Ryazan Prison Ministry

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ! I would like to tell you about the prison ministry in Ryazan and am sending my newsletter.

My testimony

The Lord has laid on my heart to share it with you.
It was in 1996 when I first heard about Jesus Christ and His gift of forgiveness and salvation. I was a schoolteacher of history that time and a strong atheist. I taught my students that the religion had been a deception and exploiters had devised it in order to wield power over poor people. I thought only about my family welfare and my work at school. I was sure that my lifestyle was good and virtuous and didn’t understand that I was a great sinner.

Life was not easy and was unpredictable. My mom died from cancer at the age of 49. My brother was killed in Afghanistan at the age of 31. Even having my own family (a husband and two daughters) I often felt myself lonely and unhappy and started to think that there had to be more to life.

When Soviet regime ruined and many people rushed to Orthodox churches (we were not allowed to go to a church earlier), my younger daughter and I went there too. Later I had a desire to know about the real faith and wished to have the Bible. Soon two American ladies, the believers, came to our school and had a meeting with the stuff. They showed us the Jesus film, told us about God’s love and suggested to have a Bible study with us. I and another four teachers started to visit the Bible study and at last could hold the Bible in our hands and read it. I was very interested in reading the Bible and later my knowledge of the Lord reached my heart and for the first time I felt the reverence for Him. I repented and received Jesus into my heart. In 1998 at the age of 49 I was baptized. The former atheist has become a Christian! I am now a child of God – inseparable from Him. Praise be to God! I am always very grateful to my American brothers and sisters in Christ that they’ve helped me to come to know God, that they helped us, Russian believers, to plant a church in Ryazan. And of course I understand that it is God who has made those amazing things possible. God has blessed me abundantly with wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as a wonderful family. I am thankful to all my dear friends for Christian love, faithful friendship, encouragement, inspiration, support, for all of the prayers and blessings.

The prison ministry

In 1999 I was involved in the ministry for the teenage prison girls. The ministry was established by Delisa Harris, American missionary to Russia. Delisa and her family lived and ministered in Ryazan for several years. She developed the special course of Bible classes for prison girls – course based on the Bible and her book “The Beauty of Holiness” and started weekly classes on this course. Delisa shared God’s love with prison girls, having a great compassion for them. Her main purpose was to help the girls come to know God and His plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. I became Delisa’s assistant, had the same goals and later started to lead the Bible study with prison girls and do the prison ministry by myself. God fulfilled the desire of my heart to be involved in His ministry.

The Prison administration continues to give believers a great opportunity to bring spiritual teaching from the Bible to the prison girls. Though sometime we, believers, experience problems. Now the administration doesn’t release the girls to visit local Christian Baptist churches as it was earlier. We have some other obstacles. But the most important thing is that Christians from different churches still can come to visit the girls.

I continue to lead the classes of “The Beauty of Holiness” course, studying the Bible with prison girls, and meet their practical needs. There are 35 students in my group now. They are about ages 14-18. We have regular meetings each Sunday and on holidays, weekly worship and prayer. I try to establish friendly and trusting relationships with the girls. All of them have become dear and precious to me. They are really very happy to have our meetings and are very receptive. I pray that the Holy Spirit would touch their hearts, prompt them to read the Bible more often and I pray for the Lord’s life-changing power to be revealed in their lives. Please pray with me for these girls.

The students get New Testaments, Christian literature, newspapers, songbooks. I also bring them notebooks and pens for our lessons, envelopes, cards, buy some of them clothing, soap, food and other things they need. The girls have a lack of good nutrition and vitamins and many of them suffer of serious skin problems and other diseases. When it is possible I visit the students who are sick in the hospital. We, the believers, who visit prison girls, are not able to help them all. But I am thankful that God meets needs of all prison girls. Sponsors have helped the prison administration to get new uniform, jackets, hats, boots for girls, to make some repair work in buildings. Now the administration is seeking opportunities to build a greenhouse inside the prison and to reconstruct a public bath (banya) for girls. Please pray with me for God to supply funds for a greenhouse and banya.

In my group only several girls get letters or any support from their relatives. My student Lena Danilova is an orphan. Her parents were drunkards and both passed away. She stayed in an orphanage before getting into prison. Her older brother sold their house in the countryside and bought an apartment in some other place. He doesn’t want to know Lena any more. In a year she will be released and she doesn’t know where to go. She repented and accepted Jesus as her Savior and Lord. Lena still has many difficulties in her Christian life, but she thinks that the Lord will be helping and strengthening her. Another 16-year old girl, Olesya Korelina, is an orphan too. She wrote the following about her life:
“I was born. My mother and father drank alcohol a lot. Later my father robbed a shop and got into a jail for two years. Mother thought she would be not able to raise me and my younger brother and sister and brought us to an orphanage. God cared for us. In the orphanage I met a very kind woman, a cook, who treated us like a mother. I finished the 9^th grade there successfully and planned to continue my education. But in 2004 I met my mother and stayed with her. She had a lover, who was a cruel man and a drunkard and abused her and me. I killed him. Now I am staying here in the prison. I was very sorry for committing that crime. I repented my awful sins and received Jesus Christ into my heart. I didn’t experience a happy childhood. And now I want to dedicate my life to the Lord, to have a new life with Jesus Christ and you. I want to be a baptist believer too and will never change my mind and my dream.”

