Ruslan and Gul’mira Muratayev
 My name is Ruslan Muratayev. My wife is Gul'mira. We have a son David, who is 4 years old.
We are formerly from the Ukraine, but now live in Siberia, in the city Irkutsk.
I came to know the Lord Jesus in 1992. Gul’mira came to know the Lord in 1997.
In 1993 I began to study under the Bible Education by Extension (ВЕЕ) program. Sometime later, I became a BEE staff member, and worked for BEE in different cities in the Ukraine.
In 1998 Gul'mira and I got married. Prior to our wedding ВЕЕ Ukraine made the decision to send 12 families to minister in Russia. At the time, both Gul'mira and I felt a strong call from God that we would go to Russia.
Four months after the wedding we moved to the Zhitomir region in the Ukraine to plant a new church in the city Andrushevka. We lived there 18 months, in preparation to going to Russia. Each of the12 families, including ourselves, was placed in a different city in the Ukraine to practice missionary work in order to see how much we were really ready for moving to Russia.
That time became very valuable for us. Our family became stronger, and we learned to live among people we had never known before. We were there to be God's light for them, and to lead outreach meetings for non-believers. We were very happy to see how local people started to repent. As a result, a new church was born. God had blessed our work. Today in Аndrushevka there is a Baptist Church, whose pastor is a brother from Zhitomir.
Finally in the summer of 2000 we moved to Siberia to work in three regions: the Irkutsk region, Chita region and the republic of Buryatiya.
The purpose of our service is to help local leaders to train other brothers and prepare them for church ministry, using the BEE program. The harvest is plenty in Siberia but workers are few. Where shall we find workers? There is only one answer - through developing and cultivating local brothers! We have been doing it for the fifth year already with God's blessing.
In Siberia the length of the region is huge (1,367 miles by train). There are a few churches and even they are located only in big cities, but all the small areas are left out without any churches. Because of long distances and small number of the churches, the BEE program is a very helpful one, because a teacher can come to students and not vice versa. It is much cheaper to bring one teacher to students then several students to one teacher. Right now I lead 7 groups in different cities of these regions, both in Chita and in Irkutsk, and in the republic of Buryatiya. Plus to my work with these groups, I also organize special seminars for group leaders, three times a month, so they can teach other brothers in the churches. In total, 150 people are under this training now in all three regions. There are very few Bible Universities and seminaries in Russia, and they are located only in very big cities. This means that in order for a person to get spiritual education, he needs to travel a long way to a big city and stay there until graduation. Not many people can afford it. Therefore, it is necessary to train-up local leaders who can teach other church members without moving to another city and without leaving their job and ministry. It even brings better results because students can immediately practice what they are taught and apply received knowledge in their churches. That's why I teach future leaders and help them to take up this responsibility. Through this we hope to help the process of preparing more local missionaries, preachers, pastors and teachers.
The biggest church in our region is in Irkutsk. There are 270 members. Other churches are smaller in number. Not all churches have their own building, and only few churches have a choir. Some churches have only 2-3 brothers for the whole church. And these local brothers carry on all the needed positions and responsibilities: a deacon, a missionary, a preacher, a driver and a pastor. There are not enough men in the churches. So these few men have to do everything: they visit believers in small villages, they distribute New Testaments, show "Jesus" film, and visit other churches in the region.
Let me tell you about life in Siberia. First, in the spring of 2000, when we moved to Russia, we lived in Buryatiya, near lake Baikal. Shortly after our move, we began to investigate the life of the people in these regions and to gather as much information as we could about lifestyle and living conditions.
It is very windy in spring in Buryatiya. It was the end of April when we moved to Buryativa, but the snow hadn’t even begun to melt. It was then when we learned that winter in Siberia lasts from October until April. Summer starts in June and usually it is very hot. The fall season starts in the end of August, and then winter comes back again. Our first winter here we experienced minus 45 Celsius. In order to survive in winter we had to buy new warm clothes because it was too cold in our Ukrainian things. We had to buy special fur coats and long fur boots and only then we were able to go outside and not get frozen.
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