The last few weeks have been really exciting with many developments for the next Family Discipleship conference in St. Petersburg. It will be a three day event and we have a excellent speaker lineup. God seems to have put together a great team of people to help with the administration of this event and we look forward to seeing His provision as we begin to raise money for the event. Please pray about how God might want you to be involved in this time in history in Russia!

For the past few years we have been in close contact with the fine people at Home School L eagle Defense Association. A few years back, Scott had the privilege of traveling to Moscow with Mike Donnelly to Moscow to attend an international Forum called ‘Large family and the future of humanity’. This was concurrent with the World Congress of the Family conference. HSLDA has noticed the work of God in Russia and they have decided to choose Russia as the location for their 2018 Global Home Education Conference. Check out these links for more info!

http://ghec2018.org/

https://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2016/201609290.asp

In July of 2016, Putin signed of on a law that restricts all evangelism outside of registered churches. The “Yarovaya package” requires missionaries to have permits, makes house churches illegal, and limits religious activity to registered church buildings, among other restrictions. Individuals who disobey could be fined up to $780, while organizations could be fined more than $15,000. Many have asked us if that law will affect the work we are able to do in Russia. After speaking with many trusted sources in Russia, we do not believe this will hinder the calling we have to serve in Russia. In fact, these laws are written in such a way that they may do more damage to the Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, and Islamic proselytizers in the country.

While the relations between Russia and the US may be getting colder, we are confident that the safest place for any believer is squarely in the center of God’s will so these current events do not cause us to be more concerned for our safety but only serve to remind us of the sovereignty of God in His dealings with the nations of the earth…

The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.
Psalm 103:19

A great big thank you to all who supported this ministry trip both financially and in prayer. Enjoy this video to get a taste for what it was like…

I wanted to share some comments we received from the evaluations of the conference. I hope these words encourage you as much as they did us!

“My unbelieving friend attended the conference. She was plunged into the Christian atmosphere and she told me this, ‘I have not seen so many nice parents and brought up children. My grandmother was a Baptist and this reminded me of when she read the Bible to me. I was delighted with the company and the conference.’ She was really touched. There were other unbelievers there as well which is very good. Thank you for your example.” Ksenia, mom of 4

“I am very grateful for your visits, when we took our sons from school to come home we didn’t have a vision to return our sons to their creator but only to defend them from the bad influences of their peers. But you came here to Russia to teach us the freedom. I have never experienced freedom in my life because my parents never experienced freedom and they never taught me how to live free. When I was in school it was a prison and I had no idea how to teach my boys in freedom, it was a revolution for our family. When the Team from America came I learned to look at every subject through the lens of Gods Word. I am so great full you have come to teach us and to see how you apply the Bible to real life situations in your family. Our greatest blessing in teaching our sons is that we can show our boys who they are in God’s Word. Especially thank you for showing us how to live in freedom as Christians. I feel like a Jew who just left Egypt and I have this feeling that my kids may have been born in the wilderness but at least they are free.” Sergei, father of 3

“When my girls were growing up I was desperate because I didn’t want to give them over to the public school. I wanted to teach them Gods truths and I didn’t want the world to creep into their hearts. It was them that the Davidsons came and shared about family education and that was exactly what we needed. Thank you for coming, thank you for coming on a regular basis and that you share your real life, you showed us another lifestyle and it is wonderful. Thank you all for investing your time and money for us.” Sasha, single mom of 2

“Whether we realize it or not, teaching our kids, we reproduce who we are, and consequently, homeschooling families have a constant need for renewal and encouragement in Christ. This is the reason to have regular Christian homeschooling conferences; at least, this is the reason for the annual event that has been taking place in St. Pete since 2014. This year we found the conference to be a waterfall of enrichment and encouragement in Christ, and a re-focus toward discipleship. We could go on for days about what we learned But for now I should say one thing – we understood anew the freedom we have in Christ on a deeper level. Our oldest, Emily, has gotten great encouragement and confirmation of the rightness of the path she chooses. All of our daughters were challenged and encouraged to pursue the calling of God with boldness and joy. For several days after the conference we spent time with the American team, asking those, who have bigger homeschooling experience, a ton of questions, evaluating, planning and praying together. We made quite a few new friends, spent quality heart to heart time with the old ones, definitely had a lot of fun and received more special teaching during those mutually enriching moments. Each year this event can be equaled to a type of spiritual revival in the hearts of many. Too often, when we think of revival, we think of massive majorities rushing to salvation all at once, but the truth is that the Lord can work through only a few. It only takes a few devoted to Christ to change the direction of a land. We encourage each person, into whom we pour our lives, to dare to be one of those few. Today, there are already quite a few homeschooled children in Russia. And the vast majority of homeschooling families are devoted to Christ. Over the next number of years, what kind of impact could a small percentage of families devoted to discipleship and the Gospel have on this land, and by extension – the rest of the world? We shall see.”
Pastor Andre, father of 3

