These are financial needs.
They have to do with our camps.
1. For our VBS Day Camp we need $750. We have no money raised for this, but are going forward on faith that we will have American Friends help us out.
2. For our Bible Camp we need $2,500. We have $4,000 pledged for this 2 week camp, but for we have never charged more than 300 Grievnas ($60) per person before, but right now we will have to ask for at least 500 Grievnas per person for this camp (projected cost is 1000 Grievnas - $200). The average income in Ukraine 750 Grievnas a month, so you can see how hard this is for a family do to do this, especially if they have more than 1 child to send. We are trying to take between 40 and 45 people to camp with us this year. Camp costs continue to spiral with our 17% inflation that we have right now in Ukraine.
If you will assist us with either of these needs, please email me and also let the Church in West Fayetteville know by calling Steve Jefferson (931-433-0189) as soon as possible. Thank you!!!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Journal for April 1-15, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
There are several things I am working at improving my discipline in: better eating for health and weight loss, daily walking for exercise, deeper and more consistent prayer life and personal study of the Word of God, always working on lesson study and sermon preparations ahead of time to take away all stress, better use of my time to touch more lives and daily communication with people through email, phone and in person. Whew! Now doing that every day, day in and day out is a good challenge! This is my life style, this is what I want and am working on. As Paul said, “I have not yet reached perfection, but I press on the upward call!” I went walking today to Ksusha’s pizza place where she works and had a SMALL pizza. I went there to eat and encourage her. Then I walked some more afterwards! I worked on my lesson for tonight’s devo. I fixed chocolate chip cookies before devo – I wasn’t going to eat any, but I did, but I didn’t eat any supper – does that count??? So pizza and chocolate chip cookies – I guess that is not eating to healthy today! We had 13 for devo tonight and that was good and a good time and fellowship afterwards!
Wednesday, April 02
I spent most of the morning trying to record a sermon to send out to churches requesting one. 3 times I did something wrong and the recording didn’t work! At least I got to practice the sermon a lot! Finally it worked. After lunch I worked on my English Club for tonight until 4:45pm. We had 8 for our English Club. Right now, 4 of those are also coming to our Bible Club, so already English Club is a success!
Thursday, April 3
I talked to my TN Elders this morning on the phone, working out some details about the future – at 5:30am my time. It’s ok – I was already up! There is some conflict – not the bad kind – about who is going to be working with the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk and so we didn’t go today, but Lord willing, we will next week. Again, I was blessed to spend some time with some of our group, but overall, a pretty quiet day.
Friday, April 4
I have been working, or I should say trying to work on some video and sound files and not having a great deal of success. I will try to get Artem to assist me with some of these things! I use the computer quiet a bit, but some things just seem to baffle me. I haven’t done my April Newsletter yet, because I am waiting to hear if the Dec. and Feb. newsletters have been – the physical paper ones – sent from TN. I feel like people don’t need to be receiving 3 newsletters from me all at once. We had a quiet fun night with just 6 of us here – but we did have a good time together!
Saturday, April 5
Bible Club was pretty much as usual. We had 5 in each of the 2 Bible Clubs. We had about 20 people in the Church Discussion time at the Church building today at 4. The Bryans and Gerganus’ are here for 3 weeks. They are such great people and it is so good to have them back with us!
Sunday, April 6
We had really good attendance today at services. Andrey, who does our song leading and translating was ill today, so Peter led the singing and Sasha older guy did the translating for Charles Bryan who preached a good sermon. To me the sermon was normal, but for Yulya – she said that it was great and just what she needed to hear! Everyone was so busy today, so we didn’t go to the Orphanage at Potoki. I finished up my sermon for tonight and then we had 15 at evening services, with 2 new ladies walking in to be with us. We celebrated Vika’s 15th birthday tonight and had a grand old time!
