Fires in the Polotsk
SDA Church
[General Conference news about fires in Belarus]
The work and outreach effort of the Adventist church in Polotsk is well known. The Russian Orthodox Church has a very strong presence in this city. There are many religious fanatics, and in the beginning of the year 2000 (in the time of the orthodox church feast), someone came in the night tried to burn out our temple.
In the picture you can see a "Molotov cocktail" - a bottle with gasoline, used to ignite the first fire.
This is a place where one of seven bottles had been thrown.
Throughout the summer of 2000, we reconstructed our temple and it was almost ready to occupy. We had planned to reopen for worship in just two more weeks.
But again in the night of late August 2000 somebody threw gasoline on the wall of the building and burned it down.
The Fire Department couldn't save our building, and it was a near total loss.
Since then, our members keep a regular watch day and night so as to prevent anyone from causing any further damage to God's house in the city of Polotsk.
Now our church is rebuilding our temple and we really need your prayers, your spiritual support and if possible, your financial help. We have very limited funds to finish the new temple. Unfortunately, we have a law in Belarus which forbids worship in rented places. That makes it very hard for us to live without a church building where we can worship our God and where we could invite people to worship God with us.
