Permanent Impact May 2009

. . . a newsletter to keep you up-to-date with Sculley family adventures in Russia and beyond

We're willing to go . . . are you willing to send us?

What's the latest?

Equipping and encouraging

God has given us lots of great opportunities to encourage, to equip, and to be equipped. Here are some of the highlights for us this past month:

• Encouraging . . . God frequently brings people to us who need His encouragement - here are a few specific stories from this past month . . . M and the girls have all spent time with a young boy who is learning English with our good friend. His family are not believers yet, but his mom wanted him to learn the Bible and spend time with Christians. It is wonderful to see how God uses the children to bring encouragement and joy to this boy and his family. P had the opportunity to serve at a children's cancer hospital along with a small team from the Nizhny Vineyard. Big brother as he is to five, the team leader tells us he knew how to reach even the most reluctant children's hearts. One of our hopes is to bring encouragement to congregations in the body of Christ, and we were able to this more intentionally this month by visiting the "Healing" church, which is lead by close friends of ours. C and Karen had the opportunity to encourage families at a celebration of Family Day for the "Association of Large Families and Invalid Children."

• Equipping . . . Our whole family participated in teaching a group of young women from a local university how to prepare an American meal, at the invitation of their teacher, who is a friend of ours. The group did really well following American recipes, and after sharing the meal together, there was a lot of fun and laughter as our kids taught them how to play "Apples to Apples", one of our family favorites. Karen has had the honor of preaching at the Nizhny Vineyard again, and teaching at the student group at the Medical Institute dorm. She is currently teaching a series of weekly prayer classes at the Nizhny Vineyard, and preaching again the first Sunday in June. We've been delighted that some of the resources we brought with us have borne such good fruit - Sheri Carr's "Fearless Now" worship CD, Jeff & Shaunti Feldhahn's "For Men Only" & "For Women Only", and Elizabeth Crist's "Get Real About . . . Relationships" book.

• Being equipped . . . P is preparing for final exams as he finishes his second semester at the University of Nizhny Novgorod and is preparing for his transition to Le Tourneau U in Texas in a couple of months' time. J, M, C, E, and K successfully completed another year at the Sculley Academy and are excited about the summer ahead. J spent a day at a local high school, and M & J have been going lap swimming twice a week with some close friends. Karen is also studying for final exams as she wraps up her year at Linguistic U. But beyond formal studies such as all of these, God continually equips us and teaches us through others, through circumstances, through life. We each have a lot to learn!

Nizhny Vineyard . . . Dave preaching with Eva translating; Kathy & Artyom leading the worship band; Angela praying the monthly birthday blessings (a wonderful tradition that helps build relationships in the body); Karen preaching with Asya translating; ministry time

Easter . . . the children sang beautifully, assisted by Larissa, Julia, and Eva; Angie sang some stirring songs from her native Namibia; Yana and C did a little Easter egg hunt for a few friends and our gang - indoors thanks to the huge snowstorm on Easter Sunday!

Teachings . . . medical student Christian group; prayer class series

A typical evening at the soaking group at our apartment . . .

Paul's birthday . . . including blessings at the Nizhny Vineyard and at the soaking group two weeks in a row; Marina translated her prophetic word for Paul and read it in both English and Russian; the whole group danced in a circle around Paul and sang a traditional birthday song - much fun!

The "Healing" church, lead by our close friends Andrey & Lena . . . held in Vasya & Valya's house in nearby Doskina; a passionate growing house church

Cooking class with the sweet group from Linguistic U

Out and about in Nizhny Novgorod . . . beside the canal and rivers; the Kremlin; one of the many beautiful Orthodox temples; everywhere we see contrasts between old and new; Victory Day parade; "walk-thru" McDonald's (instead of drive-thru)

Karen's Russian class . . . teacher Anna and our team at the Russian language Olympiad (our team won, thanks mainly to the 2nd year Chinese students!); farewell party for Nadia, Sveta, Sasha, Llobal, and Michelle; final outing to the "Large Families & Disabled Children's Association" organized by Oxana. In addition to our group singing some songs and teaching a few games, Karen was invited as a mother in a large family to speak to the group about family traditions, emphasizing everyday things that we do together - putting God first, eating, praying, reading the Bible, spending time in nature, reading books. This has been a wonderful experience, studying Russian along with this diverse group, especially our various outings along the way.

