Friday, June 4, 2010

Greetings!

Dearest Friends and Family!
Well, the summer is almost here and we are grateful for a little bit more sun and good weather, even though it rained some last week, we are still enjoying the weather! Ministry is about to change - due to the season change. Summer has come, Universities are closing for summer breaks, people leave their normal locations and go to hang out at their summer home residences. Anyway, it is still to come, but first let me share about the Lord’s faithfulness this past month

Looking Back at May

Guys’ Night:
On the 15th of May we had another guys night, well it was actually a guys picnic. It was fun we had five unbelievers come and it seemed like everyone has enjoyed it. We played some baseball, American football and just chatted. It was good. One of the unbelievers who attended wants to come to the English camp and so we will see what the Lord will do there. We continue to pray.



Looking Back at May

Grandpa - God:
On the 22th of May we went to the orphanage and it was a great trip. I will share a brief story with you which shook me up. They have a new kid there, he is 3 years of age. He doesn’t speak whole lot, and when he does you would just answer with one of the 20 standard answers that he has. So, while he was working on his coloring theme project about stealing, I thought we would talk. I asked him whether he knew who God is. He confidently responded “Yes, he is like my grandpa”, so I asked him to tell me a little bit about his grandpa and this is what he said: “My grandpa beats my grandma till she bleeds”. I was shocked and I could not find the right words to tell this three year old kid with 20 standard answers to any question. I could give him a good and sophisticated answers but he would not understand. So I sat in silence and then just prayed for this kid as he kept coloring his picture.
The Lord has convicted me through this situation to be prepared to provide a “defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). The Lord showed me that despite the knowledge I have of Him I was unprepared to share about Him and His nature with a three year old child who has such a wrong view of God and who needs Him so badly. I was humbled by it and grateful that the Lord taught me this lesson. I am looking forward to going back there and spending more time with this child sharing about the Lord and His plan for his life.

Looking Back at May

Church:
We are still in the “Doctrines” series as the Church working together on formulating the Statement of Faith. We have gone through the studies of the Last Things and it has been an interesting thing for our Church people to study, we hope that it also served as an encouragement for them to go and share the Message of the Cross with those who are not ready to face the Great Judge.

Current Matters June

One more family member arrived!
After the Bible Study on the 19th of May we had one girl expressed a desire to come to Christ! It has been many months that she has been coming to the Bible Study and it was wonderful to see how the Lord kept drawing her closer to Himself and now has made her a part of his body. Praise to the Lord for that!

Looking Back at May

One on one discipleship:
Has been going good, however it becomes more and more difficult to schedule the meetings with people because they are busy with the exams at the their schools. However we are grateful for the meetings the Lord let us have this past month with the girls and the guys Anneke and I disciple.

Current Matters June

Us 3:
We are doing fine and despite all of the business we still get to spend some good time together investing into one another as a husband and wife and investing together in Mikael.
Last week and a half has been crazy because Mikael has been assigned for clearing the tear ducts procedure but in order to do that we need to turn a whole bunch of analyses in. We needed to travel into a few different locations in the city with Mikael trying to get them done. The problem is also that analyses are valid only the certain amount of days (3-7) and if it is too old you need to redo them. We need to have all of them done by Wednesday. Please pray that we would be able to accomplish everything in time. Also , Mikael has got a running nose today so please pray that he would get recover before Wednesday so that the procedure would not get postponed.


Current Prayer Requests- June

Please pray:
o For wisdom to see the opportunities to share the Gospel with the guys from the guys’s night
o For our Church to take an active part in preparing for the camps outreaches this summer
o For Vadim, the little guy from the orphanage I talked to.
o For Mikael’s health and for the procedure to go smooth this coming week.
o For wisdom for us as we try to communicate the nature of God to the Church as we teach the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith
o For wisdom and discipline to continue to devote ourselves to one another as spouses while having very busy lives.