Monday, April 7
Personal study and prayer started my day. I spent some time working on this journal. I prepared for my Bible Study tonight with the Orphan family. Please pray for this family that they will come to faith and put their life and trust in Christ and become a part of His Church. It has been such a long study, I struggle what to teach and how to teach it to help them become obedient to Christ. I don’t understand why it is so hard for them. I spent some time with my brothers and sisters today helping them with personal things as well as some spiritual things. Ksusha, Olya and I went to the twins/Orphanage family tonight at 5:30 and I got home around 9. I do enjoy the family and we did have a good study, too.
Tuesday, April 8
I had a bad headache most of the first ½ of the day and it was hard to do anything, but then it lifted and went away – well mostly. I was preparing for the evening devo, when I got a text message from Yura asking if he could do the devo tonight. I said sure. We are in transition again. With Oksana leaving on Saturday, we are having to develop or find other translators to take her place in assisting me in my teaching in the village of Bugkivka. Everything has become increasingly more difficult and so we have had to do what we can well and keep on serving the Lord. Yura did a devo on what is the right church and are there Christians in all Churches? Wow – he really took me by surprise! He did it as question and answer/discussion. At first, I was really upset with him for doing such a devo, but I believe that it will turn out very good as this seems to something that has been buried and been on the minds of several of our young people and so we are going to study and share more about this now that it is out in the open. Afterwards, Yura and I talked for maybe an hour and made a lot of good progress. He didn’t mean to speak badly about the Church, but as so many do, wandered about all the other stronger believers in other Churches and what about them. So, it is an open door into deeper study into God’s Word. The last went home around 9:30 tonight. Oh yeah, we used the after devo time to say good bye to Oksana. It was a good time for her and us.
Wednesday, April 9
2 days in a row with a bad headache. I am doing a lot of study on future sermon preparations. This morning I also spent a lot of time in Bible study about last night’s devo and found 2 really good books in my library that have been a lot of help and have sent some emails off to people I know that translate brotherhood books into Russian and or Ukrainian to see if they have these 2 books or at least one of them. I ate lunch out today and shortly after I came back in, Serge came in. He is not a member of the Church, but we have studied off and on for the last 2 ½ years. He is my main translator for Tuesday and Sunday night. He faithfully translated last night without saying anything, but of course he was thinking. So he came about 12:45 and we talked and studied for almost 3 hours! And still have a lot to talk about! Then Gregory and his son, Sasha came over and we went to the church building to get them some new songbooks for the prison from the church building. The Library at the building was locked so we couldn’t get the books out, but made arrangement for later. I came back about 4:30 and quickly made plans and arrangements for our English Club tonight. 1 girl came and I did help her with some English and we had a nice talk and she left about 6:45. I then went out for a salad for supper and went for a walk – it is beautiful outside – about 68 today – with about mid 40’s in the morning. The trees are now all in bud and the bushes are really turning green! Some of the flowering trees are in bloom. I love spring!
Thursday, April 10
Good news! No headache today! Spent time getting ready for 2 classes today with crafts, etc. for the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk. Yulya, Olya and Natasha and I went. We were able to only have 2 classes today and not 4 because they had a concert program an hour after we got there. But we had a good study and then got home around 5 after taking the girls home.
Friday, April 11
Spring is here in full force. Today, I left my house at 6:30am to pick up Natasha and then Oksana and take her to Kiev for her trip to Germany. She leaves tomorrow, but had to be in Kiev today and with her luggage had no other way. After getting lost a bit in Kiev and terrible traffic, we got back to Kremenchuk about 4pm. Then Frisbee at 6 – we had 10 and a great time! But I did a lot of running and oh am I sore! Everyone came over here to eat sandwiches afterwards as they were all hungry! (10 hungry kids can really put the food away!) We had a good time with people leaving around 10. The heat in our city is distributed by the city and it was turned off today because we have had an earlier than normal warm spring – normally the 15th. So no more heat!
I heard of a terrible accident today. A drunken rich man, driving about 110 miles an hour in Kremenchuk at 1:30am hit 3 people walking and killed them all – terribly so. He will get off because he is rich and they are blaming the accident on the walkers because they were not walking in a cross walk!!! Can you believe it? Horrible!
