By Natalia Antipova, family work coordinator, ELCIR

 

On October 24, 2020, ELCIR clergymen’s wives held a sisterly meeting at St. George’s Church of Koltushi, joined by local church members. The fellowship took place in a warm friendly and prayerful atmosphere. The introductions alone took around an hour. Then, Natalia Antipova led a Bible class using a printout of Glad Tidings Bible Study prepared by Mailis Janatuinen. This was followed by small group discussions where the pastors’ wives talked about the significance of their calling while the sisters in Christ from the Koltushi church touched on the issue of gossiping and what the Bible and the Small Catechism have to say about it. The program continued with psychologist Yana Kordyuchenko who gave an educational, dynamic, and even fun talk about age-related changes in women and related issues. Toward the end of our meeting, Irina Sorokina taught a master class on baking the Viennese strudel and had us all bake one. Then we had tea with the wonderful dessert and even treated Bishop Laptev to it who happened to be in the church at the moment purely by chance. The meeting ended in prayer as we prayed for one another, for children, and for all our Ingrian Church.