You’ve GOT to go! was all my wife had to say to the news that my brothers wanted to organize a surprise 80th birthday party for my daddy. In my typical fashion I started analyzing the options, the costs, the benefits and what I could dovetail on such a huge trip. I’d never left my…

As if it were not enough to have had an intensive month of preparation for our counseling seminar last month, my team has a voracious apetite for growth, so we went on a retreat this month. The opportunity came up because my teammate in our mission CRM, Bill O’Byrne is preparing to leave for a…

I have written elsewhere about the wonderful impact and incredible push forward for our ministry that we experienced last month through the conference we hosted here. Another side of the blessing from this was the fact that we as a team, and my family in particular, got to host a great man of God (and…

This article from the local English newspaper is worth reproducing. International Adoption: The American Dream? | The St. Petersburg Times | The leading English-language newspaper in St. Petersburg

The following was written by a pastor with whom I have some association here in Russia. by Andrei Furmanov Daily life in a city for the majority of Russian men and women is very much the same. One gets up at 7- or 8 a.m. depending on his or her company business hours. A simple…

Here are some of the highlights from out conference and training on Theophostic  ministry in May here in Russia: Our public event, meant to introduce the broader Christian community to the ministry of Theophostic prayer, went better than I had expected. Nearly 200 people from all kinds of churches attended. About 6 other cities were…

As I have reported through this school year, wonderful things are happening in our counseling training groups. People are getting set free from major and minor life issues, relationships are being healed, and even diseases are being healed. To say that my students are enthusiastic about what they are experiencing and about the possibility of…

The following is the text of a sermon I recently delivered while on a brief visit to the US. It concerns the orphan spirit that I suggested is not only responsible for the tremendous problem of orphans in Russian, but goes throughout society as a whole. Moreover, I suggested that it is a deep and…

Periodically I need to write in more detail about some of what is happening here in one or more areas of ministry, and that is my task today. My ministry in Russia is multifaceted, and though it all fits together, today I want to tell you more about the way God has allowed us to…

I had a private practice in Christian counseling and (later) life coaching in Virginia from 1997 until we moved to Russia in 2007. Although I had an Masters of Social Work which got my foot in the door to a group practice, from the very beginning I leaned not to my secular training but to…