This is unheard of in the Slavic churches! Over 12,000 people attended the “Bethlehem Village” at the Bryte Church. There was so much going on in this village! Over forty stations including a prayer station, Bible and Gospel tracts distribution station, and much more. Over 800 volunteers were dedicated to preparing and serving at this event. Their main goal was to unite the church members, and to share the story of Christmas with unbelievers.
The preparations for this event began in August and it is impossible to describe everything that needed to be done to prepare for this event: advertising the event, registering volunteers, making the costumes, preparing materials, and building the stations, planning out the “village’s” territory, setting up lighting and sound, developing the program, working with participants, and much more. There were a lot of meetings, phone calls, and much prayer, both in groups, as well as during the church services in general. Majority of the church was involved in preparations.
Praise God that the event turned out to be such a success. According to some calculations, by the second day of the event, there were already over five thousand attendees, and after three days, over twelve thousand people were able to come.
“This is not the first time that our church is hosting such an event”, said one of the pastors of Bryte church. “This is the fourth time that we are organizing this type of event. However, we never had this many guests before. In planning for this celebration, we wanted to bring the Gospel to as many people as possible.
We always had tents where people were able to receive the Bibles, and the pastors had an opportunity to pray with them. However, we then realized that we do not need to wait for people to come to us. We as pastors need to go to them, to start conversations with strangers, and ask them about their needs, while sharing about Christ with them, and what is the meaning of Christmas, and praying with them. That is exactly what we did. And you know what, people were opening up, were willing to share their concerns with us, and were open to us praying for them”.
On the third day, because of the rain, there were a lot of concerns about what to do. Should we cancel the event? “No” said many participants, “we will continue to pray!” People met at the prayer tent and began to plead with the Lord to stop the rain so that the event could continue. In the meanwhile, some went to the stores and spend their personal finances to buy covers for the stations. Praise God that the rain stopped, and only drizzled from time to time, but that did not stop the children and adults to enjoy the fellowship, beautifully decorated stations, crafts, and to get to know the customs of the Israeli village, and…to satisfy their hunger with free baked goods, sweets, cocoa, and tea.
A few times a day there was a shadow play in the main building of the church in English and in Russian. On the parking lot, three times per day, there was a Christmas skit, and on Saturday, there was also an additional Christmas play by the Christian Proclamation Theater with the involvement of children and parents with special needs. As a result, everyone who came to the celebration was able to hear the Gospel multiple times in different ways.
A lot of efforts were invested in order to organize and host this celebration. May God bless the planted seeds of the Gospel, and may it bring abundance of fruit leading to salvation for those who came from various nationalities, cultures, and ages. It would have been so wonderful if similar celebrations were organized by combining efforts from Evangelical churches in order to bring the Gospel to a large group of people.
Olga Avetisova
