Bike trip – 23 August – Raichikhinsk town

We said farewell to the leaving members of our Expedition in the morning. It is hard to say good-buy to those with whom we served the Lord together. They became a part of our hearts. The service is expecting us. There are 172 kilometers to the town with an interesting name Raichikhinsk. There is an asphalt road. And we decided to start 30 minutes later. There were punctures of the wheels, and at lunch time we arrived at the town. The delegation of believers met us and accompanied us to the church house. This town was not included into our schedule. We planned to have a day-off that day. But believers in Raichikhinsk town found out from Internet about our route and expressed a strong desire for us to visit them. It was impossible to say “no” to them and we exchanged a day-off and washing of things – to the day of cleansing of souls of people who live in Raichikhinsk town.

The town Raichikhinsk was founded in the tsarist times, on the junction of two rivers – Rai (means “paradise” in Russian) and Chikha. But people turned this paradise into hell. On the place of the church house there used to be barracks for prisoners (the so-called famous GULAG). The population of the town is 43 thousand people. They mine brown coal. This is the town of miners. But some mines are closed and people leave for more successful regions.

The church in Raichikhinsk is not large with a little more than 40 members. It was planted in the 90-ties. There used to be a small church in the vicinity of the town. All neighboring churches united their efforts to have evangelization there.

As soon as we arrived at the church house we were invited to have rich lunch and after that men went to the sauna, to cleanse the flash. After that we went out into the town streets to invite people to the evening service. Town authorities allowed us to have evangelization at the gymnasium downtown. We traveled along town streets several times and invited people with the help of loud-speakers. Many of them already read about our arrival on the posters. We were pleased to see people coming together with their kids. Families were hading for the stadium. As usual there were many kids and our children’s workers had a lot of work. The service went on one go and we were sorry only about one thing – that these valuable moments passed so very quickly. Boris Berezhnoi and Albert Redin sang. Vladimir Skovpen shared his testimony. Leonid Kartavenko preached. We were surprised at the number of militiamen at the stadium, who looked after the order. Praise God, commanders of these men ordered them to be at the event and they also listened to the News about salvation.

People remained at the stadium for a while. It was getting dark. We were forced to stop conversations of bikers with people as we had to be at the church until it was not too dark. Nice meal was waiting for us in the church again, and a short prayer service.

Tomorrow more way, over 200 km. Part of the way will go along grave road. May the Lord keep our bikers!

Leonid Kartavenko