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The organization was founded by the Moscow Center for Voluntary Services. The organization was founded by the Moscow Center for Voluntary Services. Can I ask a few questions? Please.

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When was the Milosevdy Brotherhood founded? What does this organization do? The Milosevdy Brotherhood was founded when volunteers from the Moscow Central Church were granted permission to organize services in hospitals.

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The first hospital we were offered to organize services in was the hospital in Moscow. The head of the Moscow City Health Service told us about the situation and how the medical staff and the medical supplies were lacking. We agreed to organize services in a hospital near our church in Taganka.

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We called on our sisters and brothers to organize services. More than 200 people responded. We were ready to organize services. Three days later, we received a phone call from someone who said that the higher authorities didn't like it.

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They thought that the Baptists would be involved in the cult. So they closed the door and told us to wait and see what would happen. A month later, the head of the Kachinko Psychiatric Hospital called us. It is the largest psychiatric hospital in Russia.

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The head physician Vladimir Nikolaevich Kozyrev called us and asked to meet to discuss possible services. We visited him. He said that the most difficult situation was in the women's ward. The medical staff was lacking.

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The head physician and two nurses were in charge of the ward. There were 80 nurses. He said that he wanted to see the medical staff and asked them to organize services. He showed us the ward.

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When we came to the church, we consulted with the volunteers and told them that we were given all the services. When did it happen? It was 5 years ago. We started on May 3, 1988. We started with two departments.

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I had two fears. The first was enthusiasm. The second was fear of how the medical staff and our nurses would get along. People saw the Baptists for the first time in their lives.

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They did not know how to talk. They thought that there might be conflicts. Thank God, there were no conflicts. There was no serious moment.

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But the respect between the two departments grew. Our nurses won. Our volunteers' sisters asked what to say to these people. They were already half-deaf, half-mute.

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I told them that we were going there not to talk, but to be. We saw that these women, who were in scoliosis, were more sensitive to love and care than we, healthy people. This service became the foundation of our work.

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The representatives of the Evangelical Church in Moscow were invited to organize an evangelical campaign for Luis Palau. We had a meeting here. They wanted to see the hospital.

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It was a sensation. The laws were still in force. Since then, we have been cooperating with the Evangelical Church. Our field of activity expanded.

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We have a number of hospitals, boarding schools, orphanages. We have a large number of services. We provide services in hospitals, boarding schools. We provide services to refugees.

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We provide services to refugees in hot spots like Sukhumi, Moldova, and the North Caucasus. Our main sponsor is the Evangelical Church. We have 30 employees who receive help from the Evangelical Church. We provide free food.

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We provide free food to the canteens in Moscow. It's very simple. We have a canteen. They feed the refugees.

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We have a nurse on duty. She regulates the food, gives out literature, and controls the food. She makes sure that everything is fair. We pay the bill every month.

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How many hospitals do you work in? We have three psychiatric hospitals. We have a children's hospital with a child who is undergoing surgery. We have three boarding schools for children with cerebral palsy.

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We regularly visit them and help them. We have recently received statistics on the number of homeless people in Moscow. I recently read that there are more than 30,000 homeless people in Moscow stations alone. It's a tragedy that these people have come to such a state that one family wants to help them get back to normal life.

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They have moved to their apartment and are now living in a different place. They have lived here for a few days and then returned to the station. They have already been dragged into this state. We provide free food.

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We help people who have lost their lives. Some people have come to the center to seek protection. These are poor people who need help. We feed the elderly, the elderly, the disabled, and the most in need.

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We have ten canteens throughout the city. We also provide services to people who are infected with AIDS. We regularly invite them to our services. We provide spiritual food, as the Russian Orthodox say, and help them with food, clothing, and literature.

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We listen to them with great attention. It's a tragedy for them. How many people have come to you? About a hundred.

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But they change. Some die. Some come to hide. Their attitude towards them is the worst.

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There have been attempts to kill them. Do they die in hospitals? No, they live like this. When they have a health problem, because they don't have immunity,

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there are special departments on Sokolinaya Gora where they are treated. It's the only place where they are treated. Then they live in their relatives' or friends' apartments. When they were hiding, they could work.

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But when they were exposed, they couldn't work. And they still can't work. Now, thank God, the Moscow government decided to give them pensions for disabilities. They get at least some kind of a pension.

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We also have correctional labor colonies in six colonies. In Moscow, there are one women's, one teenager's, and three colonies in Ryazan. I heard that your choir went there. I was very impressed.

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We try to come with a choir or a church band. We listen to them with great attention. For example, in the Mazhai women's colony, they only announce that the Baptists have come and will perform.

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If anyone wants to come, they can. It's not violent, it's voluntary. They come and listen carefully. It gives us the opportunity to talk in person, without strangers.

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When we talk in groups, the head of the group, a very cultured woman, says, here is my office, please talk, and I'll go. Because I'm the official person here, and they won't talk to me. I think that's the kind of trust.

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Of course, it's a lot of requests. It's a lot of time that goes into helping those who are released from prison or these colonies. Help them get settled somehow, even at the first steps. We have some small successes that helped them get a residence permit.

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You know, in England, there is no such thing. And we have a person who has no right to work if there is no residence permit. Officially. You can work it out somewhere, but at the factory or some institution, you need a resident of Moscow.

