Permanent Impact November 2008

. . . a newsletter to keep you up-to-date with Sculley family adventures in Russia and beyond

We’re willing to go . . . are you willing to send us?

What’s the latest?

It’s all about relationships!

Connecting people to God and people to people. That’s been the “slogan” at our home church (the Atlanta Vineyard) for many years, and it’s how we try to live our lives. Whether we are working or playing, studying or serving, celebrating or sight-seeing, skyping or facebooking, whatever we’re doing . . . it’s all about relationships! I love how Saint Francis of Assisi put it – “preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words!” This is an especially good thing to keep in mind when you aren’t fluent yet in the local lingo. It’s our desire to spread the love of Jesus Christ to every person God brings into our lives, letting our lives speak . . . in practical ways, praying, serving, spending time together . . . and occasionally with words 🙂 Here are some relational glimpses from this past month . . . All this is made possible because you, our dear family & friends, pray for, encourage, and support us! Thank you for your faithfulness in partnering with us in the Kingdom of God, for the glory of Jesus Christ! Oh, and happy Thanksgiving to our American friends!

All our pictures are in one batch this time – scroll down for descriptions that might make some of them make sense 🙂

As an excuse to invite a lot of people over, we celebrated Karen’s birthday with a big birthday brunch.  It was a fabulous time of connecting with the 60 or so who came to the all-day brunch, munching on novelties like nachos & spinach dip, and Paul’s famous pancakes 🙂 We were delighted that friends of all ages came from every arena of our lives, including churches, universities, and our neighborhood. It was a memorable day that was all about relationships, new and old, being built. Paul and Karen are both sorok-pyat years old now . . . you’ll just have to find a Russian speaker and ask them how young that is 🙂

We are delighted that pastor Dave asked us to host the Nizhny Vineyard’s weekly “soaking group” that Misha & Larissa lead. It is a prayer group with an emphasis on seeking God’s face, worshiping Him through music, and praying for one another. About 25-30 people from 7 churches usually come – such a beautiful time of unity in the body of Christ. God is really blessing this group, according to His promise (“How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! . . . that’s where God commands the blessing“, Psalm 133, The Message). It’s so neat to us how God has orchestrated this, as Paul & I have felt that God’s purpose for us in coming to Russia was to pray, mobilize prayer, promote unity in the body of Christ, and raise up leaders – we are so encouraged to be able to participate in each of these elements right here in our living room.

We celebrated the marriage of our friends, Artyom & Valya, last Saturday. They had a lovely ceremony with a very fun Russian-style celebration afterwards . . . food, dancing, songs, games, challenges for the groom . . . one frequent custom is that every time someone calls out “Gorka!” the bride and groom have a prolonged smooch 🙂 We know that God has some amazing adventures in store for this young couple – they are very gifted leaders and God’s hand is obviously upon them.

P, J, M, C, along with the rest of the Nizhny Vineyard youth band lead worship one Sunday at the Vineyard, and the following Sunday night at the local Baptist church youth service. We love how God is bringing more and more unity to the body of Christ here – four youth groups came together for the worship service and afterwards for a big birthday bash for Olya, the Vineyard youth leader.

Our friend Yanna and I have joined the children’s ministry team at the Nizhny Vineyard, and I am thrilled to see Yanna in her element! She’s a natural with kids, high-energy, creative, loving, and fun, as she engages their hearts and minds in learning God’s word and loving Him and one another. I get to enjoy helping her and being the mama who bakes yummy treats.

We were so blessed by a visit earlier this month by a weekend visit from our Perm friends, Eddik & Alyona & Nastya . . . we missed Vanya, as he is serving in the Russian army at the moment . . . this is the first family our family met in Russia 8 years ago. For the first time we were able to communicate well with one another without a translator! We had a very sweet time together as we shared our joys and struggles with one another. It was really neat for us to show them around the city, as it was their first visit to Nizhny. What an amazing family they are, and a joy to know!

P has begun his information technology studies at the University of Nizhny Novgorod and has dived into intensive Russian classes along with his 10 or so classmates, all of whom are from Africa. Pictures coming soon . . . I (Karen) have been studying Russian language & culture at the Linguistic University, and have especially enjoyed the creative teaching methods, special excursions, and interaction with my teacher Anna’s other students. We had an “open exam” a few weeks ago – conversed in Russian with two professors who came to test us (and evaluate our teacher), dramatized a Russian fairy tale, sang Russian songs, and explained the ethnic cuisine we each prepared.