Other snapshots from our lives . . . Anton styling Paul's locks; our monthly rent-paying often turns into a 3 or 4 hour chat with landlady Natasha and her mom

Thanks for all your prayers, encouragement, and support! We love you and appreciate you!

Our contact information:
local U.S. number that will reach us in Russia: 678-389-9379
Russian apartment phone #: +7-910-432-81-77
facebook: Karen Sculley
snail mail: (print this out and stick it on the envelope)
RUSSIA
603093 Г. Нижний Новгопод
Ул. Родионова
Д. 180/1 Кв. 23
Sculley family

Financial Partnership Opportunities:
We'd like to offer you a variety of opportunities each month . . . let us know if you'd like to partner with us in any of these ways. THANK YOU for your support . . . it is a joy to walk this road together with you!
• Sculley Family support
o Our current support level is 75% of our financial needs through September 2009 - praise God!
• Leadership Development
o Thanks again to your generous support, we have been able to help some leaders with financial needs in their lives. We've also continued to expand our little Russian library, which is still frequented by several people each week.
We trust God to provide everything we need to do all that He wants us to do in and through us. If you would like to invest what God has given you in Kingdom activity, through financial partnership, here's how (all financial contributions are 100% tax deductible in the U.S.A., and are processed through the Atlanta Vineyard, our sending church to whom we are accountable):
• automated giving (automatic monthly deductions from your checking or savings account - click here for the form - be sure to write "Sculley - Russia" in the space under "recommended giving"). Once you print out and fill in the form, please mail it to the address indicated at the bottom of the form.
• online giving via PayPal (www.atlantavineyard.com — just mention “Sculley - Russia” on the online giving comment line)

Praise Reports:
• Praise God for His blessing on the prayer class series so far. About 20 people have participated so far, and God has greatly encouraged everyone's faith. We thank God for stirring up hunger in His people to grow in prayer.
• Praise God for continuing to move powerfully through the soaking group every Friday evening as Misha & Larissa lead us in seeking God's face because He is worthy to be sought. This group, attended by people from many different churches, has become very dear to all of our hearts. The twins especially enjoy praying for others in the group as they receive a special touch from the Lord.
• We praise the Lord for God's faithfulness in every aspect of our lives, and give all the glory to Him.

Please pray for us:
• Please pray for the Wolf family - Nizhny Vineyard pastor Dave, Kathy, and Stephanie - Dave's mom passed away last week after a battle with cancer, so they returned to the U.S. for a second visit just a few weeks after they had returned from an earlier visit. The family will be there until mid-July.
• Please pray for Youth Sunday at the Nizhny Vineyard, June 7th . . . Karen is preaching, and after church we are organizing a "Mystery Adventure" for the youth, which involves a very long walk and lots of relational stuff and food and other things essential to the care and nurture of youth :) Pray that each youth who comes will encounter Jesus Christ personally and that relationships would be built and strengthened.
• Please pray for the continuing prayer class series Karen is teaching. These will continue through the end of June every Wednesday night.
• Please pray for P's final exams, and that necessary paperwork will be prepared in a timely manner.

We pray for you, too - please let us know your specific prayer requests. It's such a joy to pray for one another! We have all of our email and facebook friends' names written on our prayer wall in the kitchen.

Our vision:
• mobilize prayer
• promote unity in the body of Christ
• raise up leaders

We appreciate your prayers so much! Thank you!

“The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” (1 Samuel 30:24)

In Russia with love,
Paul, Karen, P, J, M, C, E, & K Sculley

"Whoever believes in [Jesus], as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" (John 7:38)

follow your training schedule

“The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:25 – 26)

“Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today.” (Exodus 14:13)

It’s so easy to look at someone else’s life, especially one that looks appealing, and wonder if we’re on the right track. God has crafted a training schedule that He’s lovingly personalized and tailored for each of us. The creative nature of our heavenly Father guarantees that each of our pathways will be unique, just as every fingerprint and snowflake is distinct.

There was a student who turned in an assignment to his professor. The professor carefully examined the work, noting the excellence of the endeavor, attention to detail, and diligence which had been applied. “But,” he hesitated, “this was not the assignment I gave you!” No matter how well we do something, it doesn’t really count for much if we’re doing someone else’s assignment. “Well done, good and faithful servant” is reserved for those who are faithful to do what their master has entrusted them to do.