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What attracted you to such activities? I was born into a family of a pastor and the head of the Union of Evangelical Christians. And in 1938, he was taken away, and for 8 years, he was sent to the Magadan region, which is somewhere near Sakhalin and Kamchatka.

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For 8 years. We were left with a sick mother, the four of us. I was 10 years younger, then 12, 14, 16. The war broke out.

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And so, being so, we were not left behind. We were helped. Now it's prestigious to help. And at that time, to help the family of the enemy of the people, people were very careful.

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In short, there was a time when the last penny was spent on Saturday. We were looking for a job, we were doing something, washing something. Well, somehow it was necessary to exist, because my mother was in the war. But we did not die of hunger, thank God.

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And on Sunday, when I came to the meeting, I took my grandmother to the meeting, to the service, we returned with some material help, which people did at great risk for themselves. Soon, I already believed, when the war began, in 1942, Stalin changed his policy to religion. Not because he became a believer, but he was forced by two factors.

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To unite the people, and that the allies, such as England, America and others, and basically there were two at the beginning, then we learned that they pressed Stalin and said that we would help if you were a little better than Hitler. That is, the system.

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Therefore, such limited religious opportunities opened up. Not that freedom, it was not freedom, it was freedom of faith and confession, as it was called in the law. Then, when I believed, and you know that Baptists do not receive membership in the Church by inheritance, but after the personal meeting with God, with Christ.

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I then began to preach in the Moscow Church. And when, after the death of Stalin, in 1956, it was possible for the first Soviet students to go to study in the University of Lviv. I was one of the first four students in the Baptist Church, and also went along the line of the foreign trade, other students to study. I had the opportunity to spend two years in England, in the Spurgeon College.

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It was, of course, for me the discovery of a new world. And on the other hand, the problem is that my so-called theology, not theology, but beliefs were super conservative. And there, of course, in England, it was a normal theological school with many attributes. I had a lot of questions. I already saw that here it was already unacceptable to me, and new.

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But it was such, thank God, that the language barrier was so protective for me, so that I would not be immediately alarmed. When I returned from the college, there was such a revaluation of the value in the theological plan. Then, in 1961, I had the opportunity to continue my studies in Canada, in McMaster College, in Hamilton, Ontario. Upon my return, I began to take part in the church life, to preach.

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In 1962, I was elected the second presbyter. In short, in 1966, I was elected the first pastor of the Moscow Baptist Church. And before that, I was elected the vice-president of the European Baptist Federation. And my spiritual career began.

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Not because I was running, but God did everything. And all these years, when I was already in 1966, I was elected to the leadership of the Union, one of the young, the two of us. And then the trips of official delegations began. It was a great opportunity to exchange official church delegations.

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It was a great school for me, acquaintance, exchange of spiritual experience. And as time went by, the retirement age came, when it was necessary to go on a well-deserved vacation. But I learned, I learned one truth. I had three positions.

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I was a pastor, a member of the leadership of the Union of Baptists. In short, it is impossible to hold three watermelons in one hand. You have to choose. You have to choose, to concentrate on it.

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And before retiring, I was also nominated to the service of mercy, so that I would lead. And when I was released, I dedicated myself entirely to this service. In leadership, administration, the Union, it's all good, but it's still from a distance. I was in a bunch of events of church life, but then it was impossible to be in social service.

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And when this opportunity opened, I joined people who need you, people who ask for help. And two years ago we officially registered as the Russian, British, Christian Mission of Brotherhood and Mercy of the Evangelical Church. This is an officially registered organization. How do you raise money for this activity?

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Basically, the sponsors are the Evangelical Church, the headquarters in Bristol, the founder of this organization, David Foster, who is the president of this organization and lives in Geneva, the branch of the Evangelical Church, and the director of Eastern Europe, Harry Cox. These are our main sponsors who finance our activities. And not only with finances, but also with medicines, products, and clothes. Through the Evangelism, he helped to contact Rotary Club,

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which is not far from London, in the suburbs of London, and they organized a collection of clothes for children. And through the Evangelism, we receive from Rotary Club, and there is also a Christian charity organization in Sweden, Erik Selpan, who also helps us with food, clothes, medicines. This is the main thing. Last year we had a big program of the US government through a church organization for Moscow and the Moscow region,

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which allocated only for our church 500 tons of food. And we had the opportunity to distribute it together with our American brothers. It was called the Brotherhood project. I leave it to you, you will see it here. So, all my work, my service in the church, in the Union of the Baptists, was only preparation for this service. When you are in such close contact with human suffering, what is the first thing that saddens you the most, and what is the second thing that cheers you up the most?

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It saddens me that when people come for help, and we say, we don't have it. This is the most sad thing, to say that we don't have it. It cheers me up that through this service, even if it is modest, people do not fall into despair, like refugees who lost everything, who came here with no prospects, in despair, abandoned, and have their own problems here in Moscow. People find hope in God. Because we not only distribute food, clothes, medicine, but we also do spiritual work.

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We try to cheer people up, so that there is no despair. Some of them, refugees and prisoners, became Christians, believed in God. I'm sorry, he's going to leave. I'm coming.

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Thank you, Mikhail Shetkov. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. .