Help and hope in Siberia

Teams of volunteers regularly visit Gornaya Shoriya to participate in outreaches, organise children’s programmes and talk with people as a part of church projects.

Practical help

In June 2024, several churches from Novosibirsk and other Siberian regions organised an outreach to the area. Unlike previous occasions, this trip also included practical assistance as there had been flooding in the spring.

Andrei* (Russia), one of the volunteers, explained that the water level in the river had risen significantly, completely flooding one village. “It was necessary to provide practical help to the residents of the village. Water flooded houses and destroyed buildings and fences,” he said.  

Almost all residents said that their property was seriously damaged by the natural disaster. “The water was half the height of the house. It ruined sheds in my yard and also walls in the house,” one woman told the team.

In response, the volunteers helped practically and shared about the hope found in God. “We cleaned, restored, built, moved furniture and renovated. This was a great help to the local church and a good testimony to local people. They felt that they were not abandoned, that they were needed,” Andrei said.

Overcoming challenges

While one group of volunteers was involved in practical ministry, another ran children's programmes in two further villages. “There were even more children than we expected. There were also parents, who later thanked us for the programme,” Liliya* (Russia) said. “About 60 children came to our programmes.”

The theme of the programmes was Fort Boyard, with the children completing challenges in a fun way and learning how to overcome difficulties by the example of Job and his trust in God.

The story of Job was also relevant to the volunteers, who faced numerous challenges during the outreach, such as with one Shor family with five children, with whom the team had been in contact for several years. During the children’s programme the woman’s husband was hospitalised. A few days after the children’s programme, the volunteers learnt that the man had died. The team continues to pray for this family, that the Lord would comfort them and that the biblical truths they heard would help them to get through this tragedy.

Remote outreach

During the outreach, volunteers had the opportunity to visit remote villages to share the gospel with local people.

“We travelled to one village by boat; you can only get there by water," Vova* (Russia) said. We distributed solar-powered audio players with pre-recorded Bible stories. We also donated books in Shor and Russian languages, and solar-powered lanterns as humanitarian aid.

“In these remote, hard-to-reach areas people lead hopeless lives. You could see in their eyes that they needed some kind of hope and we tried to talk about the hope that God gives.”