. There was also a number of pastors in attendence who were new to prophetic minsitry and wanting training so they could bring it back to their congregations (very exciting!). We were very encouraged by the spiritual hunger and eagerness we felt in the people we met.

We found out that some people had come because they thought a prophet was coming to give personal words to everybody. To their surprise they realized we were there to train them how to minister to each other.

The ministry was very well recieved and a number of people gave a prophetic word for the first time. We were also able to minister to a number of people personally while there. Overall people left more confident in hearing God's voice and with an understanding of how they can minister prophetically to other people. We hope to hear some exciting testimonies next time we visit.

Click Here to see a picture me and Sara speaking

Just an update.....

The last week and a half have been refreshingly busy. We've been starting work and it's been going really well.

Here's just a few things of what we're busy with:

Crystal - thank-you letters/receipts for StreetCry support, inviting ministries to come to StreetCry to minister, prayer newsletter, other admin stuff, speaking/teaching, and school of the spirit.
Chris - website project, monthly newsletter, bringing Skateboard ministry to St.P. for visit, speaking/teaching, and school of the spirit.
We've been going into the office most days, although it's an hour-long commute so we try to work at home when possible.

Crystal's cooked a few times and it's been good. We're still getting used to the different foods here. There's lots of food but we can't always read the labels and sometimes even when we can, we're not sure what we'd do with it!

This next weekend, Chris and maybe Crystal will be going to Estonia. It's a country kind of south-west from where we are in Russia. It's former USSR but apparently much nicer than here. It's about a 3-hour train ride and Chris will be speaking at a pastor's conference with John. Crystal's just going along for the ride this time, but we'll probably be going back in a few months and then Crystal will be speaking as well.

We spoke for the first time at the Bible school this past Friday and it went really well. The students seemed very attentive and they absorb everything we say. We had a great time just worshipping the Lord to start with. They're amazing people and have even more amazing testimonies.

Yesterday, we went to the Russian museum which is in a huge palace. There were over 400,000 pieces and it was a beautiful building. Walking up to it, it's so grand and beautiful. The art was incredible as well. They just have Russian artists and there's pieces from the 13th to 21st century. We spent about 4 hours there and of course, didn't do it justice.
Here's a picture of the outside of it. There's one room they have set up which still has it's original furniture. It's the great hall, where guests would've arrived and it was breathtaking.

So that's the update for right now. We'll let you all know how this weekend goes. Keep praying for us and bless you all!

Extreme Makeover: Russia Edition

Well, we finally made the big trip to Ikea and bought several things for our home. It feels more like a home now that we've put some personal touches into things. And the money we had budgeted for housewares and furniture went farther than we could've possibly imagined! Definitely the Lord's blessing. There are still a few things more we'd like to get yet but they're not priority and we'll buy them as we need.

Here are some pictures of the place so far.
This is our living room. The massive wooden cabinets come with the place. They're a bit of an eyesore but great for storage.
This is the kitchen. We bought the green chairs and they make me very happy.
This is the bedroom. We haven't really gotten anything for it (except for the nighttables which are hillarious). We need to get a lamp or two and maybe a new bed covering.
Last, but certainly not least, is the bathroom. It's actually two separate rooms, I hope you can see that from the picture.

Well, that concludes the tour of the Loewen's "pad". If you want more details, you're just gonna have come over and see for yourself!

Grocery Shopping

Today we went for our big grocery shopping trip to stock up our apartment. We went to this store, it's called Karousel. It opened about 2 weeks ago and it's basically like a superstore - it has everything from housewares to groceries. The trip was successful and we got lots of yummy food...and some not so yummy food. We haven't tried everything yet, though. But we got some AMAZING feta cheese (way better than anything I've ever had in North America) and we got some pretty stinky Norwegian cheese which goes great with our very mushy sausage (okay, not really). Meats and produce can be a little sketchy - you have to choose wisely. But the bread section is great and we got this loaf that had little pieces of ham in it and was very buttery. We decided, though, next time we're going to "Okay" (it's spelled different in Russian). It's another grocery store and it's a little more Western Europe and a little less Russian (basically the difference is that their shelves remain stocked:)

We brought along one of our hiking backpacks so we loaded that puppy up and walked the 20 minute walk with the pack, and three other grocery bags (along with a mop). It's fun now but we'll see how much fun this walk will be at 20 below zero.

To Russia With Love

The voyage to Russia from beginning to end was the smoothest we've ever experienced, and praise God our luggage was waiting in St.Petes for us when we arrived. The weather here has been fabulous, so far dispelling every stereotype we had. Today Crystal and I made use of the sunny weather and did some sight seeing. Using the metro we can commute uptown in 30 - 45 minutes. We took in some of the shopping "malls" (built in the 1700's!) and also took a look at the Church on the Spilled Blood which is about the most Russian looking building you can find. We are going to do a lot more exploring around the city and sight seeing as the year goes on. It should make for some pretty interesting "date nights". Tonight we are joining John and Roma and going to a rock concert at a local night club. The show is being put on by the Calvary chapel (remember the Jesus People). We're attending to observe and maybe get some new ideas for evangelism. Enjoy the pictures!

Bags Are Packed!

Well, it's the night before we embark on the long awaited journey we've been planning and talking about for almost two years. Today has been an emotional crazy train with more than enough tear-filled good-byes to last a lifetime.

This pile of bags contains the 250 lbs. of earthly possessions we are taking with us from Canada to the Motherland. It's not a lot, but enough to start a new life in a new land.

Only one thing to say at this point, and that is "God is faithful". Our eyes are set forward as our hearts anticipate what outrageous miracles He's going to throw at us next.

Also, thank you to everyone who has given financially and helped us realize this dream. Expect to hear testimonies of how God has used your gift to do some incredible things in Russia.

August Update

As summer has progressed, our lives seem to be building momentum for the autumn when we start the next chapter of our lives and move to Russia. With every moment, more details are falling into place, and our excitement is growing rapidly.

Our departure date is scheduled for September 18th. We will arrive in Russia on September 19th and this will give us about 10 days to get settled in before the autumn semester of Bible School begins. A friend at StreetCry Ministries is currently looking for a place for us to live, and we are hoping and praying we will be able to move right into our apartment when we arrive.

Once we are settled in, we will begin our ministry immediately. Crystal's primary ministry focus will be administration as she helps with various tasks in the ministry office. She is also hoping to teach English, either through the ministry or with another organization there. Chris' focus will be mentoring new Believers and teaching at the Bible School. We both will be involved with prayer and organizing the various evangelistic outreaches throughout the year. Part of our ongoing training will be learning Russian, and we plan on either getting a private tutor through the ministry or attending Russian classes.

If you think of us in your prayer time, here are some of our current needs:
- An outpouring of God's Spirit for the ability to do His work in the Kingdom
- Financial Support
- Grace for our visas to be approved and given to us speedily
- Protection, health, and safety during traveling and beyond
- A supernatural ability to learn and understand the Russian language and culture
- Strength for our marriage

Please feel free to contact us by email or through this blog! Much love to all!