Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Greetings!

Greetings!
The spring is settling in after the long winter here and we all enjoy the warmer weather now. It has been another blessed month of serving the Lord. So, here are the details…

Looking Back at April

Association of Missionary Churches of Ukraine:
On the 16th of April I had to attend a board meeting in Kiev of the Association of Missionary Churches in Ukraine in order to be interviewed as to our Church joining this Association. I was not concerned about the fact whether or not our young Church would be accepted since two of the 7 guys with the vote are my good friends for over 8 years now. However the procedure had to be completed. I had to sit though an 8 hour long meeting and to tell you the truth it felt like 15 minutes. All that the members of the Association talked about was ministry! It was wonderful to be with people who’s hearts are on fire for God and who want to serve Him whole heartedly. And, yes, now our Church is officially a part of the Association. Now we can move further with the registration.

Looking Back at April

Hike:
On the 1st of May quite a few people from our Church along with our ministry partners Zhenya and Mark left for a 4 day hike in Crimea. They got back on the 6th all excited. The unbelievers who went enjoyed the hike quite a bit and one of them has come to Church and the Bible Study after the hike. His name is Pasha and we are praying for the Lord to keep drawing him closer to Himself. Pasha is a great guy, who is on the way to hell, so would you please join us in praying for him and for our Church members to continue to be purposeful as to sharing their hearts and faith with him. We are grateful for what the Lord has done so far and are excited to see what He will do.

Looking Back at April

Guys night:
Last guys night went well. We did not have a lot of people come but we had a good time. There were 9 of us total, three are unbelievers. It was a good time of building relationships with those guys. One of them will go for a hike that our Church is organizing. We will see what the Lord will do there…

Looking Back at April

Church doctrines:
We are still in the “Doctrines” series as the Church works together on formulating the Statement of Faith. It is exciting to preach and to listen about our God, ourselves and God’s plan for us. We are enjoying this time thoroughly. We will be busy with the doctrines series till June.

Looking Back at April

On the 24th of April we went to Pridnestrovye (the country which doesn’t exist officially) to the orphanage and also to visit the Missionary Training Center graduate, Marina, who is on staff with IM now and labors there for the Lord. It has been a good trip and it is amazing how fast the kids grow and change. We are grateful that the Lord has provided us with a privilege to share the Gospel with these kids from the young age and to follow up with them as well.
Our friend and fellow servant Marina is doing well despite of numerous trials. But she is taking them as growth opportunities and though it is tough- she is eager to grow.


Orphanage Trip:

Looking Back at April

Bible Study:
Bible Study is going good. Attendance has been down though, we tribute it to the nice weather and the class schedules. We finished the series on apologetics and have started another study series on friendship. The first lesson we had went great people got a lot of things to think and pray about. We got some good reports.

Looking Back at April

One on one discipleship:
It has been going well. The meetings have not been as regular as they typically are due to the exams people are having and the extra requirements that their Universities bestows upon them. But the meetings we had have been good. We had some difficult meetings dealing with some personal issues with people we serve to but we were happy to see that people have responded well and are continuing to grow in the Lord.

Current Matters April

Us 3:
Mikael finally recovered from the cold he had. We needed to go to the doctor for that and they had his nose flushed. Needless to say Mikael was not thrilled with the procedure but he has been a good sport and has taken it a LIKE A MAN (maybe more like a little man). But he has some sort of an eye infection at the moment that we are trying to deal with and we have discovered no matter how strong we are it is quite a job to get his eyes opened for the drops :). But his smiles keep lightning up our days!

Current Prayer Requests- April

Please pray
•For wisdom to see the opportunities to share the Gospel with the guys from the guys’s night
•For our church to be about fulfilling Great Commission while hiking.
•For Marina in Pridnestrovye as she is trying to establish a youth ministry in the nearby village.
•For wisdom as to how to take care for Mikael.
•For wisdom for us as we try to communicate the nature of God to the Church
•For wisdom and discipline to continue to devote ourselves to one another as spouses while having very busy lives.