Saturday, April 12
Bible Clubs today were good with 5 and 8 here. After the last one, several came over and went for a walk together. I am still very sore and almost ill from abnormal exercise for me and didn’t go.
Sunday, April 13
We had good attendance today and then our Tea or sort of Potluck afterwards. Also, afterwards I met with people in the church about helping with our VBS day camp. We had 6 ladies and 1 man and 2 of my students come. They will help a lot. We will do this for the first 2 weeks in June from 8 am to 4:30pm. Our 4 American guests the Braynt’s and Gerganus’ were our guests at evening services and Charles B. preached and LT helped with the communion service, too. We had 16 this evening. We went home around 8 but 5 came home with me and we watched the movie about the Twin Towers with Nicholus Cage in it, then I took all home, getting home around 11.
Monday, April 14
I am working on 2 studies right now to make into charts and teaching materials. One is how you come to be in the Church – become a Christian – from a more detailed look than normal and another is “Who is Jesus?” Also I went back to School #10 today and found out that we could get in to the school to teach and we will teach a 6th grade class on Fridays at 2pm. Then at 5pm I picked up Ksusha and Olya and we went to the twins home until about 8 to have tea with them and study the Bible.
Tuesday, April 15
I worked all morning on the Who is Jesus study and chart and finished it after lunch. I had a great walk outside in our spring weather and met one of Kelli’s neighbors and sort of chatted with her for awhile. I worked on my April Newsletter today and sent that out. I used the Who is Jesus study for my devo tonight – we had 14 with 2 new people! Alina came and said she really wanted to come more and it was such good news! We had such a blessed evening together and all left around 9:30.
There are several things I am working at improving my discipline in: better eating for health and weight loss, daily walking for exercise, deeper and more consistent prayer life and personal study of the Word of God, always working on lesson study and sermon preparations ahead of time to take away all stress, better use of my time to touch more lives and daily communication with people through email, phone and in person. Whew! Now doing that every day, day in and day out is a good challenge! This is my life style, this is what I want and am working on. As Paul said, “I have not yet reached perfection, but I press on the upward call!” I went walking today to Ksusha’s pizza place where she works and had a SMALL pizza. I went there to eat and encourage her. Then I walked some more afterwards! I worked on my lesson for tonight’s devo. I fixed chocolate chip cookies before devo – I wasn’t going to eat any, but I did, but I didn’t eat any supper – does that count??? So pizza and chocolate chip cookies – I guess that is not eating to healthy today! We had 13 for devo tonight and that was good and a good time and fellowship afterwards!
Wednesday, April 02
I spent most of the morning trying to record a sermon to send out to churches requesting one. 3 times I did something wrong and the recording didn’t work! At least I got to practice the sermon a lot! Finally it worked. After lunch I worked on my English Club for tonight until 4:45pm. We had 8 for our English Club. Right now, 4 of those are also coming to our Bible Club, so already English Club is a success!
Thursday, April 3
I talked to my TN Elders this morning on the phone, working out some details about the future – at 5:30am my time. It’s ok – I was already up! There is some conflict – not the bad kind – about who is going to be working with the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk and so we didn’t go today, but Lord willing, we will next week. Again, I was blessed to spend some time with some of our group, but overall, a pretty quiet day.
Friday, April 4
I have been working, or I should say trying to work on some video and sound files and not having a great deal of success. I will try to get Artem to assist me with some of these things! I use the computer quiet a bit, but some things just seem to baffle me. I haven’t done my April Newsletter yet, because I am waiting to hear if the Dec. and Feb. newsletters have been – the physical paper ones – sent from TN. I feel like people don’t need to be receiving 3 newsletters from me all at once. We had a quiet fun night with just 6 of us here – but we did have a good time together!
Saturday, April 5
Bible Club was pretty much as usual. We had 5 in each of the 2 Bible Clubs. We had about 20 people in the Church Discussion time at the Church building today at 4. The Bryans and Gerganus’ are here for 3 weeks. They are such great people and it is so good to have them back with us!
