Editor's Note: The following article is the January update from ministry partners Sergey and Angelica Zelenov who serve with Spoken For International Youth Outreach in Penza, Russia.

A Very Merry Christmas

The Lord blessed us with a great celebration of His birth on December 25th. About 50 of us gathered in one of the Fireworks guys' apartment to sing, worship, have a devotional, and of course, feast on delicious food. We ate eastern style – on the floor – because there were too many of us to fit around tables. We played games and laughed a lot. From the youngest (David and Daniel) to the oldest (pastor Gennady), fun was had by all. For many of the Fireworks youth, it was their first time to participate in a real Christmas celebration. The deep Christian fellowship is something we do not take for granted.

And a Happy New Year!

Visiting the special needs orphanage, Nizhniy Lomov, on New Year's Eve has become a tradition that is much-anticipated by our team as well as the orphans and workers at Nizhniy. We sent an official letter of request to the Department of Social Services asking permission to spend New Year's Eve at Nizhniy Lomov two weeks before the end of the year. We began to get a little nervous when we did not hear back from them. Finally, on December 29th, the director of Nizhniy Lomov called the Minister of Social Services to find out the status of our request. The director was asked if she wanted us to come. She said, “Oh, yes. It is a wonderful event that the children and workers look forward to every year.” At that point, our request was approved. Praise God! Thank you to those who have come to Nizhniy in the past and established a great reputation as Christians.

We loaded up the vans with a team of 42 people and headed to Nizhniy on Monday afternoon. Our team included not only Fireworks youth, but also youth from Bethany/Revelation, Revival, and Soglasia churches. It was a blessing to see so many young people preferring to spend New Year's Eve ministering together rather than partying in traditional ways. Many of the people on the team had never been to a special needs home before, so we prepared them by explaining that they just needed to love on the kids. Even with our preparation, several of the team members were shocked by two elements of Nizhniy: the openness of the children and the great food. In fact, some of them thought they had walked into the wrong place when they entered the dining room.

The evening was a wonderful time of celebration and fun. We were able to take a “shoebox” of presents to each child. Most of the boxes were actually about three times the size of a shoebox. It was amazing to see the generosity of people in the church and community in the way they filled the boxes. Sergey Antonov even got a digital camera in his box! We set up about fifteen games in the corridor and all of the kids had a lot of fun with them. Several team members performed a drama about the birth of Jesus. And lastly (but not least!) we shot off fireworks at 12:00, which is always a highlight of the night.

One of the special opportunities of the evening was that Angelica got to share with several of the workers for about two hours. They were very receptive to Angelica's testimony and other elements of the Good News. The workers shared their memories of words and stories they had heard from Russians and Americans over the last four years of visits to Nizhniy. They also said that the tradition of celebrating New Year's with us has become a special time for them. Before we started coming, only one worker would stay at the orphanage with the kids for New Year's. Now, all the workers choose to celebrate at the orphanage instead of with family and friends in more traditional ways.

We returned to Penza around 2:00am, where God had even more blessings in store. We gathered with the Fireworks youth in one of the apartments to reflect on 2007 and pray for 2008. As we listened to the youth share, one-by-one, what God has done in their lives, our hearts and spirits were lifted. Several of them said that they knew if it wasn't for the work God does through the Fireworks program, they would have been celebrating the New Year drunk somewhere at that very moment. Many shared that this was the best New Year they had ever had. Since New Year is the biggest holiday of the year in Russia, that is a powerful statement. They are all grateful for the family of God they have been brought into, and we are grateful for them.

Happy Birthday to Dima and Alyona

We have already celebrated two Fireworks birthdays in January. Dima S. and Alyona G. turned 21 and 19, respectively. We celebrated by taking the group cross-country skiing. The birthday adventure started with several of the guys getting stuck in the elevator of their apartment building for 40 minutes. Once we were skiing in the woods, we enjoyed laughter at the expense of Anton as he broke his skis and Sasha as he broke the bindings off his skis. Despite some people getting stuck in the snow in -4°F, it was a great outing. We consumed plenty of hot tea and chocolate chip cookies to top off the day. If you would like to email us birthday greetings to give to Fireworks youth, you can check the Spoken For home page (www.spokenfor.org) each month to see who has upcoming birthdays.

Thank you so much for being faithful prayer partners and supporters of this ministry.