Many of my students didn’t have a happy childhood. Here is one more letter: Vicka Kopillova a 15- year old girl:
“My parents drank alcohol a lot. In my childhood I didn’t see any good things. I never had toys. I have been dreaming about a small soft toy. If you have an opportunity please bring it to me. Please forgive me for asking this.”

Please pray for Lena, Olesya, Vicka and other girls who had the lack of love that they would feel the Love of Father.

I have personal fellowship with the girls, visiting them as a friend among a week (I’m free to visit my students whenever I like) and bringing them parcels with Christian literature and things they need. The girls get gifts for their birthdays. I pray for each girl individually. We write many letters to each other. I keep in touch with many of the former students, who are free or still stay in jails (they often ask for help too and I support them spiritually and sometime materially), with some of girls’ relatives.

I also visit a group of young adults in the same prison. When the girls are 18 year old they can be sent to this group or to other jails. Now 10 young ladies visit the Bible study. Mostly they are my former students from the younger group and I have a good opportunity to help them in their spiritual growth. Now we are reading the first chapters of the Gospel according to Mathew. While reading each chapter we answer the following questions: What is this chapter about? What does it signify? What does it signify for me personally? The students read some chapters themselves during a week and like to share their favourite verses with me. They are starting to question their lives and God’s purpose for them. In this group ladies are officially allowed to smoke. One of my goals is to help the students to resist this temptation. I explain how God could help them to avoid of that bad habit. Food and clothing in this group are scarce too. I try to meet some of my students’ needs. Please pray for young ladies that they would repent and believe the good news.

During last few months almost all my former students were released. In total 90 prison girls, who had behaved and worked well, became free before the end of their sentences and went home. 80 per sent of prison girls are from poor or not full families, many of them are orphans or ‘social orphans’. Some of the students even don’t have a desire to leave the prison. Their relatives are drunkards, drug addicts or stay in jails. The girls don’t want to meet their old friends.

One of my former students, Vera Lobanova, wrote me: “Thank you for coming to visit us, for bringing God’s Word to our hearts, for your care, kindness and love. We would like you to come more often. I always wait with impatience for our Sunday lessons, when we can be closer to God. But these 3 hours fly so fast and we need to wait for another meeting. Earlier, when I visited the church with my grandmother, it was so hard for me to stay there till the end of the service. I went there because of my granny, but not for the sake of God. Now I am sad that I’ve lost so much time that I could use for seeking God. I always thank God for you and other believers. Praise the Lord that there is a light in this darkness. You know, I am afraid of coming back home and meeting my old friends. I don’t want to have the same sinful style of life as earlier”. The other girl, Anya Kosheyeva, (she repented and prayed to receive Christ Jesus into her heart) wrote: “Thank you for everything you have being doing not only for people, but for God. Thank you that you serve Him with your whole heart. We can see that your love for us is sincere. I would like to be the same person as you are”.
I get many kind letters from my students and see their desire to know more about God. I feel their love, care. It’s a great inspiration and encouragement to me.

When the girls become free they need clothing. The state doesn’t finance the prison to purchase civilian clothes. The girls come to the prison when they are 14-15 year old and release in three-four years. They can’t wear the same clothing and shoes. Our church sometime helps me to find clothing for prison girls. I try to buy them the most necessary things or it happens that somebody of girls’ relatives send me money and ask to buy them clothing. When the girls return to their homes and families, they need spiritual support from Christians and the local churches. As earlier, when it is possible, I try to contact the local churches and explain to them the need for such a support for the girls when they are free, or give the students addresses of churches in their native places. I ask you to support me in prayer for the girls who’ve recently gotten out.

I believe that the prison ministry is very needed. Hundreds girls and young ladies can be reached and helped for the glory of God. I am very, very thankful to you for your faithful friendship, prayers and support. My heart is full of gratitude to my friends, who’ve sent donations to me for the ministry to be continued. Without your help my work with prison girls and help to them would be not possible.

God always amazes me by His continued provision. Still now I don’t know where the money for the prison ministry will come from next month. And it happens that sometime I experience difficulties. But I know that trials and difficulties make our faith stronger and teach us to lean totally on the mercy of the Lord.

Pray for me to continue growing in the Lord.
Pray that I have more than enough of God’s provision.

Your prayers and encouragement are so important to me and the ministry I have been doing. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

Praise the Lord for His mercy toward us, which is new every morning. May His mercy surround your day today and continue to lovingly guide you in His perfect plan for you!

With love and appreciation,

Luba Timofeyeva