When we don’t know what to do, the Lord tells us to “seek him,” “stand firm,” and “wait quietly.” At times of indecision, we need to resist the temptations of fear, impatience, and presumption. We have nothing to fear – if God is for us, who can be against us? We must combat the urge to impatiently push ahead and “do something” just for the sake of activity or to keep up with someone else. We are walking on perilously thin ice when we act presumptuously.

We need only to stand firm and wait on the Lord. He will bring us exactly what we need at precisely the time we need it, whether revelation, reason, rest, resources, or relationships. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Jesus said that “only one thing is needed” – sitting “at the Lord’s feet, listening” (Luke 10:39, 42). When we’re in that posture, expectantly waiting, God will make it clear. His training schedule is always best.

Permanent Impact April 2009

. . . a newsletter to keep you up-to-date with Sculley family adventures in Russia and beyond

We're willing to go . . . are you willing to send us?

What's the latest?

Spring has sprung!

Spring has definitely sprung in Nizhny Novgorod, and although there is still snow on the ground, it's mostly off to the sides of the roads and paths now. We are looking forward to the imminent emergence of leaves and buds! Spring is a season of new growth, and that seems to be the season we're finding ourselves in, too. God is bringing abundant life and growth as we sow spiritual seeds and tend the soil of people's lives.

As much as we like sharing pictures with you, it's hard to capture on film how we live our lives. When people ask us what we are doing here, they seem to sometimes expect to hear a list of ministries or accomplishments. What we are doing is simply living our lives, and as we live among the people, God does stuff. May He always receive all the glory! We do all the normal stuff like study and work and chores and play and sing and pray and laugh and shop and use technology and cook and clean. But as we do normal stuff, God does His part, which is always amazing and wonderful and good. It's like what He did with the loaves and fishes - He multiplies the little we have to bring an abundant Kingdom harvest. As we live in readiness, God either brings people to us or us to people - each person is a gift from God.

Every Friday night is the Nizhny Vineyard soaking group at our place, skillfully and sensitively lead by Misha and Larissa . . . again, hard to capture on film, but we can at least show you part of the shoe pile :) Coats form a mountain on the girls' bed. There's always a plethora of goodies to snack on, as drinking tea is an essential part of any meeting. God has blessed this group with a 300% increase in average attendance over the last year. A few times we've followed the evening with an all-nighter interceding with some persevering prayer people (and lots of coffee).

Karen taught a series of prayer classes in February and March at our apartment. This eager group was such a joy to be with, as we explored Kingdom prayer, praying in unity, prayer personalities, and learned to pray Scripture in song in Russian. We're gearing up to teach a new prayer series at the Nizhny Vineyard, starting soon . . .

Our home is blessed by the presence of guests 3 or 4 times each week, and we usually just eat a bunch, talk about life, and pray with those whom God sends to us. One of our regular visitors is our good friend Anton - he's 19 years old, and was seriously injured last month, literally to within an inch of his life, when his insides were crushed by some machinery. His spleen was destroyed, and he spent a few weeks in hospital. We praise God for preserving his life and helping him to recover. Please pray with us for his healing and regarding his future, especially regarding work - he is not able to return to his truck driving job because of his injuries. He's like a son and brother to us.

Paul and the boys help set up and tear down all the equipment at the Nizhny Vineyard every weekend. P also runs slides for the overhead and keeps our girls in line. On one recent weekend, the Nizhny Vineyard had to meet on Saturday due to building rental issues, so some friends invited us to visit Jesus Embassy, the largest evangelical church in Nizhny. We returned there a few days later to attend an Alex Patlis concert - very good. Interestingly, we had met him 11 years ago when he was in Atlanta with the band, "New Jerusalem."

The Russian Vineyard national conference in Perm last month was a wonderful gathering! Here are some glimpses from the train journey, conference, and times with friends. Scroll down to the section on "leadership development" to read how your support helped send some people to this.

After the national conference, our family and Yana stayed an extra day so we could visit the Perm Vineyard. It was March 8th, which is Women's Day, one of the biggest celebrations of the year. The men in the church even got up and sang some songs for the women, much to everyone's delight.

P, J, and M spend a lot of time with their good friends, Roma and Danik. Here they are in between games of Monopoly celebrating Danik's birthday . . .

