7 Sep 2017
An outreach trip to Kerch took place in August, 1st – 12th, when a team of volunteers could minister reconstructing the Methodist church in the city. Missionaries from Volgograd, Donetsk, Kerch, Sochi, Stavropol worked for the glory of God. They removed the old plaster, re-plastered and mudded the walls, painted the ceiling and walls. The result of two weeks work was a completely renovated large room on the ground floor of the Church where in the future they plan to have a café for people to chat after the church services.
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After the reconstruction all the volunteers took part in the second Moto-quest “Heroes of our time” with a topic of knighthood (bikers are the contemporary knights). This year the goal of the quest was also sharing the gospel, and so the last challenges for the motorcyclists were in the Church building.
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This year only 7 bikers came. Three of them had taken part in the first quest and were very happy to meet us again. We, the managers, divided the participants into two teams to travel around Kerch.
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There were five stages of the quest and in different parts of the city there were two of volunteers waiting for the teams to come and giving them tasks, evaluating their abilities and sending to the next stages. This year the bikers practiced the following abilities of the knights:
– strength when the participants had to throw a car tyre;
– skills, hammering a nail with a special hammer made of two tubes with a hole, which made the task much more difficult;
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– abilities of their “iron horses” when Moto-the knights were asked to ride the “snake”.
Knowledge of the mechanism of the motorcycle helped participants to solve a crossword puzzle and learn the key word “MEEKNESS” which is an important quality of a knight. Motorcyclists also made a beautiful puzzle with a picture of a knight on a motorcycle. On the other side of it they found a verse from the Proverbs of Solomon 16:32: “… he that rules his spirit is better than he that takes a city..” The last step was on the church property – there the participants had to build the highest castle of cardboard boxes. After that the ability to compliment two princesses was tested (the roles of the princesses were played by two girls participating in the outreach trip). Then mothers of princesses chose the most courteous and attentive knight.
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After all the challenges we had a wonderful dinner thanks to UMC South district superintendent Irina Mitina and the United Methodist church of Kerch and pastor Vitaliy Shelkovich.
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Also we had prepared a memorable thematic gifts given to the most agile, strong and distinguished participants. And the new members were also awarded with the Bikers’ Bibles (New Testament with the testimonies and photographs of bikers-Christians). During the meal we talked on the topic of heroism, if heroes still exist. In the end, no one could not name any. Irina Mitina told her testimony about why Jesus Christ became her hero and sang a beautiful song.
Text & photo: Katerina Tokareva,
the 2nd-year student of the Moscow Theological Seminary of the UMC
Translate by Katerina Tokareva and Ekaterina Ozornova