09/05/07

***New-Right click on the following mp3 audio files and click "Save As" and save the file, then click "Open" to hear Angela speak English phrases and their Russian equivalents:
Russian1 - Russian2 - Russian3 - Russian4

The Hunters apartment in Ekaterinburg Russia

A Journey of Love and Faith

by Angela Hunter

 With great joy we would like to lay the memorial stones of the righteous acts of the Lord by telling the story of our journey of love and faith among the unique and captivating people of Russia.  This is a story of God’s faithfulness.

 In 1999, with the support of the SBC, International Mission Board, we packed up and set out to live in Moscow and study Russian.  By the fall of 2000, we were approved to move to Ekaterinburg, Russia, where we lived and served through the summer of 2004.  During our time in Ekaterinburg, a city of nearly 2,000,000 people, nestled on the east-side of the Ural Mountains of Russia, we were impacted greatly by the love and perseverance of the Russian believers.  While we were there to help them, we were also the beneficiaries of their sacrificial love and devotion to the Lord Jesus.  From the moment we arrived, having stepped off the airplane into the crisp coldness of Siberia, four children in tow, and having made it through Customs (wondering if our luggage, comprised of everything we thought we needed, had made it), we were finally greeted with the warm embrace of our new friend and pastor, Sergei Chupak.  This dear Christian brother and his wife Nadia, along with their three children, cared for us as their own family as we settled into our new home in Russia. 

 The most simple, everyday occurrences of life are interwoven by the Master’s hand to become His beautiful masterpiece.  When it’s happening, it often feels like everyday life (because it is), but He is an exciting and certainly mysterious God, who does as He pleases.  The design is never the same, thus the journey so exciting.  Our simple call is to know and love Him wherever we may be.  Sometimes He will use the most unusual things to accomplish His purpose.  And so it happened, one wintry evening right outside our living room window as it was growing dusk.  The kids were on the sofa enjoying a cartoon, and I had lost track of the time, forgetting to close the blinds.  Suddenly, Samuel called out to me that someone was looking through our window.  I ran to the window, fearing whom it might be peeping into our home, and to my surprise there standing on a very big mound of snow were three children, watching ever so intently our TV!  I was so excited I could hardly get my snow gear on fast enough to go outside and greet the children.  When I finally came around the building, the sweet children were startled and began apologizing.  They were very surprised when I invited them to come in and watch cartoons.  This visit was the first of many with these children and their teenage cousins and friends, three of whom came to know Christ several months later. 

 From the mound of snow that day, I made the acquaintance of a young girl named Anya, who was named after her grandmother, whom she called “Baba Anya.”   I remember the first time I met her.  Baba Anya broke into tears as she mournfully told me of her daughter’s (Anya’s mother’s) death the year before.  Soon after that, when I was on my way to Baba Anya’s home, her neighbors shook their heads at me, warning me that Baba Anya was an alcoholic.  Yet, she was always kind to me and open to talk about the things of God.  At just the right time, the Lord would bind us together with loving ties of human kindness, opening the way for Baba Anya and her granddaughter to come and study the Bible in our home.  Little did we know that Baba  Anya would soon be ushered into the Lord’s presence.  She died on Easter morning of 2002 and was buried in an unknown grave.  Baba Anya gave her life to Christ just six months before her death and we celebrate her new life with Him, for we know that the grave has won no victory!  Young Anya moved to the country, and we never saw her again, but we know the seed of the gospel was also planted in her tender heart, and I pray that one day she, too, will come to know Christ.

 The fall of 2003 began a new season in our children’s lives as they became more fluent in the Russian language and were able to communicate with their friends.  This came as a direct answer to prayer.  I recalled how earlier in the year, Samuel sat in the kitchen and poured out his heart to God, believing that God would work in the hearts of his classmates and help him to have friends.  As we prayed for faith, we felt that the Lord wanted us to pray specifically.  We asked God to bring salvation to Samuel’s whole class and that we would see at least one person come to know Jesus by “this time next year.”  Day by day, we began to see God’s intervention in Samuel’s behalf.  Samuel’s teacher, Olga, suggested that we have a party and invite all of Samuel’s class.  Easter was only two weeks away, so we quickly organized a party and sent out invitations.  We were shocked when over twenty children showed up to our Easter party!  It was a big hit, highlighted by our friends from church, Olesya and Sveta, who helped conduct the games and gave a special presentation of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.  Samuel and Josiah completed the school year with budding friendships, and by the time the new school year arrived, they were already speaking the Russian language with confidence. 

 From the small recording studio of our home, set up in the storage room we called an office, Trey spent many hours with our friend and brother in Christ, Pasha, designing and recording music, preparing and translating interactive Bible study materials for small group worship.  We were especially encouraged when our local church body began coming together in small groups to go through the Experiencing God study, and soon several families began opening their homes throughout the city to start house churches.  Many believers also opened their homes to host English classes in their communities, praying for the salvation of their friends as we used the Bible as our greatest English resource.

 In the fall, I also began a new season of ministry as I was given the opportunity to teach English in our children’s school.  At this time God brought a very special person into my life.  Her name was Nina.  She was one of Samuel’s school teachers.  Often we would find a chance between classes to sit and have a cup of tea.  One day Nina shared with me that she had a cancerous tumor, and her doctors were concerned for her because she had put off surgery.  Her father had died from the very same thing.  As she related these things to me, I felt the Spirit saying to me, “Pray for her, that she may be healed!”  I asked her if she had heard about Jesus’ power to heal.  She eagerly took the Bible that I handed her, and her eyes were wide as I showed her several passages in which Jesus healed the sick.  In the days following that conversation, Nina began to read the Bible and ask more and more questions.  When a house church began to meet near Nina’s home, I invited her to go with me.  Our dear Russian sisters in Christ embraced her with such love that Nina’s heart was soon drawn to Jesus. 

