A letter from Bob and Stacy Bronkema in Russia
June 2011
Dear family and friends,
It is so hard to believe that five years have passed since we first moved into the parsonage in Moscow. This will be our last family and friends letter from Moscow, so it would only be appropriate to begin with a thank you. Thank you for your incredible support of the ministry. Your prayers have lifted us up when we needed them most. Your financial support allowed our family to remain in Moscow even when the growing visa expenses seemed unreasonable. Your contributions also enabled the ministries of the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy (MPC) to explode over this period of time. Your friendship and random emails have given us all that we have needed to know that our time here was not only well spent but extraordinarily fruitful.
So what’s next for the Bronkemas? We have gratefully accepted a call to the First Presbyterian Church of Strasburg, Pa., where Bob is in his nascent stage as the senior pastor. We are so grateful to be close to family. Seven cousins will be within three hours driving distance, so the girls are very, very excited. We will be in the heart of Amish country in a township with less than 4,000 people, a bit different from the sprawling metropolis of Moscow with its 18 million. If you live near Philadelphia, come and visit us early and often.
Speaking of ministry, what has been happening at MPC? Much has happened since November, when we last wrote. Let’s begin with what is new. You may remember a few years back when we decided to open a homeless shelter. The dream had arisen as a result of a 17-year-old girl, Adele, from Togo who had been trafficked here to Moscow. Soon after the opening of the shelter we lost contact with her. A few months back the church council decided to focus on repatriation as one of its primary goals for the year. We have so many here who have had enough of the violence and tenuousness of their life here in Moscow and just want to go home.
In the past we had partnered with the International Organization on Migration, but their funding for this program ran out. We decided to continue this work with money from the MPC budget. When we decided to do this Adele showed up again. She is 19 now and had just come out of prison, where she had served eight months for trying to leave the country on a false passport. We got all of her paperwork together with the help of a council member who is a diplomat from Ghana, and she was our first client to be repatriated. This received some news and as a result Linklaters, which is a British law firm and one of the largest in the world, liked what we were doing and gave us a $10,000 grant to do it more. Since then we have repatriated 11 more people and we have others waiting in the wings. They are the most vulnerable of people living here in Moscow. So far most of the people that we have sent back are trafficked women, but we are not limited to that demographic group.
The above is once again an example of stepping out in faith to do what we know God is asking us to do and watching God step in and provide what we need to ensure that things will work out for good.
Another new highlight for the ministries here at MPC is our work with the medical clinic. We just received more funding for our medications, so now IWC is currently funding all of our medication and diagnostic expenses. I will never forget how we started three years ago with Dana Roby and Jan Sturgeon helping us realize how important it was for our patients to actually be able to buy their medications. Well, we have now taken another important step.
Recently we included for the first time in our expenditures dental work for our patients. This is a huge step for us. We are so grateful for this important step. Along with this new and exciting step we are also in the midst of moving our clinic from its current crowded and cramped conditions in our parish center to the basement of the Russian Lutheran church, where we will be remodeling it completely. It is a huge project to undertake especially as the church is in transition, but the congregation has embraced the project and it is moving along very, very quickly. We are getting closer and closer to the vision of a hospital for those who may not be registered and not have access to medical care.
All of the other ministries continue to grow in leaps and bounds. It has been so exciting to be a part of this ministry and to see how God has worked miracles in situations that were hopeless.
What about what is happening in the church? This year we had our largest confirmation class in recent years. There were 17 youth and they once again represented four continents. They were confirmed our last Sunday in Moscow, which was May 29. Please keep these youth in your prayers as they go forward in their faith. Over these last two years and with the leadership of Amy Wood, who is a teacher at the Anglo-American School, our youth program has really come a long way. They had their retreat a few weeks ago and over 20 youth showed up. It is so nice to have someone who is able to take the initiative and seek out God’s will and move forward.
We had a wonderful going away bbq our last week, and in spite of the pouring rain we had a wonderful time and it was a very fitting ending to our ministry here. We find ourselves doing our “lasts” and it is very nostalgic, and yet on the other hand very exciting to think of MPC moving forward under new leadership. You will be interested to know that Matthew Laferty, who is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and a United Methodist, took over the mantle of MPC at a wonderful service on the 29th of May. I am happy to say that the congregation loves him and he is an extremely capable and faithful minister.
The last year of our time in Moscow we realized that it would be cheaper and much less time-consuming if we just came in and out on three-month visas. This allowed us to go to Greece in December. It was an incredible trip and we saw firsthand all the sights that the girls had studied in school. In March we were able to travel to Holland and we saw the Bronkema farm, where Bob’s grandfather was born. It was another experience that we never imagined we would be able to do.
Then in April MPC took a trip with 48 people to Israel. The family went along as did Bob’s mom, Peggy, for a trip of a lifetime. We saw all of the Holy Land sites. There were three other families there with three generations represented, so it was quite a different trip with youth and children running all over the place. Absolutely amazing. We are still trying to process all that we saw and did. We have been incredibly blessed in our service here in Moscow to be able to take advantage of the proximity of all of these incredible places.
Rachel had a wonderful 9th grade year. She played varsity soccer and basketball and continues to receive straight A’s. She attended Hinkson’s Senior Banquet, which is their version of a prom. It is hard to believe that we have a girl who went to the prom. She was beautiful. While she is sad to leave behind friends here in Moscow, she is looking forward to being close to family.
Naomi received her black belt in Tae Kwon Do our last week in Moscow. She continues to receive straight A’s and was MVP for the girls Middle School basketball team. She is now taller than Rachel and is catching up to Stacy very quickly. She continues to play the guitar and sings in the church choir from time to time. She can’t wait to get to Strasburg.
Bethany was the only 5th grader on the Middle School basketball team and played point guard. She also had a challenging role in her Russian class play. Stacy was told by a Russian woman that Bethany did a wonderful job. Of course Stacy had to take her word for it since she couldn’t understand a single word of Bethany’s beautifully spoken Russian. Bethany continues to love school and looks forward to the new challenges of middle school.
Now that we are back in the States we look forward to seeing all of you. It was awesome to be able to see so many of you at Bob’s 20th college reunion at Swarthmore. Please mark your calendar for September 17–18. We will be having our 3rd annual MPC reunion in Strasburg, Pa., and all of you are invited. It will be a great time to meet the new chaplain of MPC and hear firsthand what is happening in Moscow. We can provide housing for you if you do decide to come. Please send us an email if you are going to be around as we would love to reconnect. Thank you again for all of your support and help over the years.
Your servants in Christ,
Bronkema family
Bob, Stacy, Rachel, Naomi, and Bethany
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 203
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