Dear friends in the Lord Jesus!

Greetings to you from me, my family and from my many Russian coworkers in this ministry!

Summer have been a very blessed and buzy time for all of us. Let me shortly share with you what have taken place in our ministry:

VYBORG AREA

Praise the Lord - we had our first baptism! First four souls have been baptized and added to the Church as a result of
our ministry in Vyborg. Here they are - taken after theil last session of their baptism class.

A brother to the left with a book in him hands is now a new leader of  Vyborg Rehabilitation Center "House of Hope", and has taken Dima's position, who went to Smolensk as our missionary in order to establish a new Rehabilitation Center there. Smolensk is about 1000 km away from us and is not too far from Moscow.

Next to him is another brother from Vyborg - he has finished rehabilitation, was baptized and now he is assistant leader in Rehab Center in Priozersk.

And then a son and his mother. Son was a drug addict and came to the Lord while being in Rehabilitation center, and his mother believed meanwhile attending our meetings.

Below you can see a picture taken at their baptism. You can hardly see them in the crowd because there were about 30 people being baptized that day in the Central Baptist Church in Saint-Petersburg. And half of them came to the Lord through Rehabilitation Centers.

Yet another brother, one of our first graduates in Vyborg have been baptized also that day - and right now he is serving as a leader of Rehabilitation Center in Priozersk. On the pictrure below you can see him sitting to the right.

Another brother from Vyborg went to Kaliningrad just a week ago to help with starting a center there also. He have visited us in Vyborg for couple of days and have testified about the miraclious change that the Lord have done within him, and about a calling from the Lord for ministry.

Weekly counseling meetings on Monday night continue to attract people seeking freedom from dependencies. After a counseling meeting we normally have meeting for parents, which is attended by relatives of those young people who went from Vyborg to one of our Rehabilitation Centers. You see picture taken at one of these meetings below.

In addition to this regular Sunday worship services have been started  -- right now in the premises of Vyborg Christian Center. American missionaries living in Vyborg, Richard and Judy Grout, are generously letting us use their place for all of our activities. This is a real blessing for us. And -- praise the Lord - sometimes we are running our of space already! Because the Lord is bringing more and more people.

NORTH-WEST REGION OF RUSSIA

Our progress during this summer have also been considerable.

Three new Centers have been started: in Smolensk, in Kaliningrad and in Lomonosov. "Our" missionaries from Vyborg work in two of the three places. Below you can see Dima, ex-leader of Vyborg Rehab Center and two other brothers who went to Smolensk with him.

Right now they are living in a Church building while renovating another one which will be a permanent place for the center. They have already started the program and are taking drug and alcohol addicts from Smolensk and nearby areas. Here they are with their first "clients".

Total number of Rehab Centers have reached 15. Three new Churches have been started (or are in the process of being started) through Rehabilitation ministry.

Please, continue to pray for us. Both possibilities and needs are much, much bigger. Below I would like to list some of the major projects we are trying to undertake right now. You can pray and participate in them, if the Lord leads you so.

MAJOR PROJECTS, FALL 2008

Building for a new Church in Saint-Petersburg.

A megapolis like that produces lots of people who got into problems with drugs or alcohol and need help. We have many people approaching us for help from Saint-Petersburg, and very many have already graduated from Rehab centers and are continuing to follow Christ. For many months already they are praying that the Lord would provide them with some premises where they can deploy active social work, start Church services and so on. A house with a piece of land have been found in Rzhevka neighbourhood of Saint-Petersburg: population aroung 200.000; no Baptist Church there; this place is one of the few remaining that still can be obtained (and even that is because this house belongs to a believing lady, and she is willing to help with that). Amount needed is about 300.000 USD. More that 5.000 EUR have been collected already toward that end.

Building for a new Church in Vyborg.

There is a possibility to purchase a property in the basement floor of a building -- price will go about 160.000 USD. We are praying and collecting funds every service toward this purchase.

New Rehab Center for women.

This is a pressing need of ours, which moved us to already start one "mini" Rehab Center for women in Lomonosov, right in the Church building, and one more of the same kind will be probably started withing 3-4 weeks in Voroshilovo, near Svetogorsk. Meanwhile we have plans to erect a building for this need. It will be relatively unexpensive; some of our good friends have shown interest in supporting this project. Please pray that the Lord would provide.

Adopt a Center.

Many requests for starting Rehab Centers in various regions of Russia remain unattended. You can greatly help us pioneer these regions through on-purpose cooperation.

Renovation of an old building of Luga Center.

It's capable of much-much more, but is still partly in ruins. We are very thankfull for our faithfull friends who are helping us, step by step, to renovate it. Nevertheless, more help is needed.

Food delivery

Thanks to those of you who have been sacrificially helping us with food. It really helps us to tremendously cut down living expences and be able to host so many people. We invite others to participate also in this vital help.

Please note, that news updates on our English-language site, vyborgbaptist.tripod.com are discontinued because we are moving our English site to narcostop.org domain name, and merging it with our Russian site, at the same time improving and expanding it greatly. We will inform you when transition will take place and our new site will be fully operable.

Many blessings to all of you from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

Valery Tolkachev.