In a section of far north eastern Russia is the Magadan Region. This is an area where many Christians were sent to the gulags (prison camps) during the time of Communism. This is the area where gold is mined and extracted from the rivers and, until the fall of the Soviet Union, foreigners (and Russians who did not live there) were not allowed to travel there without special permission. This past August, however, I made my first trip there.

Bro. Gene Thompson had called me before I left for Russia, and told me that he had read about this area and asked me to try to find out what is there. So, with faith that the Lord would guide me, I caught a plane from Khabarovsk to Magadan without knowing anyone there. When I arrived, I was able to make contact with some Pentecostal believers in Magadan and obtain from them the telephone number of a brother Vadim in the city of Yagodnoe (325 miles north of Magadan). I called him, and he agreed to meet me when I arrived the next day by bus. After traveling more than 11 hours on a dirt road, I got off of the bus in Yagodnoe at 11:30 p.m.

I spent two days in the area and was able to be in service with the group in Yagodnoe. They are currently meeting in an apartment for services, but there is an empty store building on the main road in the center of town that I feel that the Lord is going to give them to use as a Church.

Meeting these people in such a remote and unknown place, I was reminded of the second verse of the old song that says, "Does the place you’re called to labor, seem so small and little known? It is great if God is in it, and He’ll not forsake His own!" Praise God for leading me as I made this fact finding mission!

Br. Dave Hamilton