BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** Watch Rick Renner on bvovn Believer’s Voice of Victory Network REAL. LIFE. FAITH. Roku® | dish® Channel 265 bvovn.com | Apple tv® 4th Generation You Tube® | amazon fire TV ******************************************* * * * * article from p.15 continues * * * * “God did just that,” Rick remembers. “It happened instantly. We fell in love with the people. They were wonderful and so hungry for God. Settling into a rent house, we had to use our faith to believe God for food while I taught at the Bible school. During those early days, I preached at an event in Riga, the capital. It was filmed for television, and Denise and I watched it when it aired. As I watched that broadcast, I heard the Lord say, 'I’m calling you to take Sunday school to the whole Soviet Union on television.' “There were a couple of problems with that plan. First, no American had ever done it. Second, there was no such thing as a television ministry in the Soviet Union as we knew it in America. There were 11 time zones in the Soviet Union. I flew back and forth across all of them, meeting with communist deputies, making friends with many of them. When I said I wanted to teach the Bible on television, it sucked all the air out of the room. When I offered to buy television time, they’d never heard of such a thing. “God moved in a powerful way, and we were granted permission to buy television time. We needed money to pay for it, and our partners from the U.S. provided it. By 1993, I was teaching the Bible on television across much of the Soviet Union.” A Strong Partnership On Rick’s first trip home to the U.S., he stopped in New York City to preach in a small church, testifying about what God was doing in the Soviet Union. A lady in that church was a Partner with Kenneth Copeland Ministries, and sent the Copelands a copy of Rick’s message. Not long after, Rick got a call from Gloria Copeland. “Kenneth and I would like to meet you,” she said. Rick had listened to Kenneth and Gloria since he was 14 and attending Brother Hagin’s meetings, but he had never met them. “Rick, today we have become your partner,” Gloria told him upon that first meeting, handing him a check for $20,000. “I’ve always had it on my heart to have our program broadcast in the Russian language. Would you be willing to handle KCM’s television ministry in the Soviet Union?” “I said yes before I even thought about what it would entail,” Rick remembers. “That same year, we started broadcasting Believer’s Voice of Victory on television in the Soviet Union. Our partnership with KCM was very mutual. We became dear friends, like family. They entered into partnership with us and we with them. God genuinely connected us to become family. “We’d been in Latvia for one year since the Soviet Union fell apart when the Lord directed me to start a church in Riga. We started Riga Good News Church. During the following years we constructed the first church building to be built there in 55 years. On the day we dedicated the building, I heard the Holy Spirit basically say, 'Now your job here is finished. Go to Moscow and do it again.'” Rick knew it was time to give Denise the full picture of what he had seen in the vision on Red Square in front of Lenin’s tomb years earlier. “Honey, God is calling us to Moscow to start a church.” Denise went still, allowing herself to absorb the shock. Lifting her head to meet Rick’s gaze, she spoke to both her husband and her God: “I’m not excited about this now, but I will be.” People Hungry for God The August sun glinted off the gold crosses which stood atop the stunning architecture and brilliant colors on the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. Rick and Denise crossed the square to the Rossiya Hotel. Inside, they rented a space for Moscow Good News Church to meet. God had directed them to move to Moscow, and they were now there. And just as He did in Latvia, God put His love for the people of Moscow into their hearts. The room in the Rossiya Hotel accommodated 180 people comfortably, but 220 attended the first service. Clearly, this would be a temporary home for the new church. Rick and Denise found the Russian people hungry for God and very loyal. They loved to remember and celebrate the day they’d repented. The church flourished and grew, exploding out of temporary locations until Dec. 7, 2014, when they dedicated their permanent church facility in Moscow. 16 : BVOV

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