We are always on the lookout for good resources for Russian believers, and recently found one of our all-time favorite devotionals, Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest" online in Russian. We have begun to email the daily selection to our Russian speaking friends around the world. It's such an encouraging and challenging devotional! In case you don't have a copy of this classic yourself, the English version is online at http://myutmost.org/

Karen's Russian lessons have included a few special events recently - we celebrated Maslenitsa (also known as Pancake Tuesday in some countries) by taking a blini (pancake) masterclass and enjoying songs and games with a folk group at the Linguistic University. We were given an informative tour of the Maxim Gorky museum and studied his play "На дне". In late March we entered an international music festival at the Pedagogical University and sang 3 songs in Russian. Teacher Anna and our little group received an award for "heartfelt performance of a Russian classic"!

Thanks for all your prayers, encouragement, and support! We love you and appreciate you!

Our contact information:
local U.S. number that will reach us in Russia: 678-389-9379
Russian apartment phone #: +7-910-432-81-77
facebook: Karen Sculley
snail mail: (print this out and stick it on the envelope)
RUSSIA
603093 Г. Нижний Новгопод
Ул. Родионова
Д. 180/1 Кв. 23
Sculley family

Financial Partnership Opportunities:
We'd like to offer you a variety of opportunities each month . . . let us know if you'd like to partner with us in any of these ways. THANK YOU for your support . . . it is a joy to walk this road together with you!

Sculley Family support
Our current support level is 75% of our financial needs through September 2009 - praise God!

Leadership Development
Thanks to your generous support, we were able to send 23 Nizhny Vineyard-ites (including 7 Sculleys) to the Russian Vineyard National Conference in Perm last month. It was a huge blessing to each one to attend this wonderful time of relationship, equipping, envisioning, and encouragement. Around 120 people attended the conference from all 8 Russian Vineyards plus the U.S. and England. We were delighted that the main evangelism tool taught and practiced was prophetic ministry - many received equipping, impartation, faith, and personal ministry. We had a great time connecting with old and new friends in between sessions. The Perm Vineyard did a fantastic job hosting everyone - they are a vibrant and thriving congregation.

We trust God to provide everything we need to do all that He wants us to do in and through us. If you would like to invest what God has given you in Kingdom activity, through financial partnership, here's how (all financial contributions are 100% tax deductible in the U.S.A., and are processed through the Atlanta Vineyard, our sending church to whom we are accountable):
automated giving (automatic monthly deductions from your checking or savings account - click here for the form - be sure to write "Sculley - Russia" in the space under "recommended giving"). Once you print out and fill in the form, please mail it to the address indicated at the bottom of the form.
online giving via PayPal (www.atlantavineyard.com — just mention “Sculley - Russia” on the online giving comment line)

Praise Reports:
* Each Friday night we have the privilege and joy of hosting the soaking group, which continues to be a source of life and healing and encouragement to the 30 or 40 people who cram into our living room. Prayer is a team sport as we like to say, and it's always good to pray with others who are seeking God's face.
* we've had the joy of doing some prayer training classes with an enthusiastic group of believers
* we've hosted a couple of all-nights of prayer, a beautiful time of interceding for the city and for one another
* God's provision in our lives - in His great faithfulness, He has given us everything we need to do what He's asked us to do. When 7 of us attended the national conference, God provided a surrogate family for P - the wonderful Chavdar clan! Part of our financial support comes from Paul's "tentmaking" (via the internet :)) and despite the financial crisis, God has continued to provide for us through this route. We are so thankful to the Lord for this, and for each of the individuals and churches who so generously support us!

Please pray for us:
* for God's heart, direction, and timing in everything.
* teaching / preaching: spring prayer class series we're teaching at the Nizhny Vineyard; Karen will be preaching on May 3rd at the Nizhny Vineyard - Youth Sunday, which is usually very well attended by many students from a variety of universities
* for God's grace on P as he does exams this week, finishing up his first semester at the University of Nizhny Novgorod.
* The Nizhny Vineyard is sending a small team to Derbent, a city in southern Russia, next month to visit the Vineyard church there. Please pray for Misha, Larissa, Karen, and a couple of other people who are praying about going. The purpose of the journey is to encourage the believers, do some prayer teaching, and pray for the church and the city. Please pray for our preparation, and that the Lord's plans would come forth for this strategic journey.

We pray for you, too - please let us know your specific prayer requests. It's such a joy to pray for one another! We have all of our email and facebook friends' names written on our prayer wall in the kitchen.

Our vision:
* mobilize prayer
* promote unity in the body of Christ
* raise up leaders

We appreciate your prayers so much! Thank you!

“The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” (1 Samuel 30:24)

In Russia with love,
Paul, Karen, P, J, M, C, E, & K Sculley

"I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!" (Philippians 3:10 - 11)