Bicycle expedition kicks off at a church in Germany. (SGA)
Slavic Gospel Association will be assisting the expedition. SGA's Joel Griffith says, "SGA's role is going to be assisting the Expedition by providing Bibles, books, and Russian-language evangelistic literature to be handed out over the course of the outreach. SGA will also be helping with rental of venues for evangelistic events when necessary."
According to Griffith, the four touring teams have a long schedule ahead of them. "The UECB bicycling evangelical teams are planning on passing through 89 towns. They'll be holding 117 evangelistic-planned events in places ranging from town squares to concert grounds, community centers, and churches."
Covering the great distance will be four sequential teams involving musicians, evangelists, counselors, journalists, and Sunday School workers.
One of the four teams will be led by prominent Russian champion bicyclist Vladimir Skovpen, who won the Soviet National Championship in 1980 only to give up competition for the sake of the Gospel.
The teams plan to bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where water taken from the Atlantic Ocean will be poured into the Pacific to symbolize the union of East and West. Rev. Kartavenko says there will be a huge variety of outreaches taking place.
There will be preaching by evangelists from all over Russia, with concerts by choirs and musical groups. Educational and other cultural activities will be held in big regional centers when possible. Public figures and sportsmen will be invited to take part as the cyclists show their skills and testify of the healthy way of life in God. As this is the official "Year of the Child" in Russia, this expedition can have a vast impact on young people as they see other youth participating and joyfully sharing their faith in Christ.
Such expeditions have been a popular missionary program with evangelical churches, especially because of their appeal to youth. Past smaller-scale bicycle expeditions have helped draw attention to the Gospel. They have also resulted in changed attitudes toward Russian Baptist churches and more open doors for dialogue with Russian authorities. SGA president Dr. Robert Provost says he is thankful for this opportunity to serve Bible-preaching churches as they reach their people for Christ.
While many believe large evangelistic events don't work anymore, Griffith says, "Russia is a vast country with a huge amount of towns, cities, and villages that have never had evangelism in that sort of scale. It's going to be quite a new thing to a lot of these cities, towns, and villages to have something like this passing through town. I really think the potential here is untapped."
Follow their progress by clicking on the link above.
