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by A/Captains Scott and Barbara Schneider –
We had a very productive and busy end to 1998. In September, we had to make a hurried move to a new region of Tbilisi. We had been living in an area fairly close to our corps in Didi Digomi. When we moved there in 1997, we had been harassed and even had some riots when we tried to start a church. The problems died down for most of 1998, but in September the harassment started escalating. We were threatened and our car was vandalized several times.
Our corps is growing and we are excited to see what the Lord is doing. We finished our first recruits class in October; seven people attended: four have become soldiers. We began another session this week. The Home League, Adult Sunday school and the Old Testament Bible study are well attended.
Youth programs include Sunday school and a Scouting and Bible quizzing program on Wednesday evenings. Our Sunday school has between 15 and 20 young children, and the Bible quizzing is attended by around 20.
Eight people attended a League of Mercy training meeting recently. We have adopted a wing of a large hospital in Digomi for our League of Mercy. We are working with another Christian fellowship in Tbilisi on this project. The goals are: to provide food, fellowship and spiritual help to the patients;. encourage attitudes of compassion and service in our corps; and to fellowship and work with other Christians.
The hospitals in Georgia normally do not provide meals for their patients, so if the patient does not have family or friends who are able to come every day and take care of them, they can and do starve to death in the hospitals. Twice a month we deliver dry goods and vegetables to the hospital and one of the hospital staff cooks for the patients. Then we go and take fresh produce and visit the patients in their rooms. The patients were very happy to have someone to talk to, read to them and pray for them.