Dear Ones,
 We had a wonderful week at the Vilyuisk Teachers’ Training College with our 1st year students; a great group of 34 open-hearted young people! I taught my “America History through Song” curriculum, and Mike taught Conversational English listening skills by sharing many true stories of men and women of moral and spiritual excellence, and showed 2 outstanding films; Fri. and Sat.
I was also very busy all week finishing a “hand copy” of my new “Vilyuisk Sakha Hymnal”. Luda proofed and translated the foreword and acknowledgements. I don’t have my music software with me, so I transcribed and wrote out all 32 melodies by hand. We printed 20 copies to share with believers here, and with many churches on our trip north beginning Monday.
A powerful 20-minute wind and hail storm on Monday the 11th brought much damage, and generated a single lightning strike. That lone lightning bolt made a direct hit on our town’s only communications tower and fried all telephone and Internet equipment—so we were cut-off here for 4 days. Parts were finally flown in from Yakutsk, and we’re back online.
 This has been duck week: duck soup, duck parts and potatoes…repeat daily… We did have a special treat one day of intestine soup (bequeathing quadruped undisclosed). We’re so thankful to have fresh meat and potatoes when so many have much less. Luda & Vasili’s son Alosha and Uncle Nickolay (mayor) arrived from Ügülatsi yesterday, and we continue discussing our future there. Alosha was Mike’s translator for all village evangelistic campaigns 1999 through 2002. He is now Ügülatsi’s only English teacher, including all 70 teenagers in Ügülatsi. It will be wonderful to meet and interact with them all when we get to Ügülatsi after Suuntar and Verkniviluisk in July.
At church today Mike focused on the person and work of God: the Holy Spirit; 4-hours of Biblical discovery. He examined how God’s indwelling Spirit transforms and empowers those who daily surrender their will; to bare eternal fruit. An enigma was proposed: If God supplies in quantities sufficient for a task, and each of us is endowed with His Spirit of unlimited power, authority, and wisdom—is it to “empower” a pursuit of worldly delights in spiritual cowardice? Or, is our gift of supernatural endowment for boldly advancing with joy on home and distant battlegrounds in His war for eternal souls? The teaching time ended with the powerful and revealing contrasts of Gal. 5: 16-26, and a heart-check challenge: are we free to do as we wish with “our” lives, or are we free to do whatever the Spirit asks of us (Rom. 8:12)? Then, Q&A time brought good questions.
 Our spiritual son Pastor Misha, whom God used to establish the Suuntar church, has left Yakutsk and we expect him here tomorrow evening. The first leg of our trip will be 14 hours by boat to the tiny village of Nurbah. We spend the evening there, then go a day by 4-wheel drive to Suuntar, as the river now is too perilous from Nurbah to Suuntar. Please pray as we journey and minister in the Suuntar and Verkniviluisk regions with Pastor Misha for a month. This is our most significant and challenging adventure in Siberia since 1999. We’re the guests of honor at 2 summer festivals but we look forward most to meeting so many Suuntar believers and officiating in their baptisms.
Internet access will not likely be available to us over the next 4 weeks; so this is our last weekly update until about July 18th when we hope to return to Vilyuisk. We are bringing our digital still and video cameras with us, but will leave our laptops in Vilyuisk. If and when we are able, we’ll get reports and pictures up on our web site. Please pray for divine appointments in every village.
Though our US and Russian adversaries continue to try to hinder God’s work here among us; we see His sovereign hand doing daily what He has ordained will come to pass here (Eph. 3:20). He also continues to grace us with prayer and care warriors who share our vision—we thank you!
Blessings to you all,
Diane & Michael Meagher
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