GYM's Work
Over the past 16 years, hundreds of children have passed through the GYM ministry. This place is a shelter for broken and lost. In this place children get to hear the gospel and their life is not the same anymore. With your support and prayers this ministry can continiue carrying the good news and bring hope to the local children. In it's time those children will go out and make big difference in peoples life.
Art therapy as a tool to reach out, June 2022
Two new classes opened this month at the GYM - English and Art Therapy. English is held for both children and teenagers separately. About 7 teenagers came to the English class, and 12 children.
Art therapy is attended by both parents and teenagers. It is a great opportunity to work with parents and influence them too. So far, there were meetings where parents opened up and shared their feelings and got support from Art therapist Arina. Nowadays, there are more teenagers coming in order to get answers and to be able to be freed from the things that bother them. It is only beginning, we pray that through this ministry God will bring many more parents and teenagers to Himself.
Children's day, June 2022
On June 5, there was a "Children's Day" event at the GYM. It was a maritime-themed event. There was a program, games and fellowship prepared. In the program, there were games-quests about GYM, and then children had to look for treasure around and this treasure was ice cream for each. It was just a simple game but our aim was to teach them.
All of the programs were geared towards teaching the children how to work as a team. An example of a terrific team building concept is Christ himself. We have been looking at the scripture story of how Jesus built a team and how that team impacted the whole world. In this way, we want children to understand, what a real team is and through such activities they discover their gifts and are able to serve and develop effectively.
Valentine’s Day, February 2022
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The GYM’ volunteers prepared an interesting program for teens and young adults, Valentine’s Day event. This time, the youth meeting was held in an unusual way. Boys and girls were separated into two rooms to feel more relaxed, so that each group could ask questions and not worry about other gender. The moderators of this event were Maxim-for boys, and Arina for girls (husband and wife, team members of GYM).
In advance, there was a link sent on What’s App to participants where they could write any question or life stories that were bothering them. It was anonymous. There were about 25 questions and life stories. The questions ranged from how to find a life partner to how to cope with abuse.
During the discussion time, participants parsed and answered the questions. Also, during the sharing, we learned that some guys were exposed to sexual violence, but carefully hid it, and some already at a young age became parents.
We went through each question together, prayed over them, and many of them opened up and asked for prayer support and for their spiritual support and guidance. Many received answers to their troubling questions. The GYM volunteers keep on praying and ministering to every young person who attends GYM.
New ministry, new opportunities for ladies. February, 2022.
One more ministry started in the GYM. The leader of the group is Arina who is a member of GYM’s team and a leader in the youth ministry. Women's meeting group is dedicated for girls. Here girls meet to learn about the principles of God's character as well as topics that are good for the general development of a person. These are topics such as: finances, health, relationship in the family, relationship with friends. The purpose of these meetings is for each girl to know her purpose from God and to be able to develop her gifts and talents for God.
These kinds of meetings are necessary nowadays, many girls are being left, or face difficulty in their families, some girls do not even have opportunity to learn about simple things from their parents due to religion or lack of attention and GYM is the place for such children to learn and develop.
Spiritual impact, July, 2022.
GYM hosted a volleyball competition between the GYM team and teams from the city. The participants were students from 2 local schools and a sports complex in the city. The game was held in several stages and took over a month.
The team of the Sports School won the competition. The students want to continue to cooperate, communicate and develop their skills in the future too.
When there was an awarding, the spiritual coordinator of GYM- Evgeny had an opportunity to share a word with the teams. He talked about the importance of having peace, love, compassion, forgiveness for each other which are so rare nowadays.
Team building, July 2022.
GYM volunteer's team went to the mountains to spend some time together, socialise build close relationships and serve the team of young helpers. Because no, there are not only believers, but also nonbelievers among the team. The time spent together was amazing. The team had bonding games together, ate, had a good time, and at the end, there was good fellowship. The team was divided into small teams and talked about God's great love and God's calling to people of faith. The team reflected about the principles and rules of a healthy team, rules and how to serve people and God.
The teams had a good time together. Most importantly, it is very effective in the ministry. Praise God for everything!
