Bike trip – July 5-6 - Tiumen

Church ministers from the church «Spiritual Revival» met us in 10 km from the town, as well as two crews of the road inspection. The traffic on the roads was stopped especially for the Expedition. We often heard sounds of car horns and oral orders to inattentive drivers – to stop. I do not know how many road inspection officers were on the roads that day, but bikers could not wheel quicker than 30k/h. Bikers were rather tired as 210 km already were behind. The road was not even all the time, but still it was a road. They say that further on the Expedition will meet read problems - roads will look mostly like «directions».

There was a change of members of the Transcontinental Bike Expedition in Tiumen town. Bikers – Alexander, Michael, Dmitry, Alexei and Pavel and also children’s workers Marina and Christina are to go home. The new shift arrived. There were tears in the eyes and the lack of desire to go back home. Practically all members of the «old» team were ready to continue the ministry, but «fresh» team has arrived and they were full of strength and passion to start the trip as quickly as possible. They are not yet aware of all hardships and weariness. They did not know the rules of wheeling, but they attentively listened to Vladimir Skovpen, the coach, a leader and a counselor – which means they will succeed.

The weather was not nice in Tiumen. Hot sun and showers replaces each other. There were dirt and pools in the place of a planned two-day festival of teams. But the organizers of the festival from the church «Spiritual Revival» were sure – despite all possible things the event would become true. It was really so. God, interfering into the situation ordered the rain to stop and the sun to shine brightly to create a pleasant atmosphere for the evangelization. At 18.30 sharp the leaders of the children’s program, after a short introduction of the members of the Expedition and our short greetings, announced the beginning of the competitions. More than 200 kids visited the festival. They took part in the games and came to know about the Word of God. At the end of the festival all kids received copies of the magazine «Path». Winners received diplomata and children’s Bible story books.

P.S. 14-year-old Mary and Vera have never heard about the Gospel believers. Once passing the church by bus they noticed a banner where they read about the Festival. Their team lost but girls wanted to have children’s Bible story books. Coming up to us the girls began to beg us to give them the children’s Bible story books. In answer to my question – Why do you need a Bible for? – Mary amazingly said: «Why? But this is the Word of God! Don’t you know about it?!» Certainly I am sure that the Bible is the Word of God. But how the girls came to know about it? We began to talk and I found out that Mary’s mother works in the post office bureau in Tiumen town. One of the subscribers gave her mother, Olga, a copy of the Christian magazine and she gave it to her daughter. I was amazed at this fact. Mary, after reading the magazine «Path» found out that the Bible is the Word of God. The magazines, the copies of which we send out all over Russia from Vladikavkaz, tell us about the grace of God and that it is present here, in the far Tiumen. Girls came back home with colorful children’s bible story books, with the CD discs of the team «Path», magazines and pens with the emblem of the Mission «Light in the East».

Piotr Lunichkin