Sculley Academy is now 1/3 of the way through our school year . . . highlights include family reading (e.g. Ben Hur, Stonewall Jackson bio, Science & Lore of Trees, Funky Fridays!) and special projects (e.g. Pilgrim’s progress diorama, Lebanese dinner, “Garden” game, Jumanji pop-up books / paintings / inventions, Foster & Sousa music) . . . Jonathan is zooming through his final high school courses with flying colors . . .

Although many of our friends are Russians, we also have the blessing of many international university students in our lives. Nizhny has a lot of universities and institutes, which draw students from all over the world. We enjoy providing a home-away-from-home for both Russian & international students, a listening ear, a home-cooked meal, and a family environment. Many of them seem to especially enjoy all our children, who bring so much joy and laughter into their lives. Karen recently had the privilege of teaching at the CF (Christian Fellowship) group again – P and J attend this weekly Bible Study at the medical institute.

Thanks for reading this far . . . if you made it to here, you are a true friend!

Our contact information:

local U.S. number that will reach us in Russia: 678-389-9379

Russian apartment phone #: +7-910-432-81-77

facebook: Karen Sculley

snail mail: (print this out and stick it on the envelope)

RUSSIA

603093 Г. Нижний Новгопод

Ул. Родионова

Д. 180/1 Кв. 23

Sculley family

Financial Partnership Opportunities:

We’d like to offer you a variety of opportunities each month . . . let us know if you’d like to partner with us in any of these ways. THANK YOU for your support . . . it is a joy to walk this road together with you!

• Sculley Family support

o Our current support level is 72% of our financial needs through June 2009 – praise God!

• Ministry partnerships

o We’d like to offer you the opportunity of partnering with a Russian believer in ministry:

 Prayer Journeys to other Russian cities. There are teams from several Vineyard churches going on prayer journeys to other Russian cities, in the hopes of beginning Vineyard churches there in the near future. We would love to invest in these “ground-breaking” and “foundation-laying” teams as they go in to prepare the spiritual soil for future church plants.

 March 5th – 7th, 2009 – Russian Vineyard National Conference, Perm. This annual conference will have an emphasis on evangelism in addition to its usual focus on equipping, envisioning, and encouragement. It’s also a big family reunion as the 7 Vineyard churches in Russia are geographically very spread out, from St. Petersburg to Siberia (over 3500km apart)! We would love to help some of our brothers and sisters in Christ from the Nizhny Vineyard to join our family as we journey to the city of Perm, 17 hours by train east of Nizhny Novgorod.

We trust God to provide everything we need to do all that He wants us to do in and through us. If you would like to invest what God has given you in Kingdom activity, through financial partnership, here’s how (all financial contributions are 100% tax deductible in the U.S.A., and are processed through the Atlanta Vineyard, our sending church to whom we are accountable):

• automated giving (automatic monthly deductions from your checking or savings account – click here for the form – be sure to write “Sculley – Russia” in the space under “recommended giving”). Once you print out and fill in the form, please mail it to the address indicated at the bottom of the form.

• online giving via PayPal (www.atlantavineyard.com — just mention “Sculley – Russia” on the online giving comment line)

Praise Reports:

• our long-term visas are completed! We’re very glad to have this paperwork behind us 🙂

• there are two new Russian families at the Nizhny Vineyard after the two recent weddings (Misha & Larissa, Artyom & Valya). This is a huge praise report and a testimony to God’s faithfulness and provision.

• God continues to bring people to us, literally every week, that He wants us to reach out to with His love in some way. We’re learning more and more and are very thankful to God that He’s just looking for ordinary people like us who are available for Him to pour His extraordinary love through. Life in Christ is a daily adventure!

Please pray for us:

• for God’s wisdom and revelation in knowing what to devote our time and energy to – there are so many good things we could be doing, but we only want to do what we see the Father doing, as Jesus did.

• for P’s & Karen’s university studies – that we would do well, learn all that God wants us to learn, and share the love of God with our fellow students and teachers.

• we are planning several gatherings over the next few months, around normal family celebrations. Pray with us for God’s heart and plans to come forth. We want to live out what Jesus said to do – “The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be—and experience—a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God’s people.” (Luke 14:12 – 14, The Message).

We pray for you, too – please let us know your specific prayer requests. It’s such a joy to pray for one another! We have all of our email and facebook friends’ names written on our prayer wall in the kitchen.

Our vision:

• mobilize prayer

• promote unity in the body of Christ

• raise up leaders

We appreciate your prayers so much! Thank you!

“The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” (1 Samuel 30:24)

Thanks for all your blog visits!

In Russia with love,

Paul, Karen, P, J, M, C, E, & K Sculley

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.” (2 Corinthians 2:14)