Welcome friends,
For those who are new to the audience, my name is Yana Gorlachev who documents thoughts and updates to our friends and family on this blog. Im married to an amazing man for nearly16 years now who loves Jesus with all his heart. We have 5 amazing children between the ages 15-3 (3 girls, 2 boys) and together we have been living in the remote location of Chipata, Zambia for the past 4.5 years, We are here planted for a season of preaching the Gospel, raising up faithful disciples, and training up leaders from the ages of 0-105 (haven’t yet met anyone older than 105). My moto? Follow me, as I follow Christ.
In this post, I wanted to do 3 things. Give an update on ministry and family, make a call to action, and encourage you with the Word that I’ve been pondering and chewing on for over the last month. So grab a cup of coffee or tea, have a seat and join me on hearing from this side of the globe. This hopefully encourages and blesses you as it blesses me to write a heart letter to the different churches and homes around the world.
The story of Pauls introduction to Jesus in Acts chapter 9 has been a study point of mine in the last several weeks. In the previous chapter (chapter 8), you read that Saul was burning in rage towards the church of Christ- in his anger he storms off to get permission to punish or exterminate the christian faith by taking church members and placing them into prisons. The goal was to separate/divide the body in order to create loneliness and discouragement which leads to complacency with your faith which to me just means- deactivated believer. A deactivated believer in the enemies eyes is a christian who will receive eternal life but won’t build the Kingdom of God.
So Saul heads on his pursuit with armed men (a force) to overtake the another force (the believers) and as he’s passing a city called Damascus, he has a massive encounter with Jesus. We all know this story. Jesus reveals himself through a bright light, Saul hears an audible voice of God- “Saul Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Then Saul responds to him with “Who are you LORD?”and you can read on the remainder of the chapter. What I found interesting here is that Saul immediately recognized Lordship.
Lordship is simply defined by “a supreme power or rule”. How did Saul recognize that Gods supreme? I believe that God wrote it on the hearts of man. When they encounter the true God, they don’t need anything else to come to the realization that THIS is the true God. Powerful!
Our family has lived in Zambia for now 4.5 years. We’ve witnessed many Saul-Paul encounters. I’m telling you right now, if you haven’t experienced an encounter from Jesus…He wants to encounter you more than you know.
Jesus speaks to Ananias and instructs him to go and lay hands on Saul. Saul at that point was blind for 3 days and was replaying the voice he heard back a few days ago. His heart was prepared to change his direction (repentance) and follow Jesus. When Ananias laid hands on Saul (which became Paul), he regained his sight and was filled with the Holy Spirit, arose and got water baptized. Notice the “immediately” stated in chapter 9.
Friends, our immediate obedience MUST be part of our dictionary if you know what I mean.
The urgency given here is absolutely necessary for us to catch.
Update:
We’ve had such incredible doors open this season, I can only attempt to summarize the massive things that are taking place. First, I want to mention that our family is doing well and for the most part are staying healthy and strong. Parasites and infections are simply a result of not proper sanitation of either food, water, and/or hands. We do our best to keep things clean, but that’s our reality of living remote. Highlights are that our eldest Ella stepped into high school this year, Moses learned to finally read and Isaac and Leila are getting brighter by the day- thanks to their hard work and their curriculum for challenging them.Andrey and I are possibly taking a recon trip (scoping out new grounds to plant ourselves in) to a few nations soon right around our 16 year anniversary so hoped to kill 2 birds with one stone and celebrate our marriage at the same time. We will update you on that once it’s more concrete! Also, Overland will be turning 25 years old in January and we are given permission to come celebrate with them stateside in joining for conference and the staff gathering on a cruise afterwards. Together, our family is believing for the funds for the flights and expenses to be provided. If you or your business have it on your heart to support us financially in that, we would be thrilled to be in the states for those events for a few weeks! All donations are tax deductible! Our deadline to let our team know if we are coming is beginning of September, so if it’s on your heart, please reach out to me at yana@overlandmissions.com/ andre@overlandmissions.com or message us on instagram/facebook: yana.gorlachev/andregorlachev.
Secondly, Kids on fire with the local children is happening in multiple locations where we predominantly work in weekly. Kids are taught on creation, the gospel, eternity, the Holy Spirit, Jesus and growth. The children are receiving quickly and sharing with others in the village. Chaplaincy has grown at an exponential way! Chaplains are spiritual advisors that are chosen and then trained by our Overland Missions team. Each Chief/King is assigned a chaplain and these chaplains minister to the chief weekly the word of the LORD. Queens ministry has been incredibly fruitful. These women have been growing so much in the understanding of Jesus, the great commission, and the person of the Holy Spirit. Last month we gathered and taught on the Holy Spirit, took communion, and the leaders washed the queens feet. It was powerful and many queens got healed during feet washing and were so touched! The gospel is being preached with signs and wonders always following! One more really amazing side of ministry is to gather the leaders of the villages in chiefdoms and preach the gospel to them as a group. Why are meetings like this impactful? We find that the struggle that we face is getting them to gather together. When we approach the Chief and share the vision, he then permits us to do this “program” near the palace and mandates for every leader in his chiefdom to come on that day. Some chiefdoms have as much as 380 head man/head women leaders! The result? Those 380 leaders hear the gospel and the likelihood of them hearing the gospel for the first time is pretty certain and most of them end up having an encounter with Jesus.
Encounters are crucial!
Thirdly, I want to invite you to partner up with us financially to continue the great commission in regions such as Eastern Provence and other regions and nations that God is placing on our hearts. We read in scripture that there are those who work in the field and those who support the work of the laborers in the field. The field symbolizing the great commission mission. We can’t do this work alone. God calls some to be business owners, and some to work oversees. Some he separates for full time ministry, and some for full time business.
Partner up with us today so that we can continue to be the hands and feet here on the ground. God uses PEOPLE to fulfill the commission. Consider yourself commissioned now.
I’ll post a link below that you can click and join the team of supporters today. Super simple and all donations are tax deductible. No donation is too small or too big.
Directions:
*Fill out the fields with your info, then when it asks for donation type- you can select reoccurring if you’d like to partner on a monthly basis(our greatest need)- all donations are allocated to the Gorlachevs and the ministry they do in their locations. If you would like to do a one-time donation and support our travels to the states- we would be thrilled as well.
Thank you so much!
We are honored and grateful to be a part of the body of Christ. Continue to hold us up in your prayers daily as we pray for your homes as well.
May the joy, comfort, and peace guide you daily in the name of Jesus! I’ll leave you with this scripture and hope that it blesses you as it has continually blessed me over the years:
James 1:2-4
“Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trails. Be assured that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed lacking nothing.”
Let’s Connect! Follow us on social media to stay updated on our ministry and family (instagram: yana.gorlachev, andregorlachev)
Till next time friends,
Yana Gorlachev