Sunday, April 6
We had really good attendance today at services. Andrey, who does our song leading and translating was ill today, so Peter led the singing and Sasha older guy did the translating for Charles Bryan who preached a good sermon. To me the sermon was normal, but for Yulya – she said that it was great and just what she needed to hear! Everyone was so busy today, so we didn’t go to the Orphanage at Potoki. I finished up my sermon for tonight and then we had 15 at evening services, with 2 new ladies walking in to be with us. We celebrated Vika’s 15th birthday tonight and had a grand old time!
Monday, April 7
Personal study and prayer started my day. I spent some time working on this journal. I prepared for my Bible Study tonight with the Orphan family. Please pray for this family that they will come to faith and put their life and trust in Christ and become a part of His Church. It has been such a long study, I struggle what to teach and how to teach it to help them become obedient to Christ. I don’t understand why it is so hard for them. I spent some time with my brothers and sisters today helping them with personal things as well as some spiritual things. Ksusha, Olya and I went to the twins/Orphanage family tonight at 5:30 and I got home around 9. I do enjoy the family and we did have a good study, too.
Tuesday, April 8
I had a bad headache most of the first ½ of the day and it was hard to do anything, but then it lifted and went away – well mostly. I was preparing for the evening devo, when I got a text message from Yura asking if he could do the devo tonight. I said sure. We are in transition again. With Oksana leaving on Saturday, we are having to develop or find other translators to take her place in assisting me in my teaching in the village of Bugkivka. Everything has become increasingly more difficult and so we have had to do what we can well and keep on serving the Lord. Yura did a devo on what is the right church and are there Christians in all Churches? Wow – he really took me by surprise! He did it as question and answer/discussion. At first, I was really upset with him for doing such a devo, but I believe that it will turn out very good as this seems to something that has been buried and been on the minds of several of our young people and so we are going to study and share more about this now that it is out in the open. Afterwards, Yura and I talked for maybe an hour and made a lot of good progress. He didn’t mean to speak badly about the Church, but as so many do, wandered about all the other stronger believers in other Churches and what about them. So, it is an open door into deeper study into God’s Word. The last went home around 9:30 tonight. Oh yeah, we used the after devo time to say good bye to Oksana. It was a good time for her and us.
Wednesday, April 9
2 days in a row with a bad headache. I am doing a lot of study on future sermon preparations. This morning I also spent a lot of time in Bible study about last night’s devo and found 2 really good books in my library that have been a lot of help and have sent some emails off to people I know that translate brotherhood books into Russian and or Ukrainian to see if they have these 2 books or at least one of them. I ate lunch out today and shortly after I came back in, Serge came in. He is not a member of the Church, but we have studied off and on for the last 2 ½ years. He is my main translator for Tuesday and Sunday night. He faithfully translated last night without saying anything, but of course he was thinking. So he came about 12:45 and we talked and studied for almost 3 hours! And still have a lot to talk about! Then Gregory and his son, Sasha came over and we went to the church building to get them some new songbooks for the prison from the church building. The Library at the building was locked so we couldn’t get the books out, but made arrangement for later. I came back about 4:30 and quickly made plans and arrangements for our English Club tonight. 1 girl came and I did help her with some English and we had a nice talk and she left about 6:45. I then went out for a salad for supper and went for a walk – it is beautiful outside – about 68 today – with about mid 40’s in the morning. The trees are now all in bud and the bushes are really turning green! Some of the flowering trees are in bloom. I love spring!
Thursday, April 10
Good news! No headache today! Spent time getting ready for 2 classes today with crafts, etc. for the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk. Yulya, Olya and Natasha and I went. We were able to only have 2 classes today and not 4 because they had a concert program an hour after we got there. But we had a good study and then got home around 5 after taking the girls home.
Friday, April 11
Spring is here in full force. Today, I left my house at 6:30am to pick up Natasha and then Oksana and take her to Kiev for her trip to Germany. She leaves tomorrow, but had to be in Kiev today and with her luggage had no other way. After getting lost a bit in Kiev and terrible traffic, we got back to Kremenchuk about 4pm. Then Frisbee at 6 – we had 10 and a great time! But I did a lot of running and oh am I sore! Everyone came over here to eat sandwiches afterwards as they were all hungry! (10 hungry kids can really put the food away!) We had a good time with people leaving around 10. The heat in our city is distributed by the city and it was turned off today because we have had an earlier than normal warm spring – normally the 15th. So no more heat!