 Throughout the winter months Trey began to sense God’s calling our family back to the States to take yet another step in our journey of faith.  As Oswald Chambers wrote, “God does not tell you what He is going to do:  He reveals to you who He is.” (Jan 2)  God was calling us to obey Him with glad and reckless joy.  “Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.” (Feb 6)  “Are we prepared for God to do in us all that He separated us for?  And then after His work is done in us, are we prepared to separate ourselves to God even as Jesus did?…It will cost everything that is not of God in us.” (Feb 9)   “When the inspiration of God does come, it comes with such miraculous power that we are able to arise from the dead and do the impossible thing.” (Feb 16)

 In my own heart, God was calling me to bring all that I was, all that I had, and all whom I loved, and simply place them in His hands, and with this act came amazing peace.  As the Psalmist wrote, “Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.  I don’t concern myself with matters too great or awesome for me.  But I have stilled and quieted myself, just as a small child is quiet with its mother.  Yes, like a small child is my soul within me” (Ps 131:1-2).  Not long after this, God allowed me to experience one of the greatest joys of my life as Nina came to me, and I witnessed her prayer as she received Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior!  It was just before Easter, April 4, 2004.  One day, shortly after Nina’s salvation, I was standing in the kitchen marveling over the transformation I had seen in Nina’s life, when the Lord reminded me of the prayer that Samuel and I had prayed the year before.  I ran to get our calendar and could only find the date of our Easter party, which was April 18, 2003.  The significance of this date sunk in, as I counted back two weeks to the day that I believe Samuel and I prayed for the salvation of at least one person in his class—April 4, 2003, exactly one year to the day of Nina’s salvation.  Isn’t our God AWESOME!!!  But that’s not all!  On May 18, 2004, one of Samuel’s classmates gave his heart to Jesus!  And soon after that, Nina’s daughter, Natasha was saved, too!  Nina had her surgery on the Friday before we were scheduled to leave Russia.  The doctors were amazed at how smoothly her surgery went that they even discharged her the next day so she could go to church.  She has since recovered and is cancer free. 

 With each step of obedience, we have come to see God’s incredible timing, His incredible leading, and His incredible provision.  And yet, each day we have only known what we needed to know that day.   On June 16, 2004, we came back to the States knowing only one thing—God had given Trey a vision of opening a coffee house that would be used as a place for sharing the hope of Jesus and become a sending base to the nations.  Beyond that, we didn’t know where we would live or how we would even eat.  God was stretching us, but it didn’t take long for us to realize how lavishly our Father in heaven pours out His grace on those He loves.  Within two months of our returning, God provided a house for us to live in, furniture, clothes, dishes, linens— everything that we had parted with in Russia was given to us, EVERYTHING to the tiniest detail.  My heart is overflowing with the bountiful blessings that God has heaped on our family.  We lived with no salary or earned income for nearly six months, during which time God was gently leading to perfect the vision He placed in Trey’s heart so many months before to open the coffee house.  This vision was confirmed when the elders in my family’s church approached Trey one day, and offered to him to take the store-front of the church building and two spacious rooms and turn it into a coffee shop.  Not only did they offer the space, but they also came out and worked many hours with Trey in getting the coffee shop ready.  Café Nouveau opened for business mid-December 2004. 

 Living in America has opened a new chapter in our lives, where we continue to walk by faith and not by sight, yet in a whole different way.  Enjoying the privilege of homeschooling has kept me busy, as well as the birth of our fifth child, Elijah, in August 2005.  Again and again, God has allowed us to come to the end of ourselves and our abilities and our resources.  We are convinced that only when we put full reliance on God will we see the full extent of His power and faithfulness.  God has promised to take care of us, and we really are safe in His hands.  “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it” (1 Thes 5:23). 

 Our memories are rich.  We are filled with hope that God will grant our heart’s desire in allowing us to return to Russia, establishing a ministry base there, from which we can train and equip Russian teams to reach the people in their city for Christ.  One of the exciting ways that we envision this to happen is by purchasing a facility in order to begin a coffee house, which would soon be self-supporting.  Such a base would offer financial support for the livelihood of the Russian believers involved as well as provide them a place for sharing their faith with those in their community.  These are exciting and faith building times for us as we joyfully anticipate seeing all whom God raises up to “invest” in the ministry opportunities that stand before us.

 As the Lord has provided for our needs through Trey’s job and a place to live in Tennessee, we will be living here at this time, while traveling to and from Russia.  We are part of Grace Community Church in Nashville, TN, where the Lord has united us with a family, who is beginning mission work in the city of Novokuznetsk, Russia.  Our first trip back to Russia is scheduled for January 2007.  As God provides the funds necessary to go, we will go!  If the Lord is leading you or your church to give financially in any way, we will place your gifts in a missions account for our on-going ministries in Russia.  (If you would like to receive a receipt for tax purposes, please just let us know.)  Please write to us if you would like to receive regular updates on our family life, ministry, and the details and prayer requests of the families who will partner with us. 

Love in Christ,

Trey and Angela Hunter
135 Clyde Wix Rd
Westmoreland, TN  37186

Email:  trinityhunter@fastmail.us