In Siberia, it is illegal to invite people to church. Roman has developed an innovative strategy to reach the local people for the gospel. The economy is so poor in Siberia, people rarely can afford to go out to dinner. In one area that Rich visited, which was home to about 20,000 people, Rich only saw one restaurant! Roman invites groups of about 60 to come to dinner for free and hear a gospel presentation. People are grateful for the hospitality, and are more than willing to hear what he has to say.
Roman was trained in follow-up by Rich last year, and has been training church leaders how to follow-up new believers. However, there is currently not a link between his evangelistic efforts and his follow-up training, as he cannot invite those who receive Christ at the dinner to come to church. Rich would like to obtain a religious visa (so that he can teach) and take a trip to Siberia this coming year to join Roman in his evangelistic effort, train the local believers and church leaders in follow-up, and also develop with Roman a plan to follow-up with the new believers that result from his evangelistic outreaches.
FFICM’s idea at this point is to have a follow-up meal for those who have received Christ the next day, perhaps a lunch or breakfast, and begin going over follow-up materials. It only costs roughly $2 a person to provide these meals, and it will be easier to emphasize the importance of meeting with other believers in the follow-up meeting without extending a direct invitation to church (which would be illegal).
If you feel called to donate particularly to FFICM’s efforts to open up Siberia, send a check, and write in “Open up Siberia” in your check’s description! Or visit our Donate page and send a quick line to [email protected] after making the donation as to how you would like your funds to be directed!
FFICM is also planning a trip to Cameroon. The Cameroonian leaders from Baminda have begged FFICM to come, and have made all of the necessary plans and preparations. The plan is to have a week long pre-training in Nigeria to help develop the Nigerian trainers as leaders so they can run some of the training and continue to resource Cameroon afterwards. Then, the team will drive to Cameroon and do a two-week training in Baminda to train 80-100 evangelists, pastors, and church leaders!
If you would like to donate to the effort to open up Cameroon you can either send in a check and write “Open up Cameroon” in the description, or visit our Donate page and send a note to Dara at [email protected].
Lastly, FFICM is looking to expand in Niger! If you’ll remember, this year we trained almost a hundred evangelists and lay leaders. Our plan for 2017 is to send one of our workers up from Nigeria (Sunny, a dedicated worker who we’ve recently hired to be our logistics point person in Nigeria and the surrounding countries!) Sunny will meet with the trainees from the last training, find out how they are doing, and strategize with them what would be the best area in which to hold a training. He will find out which area is in the most need, has the most committed workers etc. We will then hold a training in Niger, by the Lord’s grace, in 2017.
If you would like to donate to the effort to open up Niger you can either send in a check and write “Open up Niger” in the description, or visit our Donate page and send a note to Dara at [email protected]!