Summer Camp 2021
Due to the pandemic, we have less opportunity for quality fellowship with children and youth at the Gym. But we never stopped praying and looking for opportunities to build closer relationship with youth and share God’s Word. God showed us that we can organize summer camp by gathering with youth to talk about relevant topics. We spent four evenings discussing very important topics for youth people, such as LGBT community, dating Relationships, magics and spell, and the last discussion was about Life in God. All of our lectures based on the Bible and we tried to show God’s perspective on a certain topic. We created a safe environment where everyone could feel comfortable and openly ask any questions. We believe that the meeting led young people to deep reflection and helped in their spiritual growth. We pray they will use what they learned in their lives.
Training of new helpers.
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GYM is expanding its ministry opportunities in order to share the gospel and teach young people different skills. One of them is training young people to become confident leaders.
The projects aim is to collect volunteers from the GYM comers and train them in different spheres. In February there was a new team of 6 people, who wanted to actively participate in the life and the development of GYM. This team includes 6 people from both youth and teenagers. There were already several meetings where the guys were introduced to the vision of the GYM and the overall work. The guys in this team are not believers, a large percentage are Muslims. But they want to develop and there is a good opportunity to influence them more. This team will help both in the organization of the events and in the development of the media ministry in the GYM. Now the guys will go through a little training, and in the future will put their knowledge into practice. Meanwhile the main volunteers of the GYM will be praying and working with those new helpers being involved in their lives and sharing the gospel and being a testimony for them.
Hawaii Party
GYM held Hawaii party in August 1st to share God’s love to the youth. There were also youth from the local church that helped to organize the party and build relationship with each other. Except for fun activities, there were some serious topics that touched areas like life priorities and taking responsibility over your life.
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GYM's Birthday
The GYM celebrated its 17th year. During these 17 years, more than one generation has passed through GYM. Many of the kids who came in their young age already have children of their own. There have been a large number of ministries and clubs and through all of this, people have heard about God.
Every teacher and volunteer tried to use every opportunity to bring the Good News to the children, since this is our main goal.
The GYM birthday party was very heartwarming and atmospheric. People who had not been to the service for a long time came to the GYM and were able to share their experiences. There were those who came for the last time, because they were leaving Kyrgyzstan. We all had fellowship, ate, played, and thanked God for putting in one man's heart the desire to serve the children of Kyrgyzstan.
Those who wanted also shared in front of everyone how God through GYM has affected their lives. At the end, we had an encouraging word as well as a prayer. The GYM is only 17 years old, but we are sure that God will use this place for many more years to let more and more people in the city know about God and His great love and sacrifice.
Table tennis
There are different groups in the GYM such as intellectual and physical. A year ago, a table tennis club was opened. The children began to actively sign up for it and soon we found out that there were so many children that one table was not enough. This created a lot of discomfort for the kids because some just did not have turns to practice. We also raised a need at the prayer service for a second table for the club. God again blessed us financially and we were able to purchase a sturdy, strong and very comfortable tennis table. All the students of the club were very grateful for this miracle. Now everyone can practice and develop or enhance their skills. The GYM began to hold competitions, where there was an active evangelization of God's mercy, love and care.
Prayer meetings
As we read the Bible, we see that Jesus was sure to go into seclusion and pray to God for His blessing and will before any of his actions, and this was a very important part of his life and ministry. While with his disciples, he taught them how to pray and encouraged everyone to do so. For the past 9 years, the GYM team has tried to fully apply this example in both life and ministry, as it is important to us as well. Every Friday, the GYM ministers and volunteers have come together for a prayer meeting once a week. Since the pandemic until today, the prayer ministry has been through the ZOOM conference once a week as well. We share with each other about our needs, and then take turns praying. Many prayers have been answered, some of them we would like to share.
Table soccer
A large number of young people, teenagers and children come to the GYM. In average, more than 100 people visit the GYM in a week. In January 2020, in one of our prayer meetings there was a request to purchase a table soccer. It would be a tool not only for entertainment, but also to be able to socialize. This is very relevant to the younger generation, and we began actively praying for it. After a couple of months in March, we were able to get a soccer table for the kids. The kids were very happy to have this blessing and are excited to use it.