“I wanted to say thank you to all who supported this conference because it was like a charger to recharge my cell phone. I came and now I have new ideas and enough energy to go on for another year to home school my kids. Thank you to all the speakers and servants at this conference. And thank you to all who make it possible” Diana, mom of 3

“I am so discouraged by the situation in the world and so upset there are so many problems between Americans and Russians with propaganda in our government. But I am so glad not to see that behavior happening between Christians because Christ is what is common between us. And I am so grateful that you made it possible for our new friends Scott and Andie and their team to come and offer this conference. I met them when I had only one daughter and we are now expecting our third. I have learned so much at the conference and there is so much for our family to discuss. We are great full from the bottom of our hearts for you who made this possible. Your time here was so valuable to us.” Ira, mom of 3

“I have three high school children and we met the Davidson’s 2 years ago and it was revolutionary for our family. We took our kids from school at that time and we are so glad that we did it, I am so great full. It changed not only the lives of our children but our lives as well, thank you for your service and giving.” Anton, father of 3

“I am very grateful for your visits, when we took our sons from school to come home we didn’t have a vision to return our sons to their creator but only to defend them from the bad influences of their peers. But you came here to Russia to teach us the freedom. I have never experienced freedom in my life because my parents never experienced freedom and they never taught me how to live free. When I was in school it was a prison and I had no idea how to teach my boys in freedom, it was a revolution for our family. When the Team from America came I learned to look at every subject through the lens of Gods Word. I am so great full you have come to teach us and to see how you apply the Bible to real life situations in your family. Our greatest blessing in teaching our sons is that we can show our boys who they are in God’s Word. Especially thank you for showing us how to live in freedom as Christians. I feel like a Jew who just left Egypt and I have this feeling that my kids may have been born in the wilderness but at least they are free.” Sergei, father of 3

 

On our last full day in Russia we were blessed to enjoy worship with the saints in Vyborg.  There is something so very special about witnessing believers worshiping in a different language yet with the same spirit.  It sure reminds us that the body of Christ transcends time and culture as Christians have been setting aside one day in seven for thousands of years!

 

We were blessed with some sweet fellowship with the dear Golvenyook family. We asked for some help with perfecting our pronunciation of difficult Russian words and this is what happened…

Here are some more pictures of our fellowship times in Vyborg.  The body of Christ led by Pastor Andre Furmanov is a beautiful sight to behold!

Well, we survived the conference! It was truly a great success and we heard so much feedback from Russians who were touched by what they heard. After a day of rest a recuperation, we all hopped on a train and headed up to the historical town of Vyborg. This is the town we have visited the past 3 years in which about 15 families courageously pulled their children out of the government school and decided to disciple and train them at home in 2012. Since that time, more and more families have been inspired by this church and they have been a great asset to the ministry in St.Petersburg. Our team divided up into small groups to stay with local families and we were able to really connect and encourage one another. On Saturday one of the families opened up their country home to host a gathering to discuss many of the ideas shared at the conference regarding teaching character through family business. Whenever we visit Vybory we always leave feeling like they ministered to us more than we did to them! Here is a short video of that gathering where one of our Russian speaking team members (Hannah) shared her testimony.

A Secular Homeschooling Webinar…

As I shared a few days ago, I was asked to speak to a secular homeschooling group from Moscow.  Since we didn’t travel to Moscow this trip, we did this online through a live webinar set up by my dear friend and translator Lena.  The leader of this group explained that the group is totally non-religious but he said I was free to share anything about my faith and why we have decided to homeschool – it was almost as if he was asking me to share!  After much prayer and thought I decided to organize my talk in to the three needs our children have – needs of the body, needs of the mind, and needs of the spirit.  I shared how as homeschool moms we are always aware of the physical needs of feeding our children and providing a peaceful shelter for them.  We are also aware of the needs of their mind so we seek to give them a good academic education.  But often the needs that go the most neglected is meeting the needs of our children’s spirit.  This allowed me to open a door to discussing how each of us have a deep spiritual need for TRUTH and MEANING in life and the truth can only be found in the person of Jesus Christ and through his word.  My main point is that if you truly want to meet your child’s needs then you must first feed your spirit from God’s Word.  I referred them to an apologetics  website in Russian that fully explains the gospel and answers many questions they have about truth (www.gotquestions.org/russia) and many people thanked me for sharing that and said they would look into it.  I pray the Lord would cause growth to those tiny seeds that were planted that evening.

Unlike in America, tea time is a vital part of the day for every Russian so we always offer a tea break a few times a day during the conference. Check out this video to see the Moody girls preparing for tea time!

We are blessed to have a team of 5 Russian families who serve on our planning committee to prepare for this conference.  They all decided they wanted a ‘Young Entrepreneurs” element to the conference this year. So as a result. we offered tables for some homeschool youth to try their hand at a small business and it was a great success!  Check out this video to see more…