I heard of a terrible accident today. A drunken rich man, driving about 110 miles an hour in Kremenchuk at 1:30am hit 3 people walking and killed them all – terribly so. He will get off because he is rich and they are blaming the accident on the walkers because they were not walking in a cross walk!!! Can you believe it? Horrible!
Saturday, April 12
Bible Clubs today were good with 5 and 8 here. After the last one, several came over and went for a walk together. I am still very sore and almost ill from abnormal exercise for me and didn’t go.
Sunday, April 13
We had good attendance today and then our Tea or sort of Potluck afterwards. Also, afterwards I met with people in the church about helping with our VBS day camp. We had 6 ladies and 1 man and 2 of my students come. They will help a lot. We will do this for the first 2 weeks in June from 8 am to 4:30pm. Our 4 American guests the Braynt’s and Gerganus’ were our guests at evening services and Charles B. preached and LT helped with the communion service, too. We had 16 this evening. We went home around 8 but 5 came home with me and we watched the movie about the Twin Towers with Nicholus Cage in it, then I took all home, getting home around 11.
Monday, April 14
I am working on 2 studies right now to make into charts and teaching materials. One is how you come to be in the Church – become a Christian – from a more detailed look than normal and another is “Who is Jesus?” Also I went back to School #10 today and found out that we could get in to the school to teach and we will teach a 6th grade class on Fridays at 2pm. Then at 5pm I picked up Ksusha and Olya and we went to the twins home until about 8 to have tea with them and study the Bible.
Tuesday, April 15
I worked all morning on the Who is Jesus study and chart and finished it after lunch. I had a great walk outside in our spring weather and met one of Kelli’s neighbors and sort of chatted with her for awhile. I worked on my April Newsletter today and sent that out. I used the Who is Jesus study for my devo tonight – we had 14 with 2 new people! Alina came and said she really wanted to come more and it was such good news! We had such a blessed evening together and all left around 9:30.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Doug’s Journal in Kremenchuk
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Well 2 days after travel and I catch a bit of jet lag today and am pretty tired. My car insurance is due today (I renew it each year on about the date I bought the car). I couldn’t get into the insurance office until the afternoon after 2 and it took about an hour and then I will have to finish it up next Monday – signing papers and all that. I am of course just making it for 4 months this year or until the end up July. I picked up working on a Sermon plan for a year that I had started before I went to England. I think that it is a very good plan, but will try to mold it what a local congregation may want or need in the way of preaching.
Friday, March 21
I continue to work on my year sermon plan. Also I am working and planning for tonight’s Bible Study in 1 John and that took several hours. At about 2, I fixed lunch for Yulya after she finished her University and we had a good couple of hours together. She was up until 4am studying and then got only 3 hours of sleep, so she went home tired. We had 6 for our Bible Study and fun night afterwards.
Saturday, March 22
My Saturdays are pretty much consumed with Bible Clubs, preparations, and lessons. We had 5 for our Adult Bible Club and then only 2 for our evening Teen Bible Club. In between I went to the Church discussion at 4 at the church building and that went well and was enjoyable.
Sunday, March 23
I went birthday shopping before services for Sasha’s gift. After morning worship services, we fixed sandwiches and I cooked for 7 of us. Then, because it is spring break week, we didn’t go to the orphanage and so had a bit of a break. I prepared my evening lesson and picked up people and went to services. We had 11. Afterwards we celebrated Sasha girls 15th birthday and a good evening together.
Monday, March 24
Today Artem is 24, but we won’t celebrate his birthday until Friday. Also today is James and Anya’s 1 year wedding anniversary, so congratulations to them, too! I worked more on my one year sermon plan and began to work on redoing a sermon that I preached recently here. What I am doing with this sermon is to prepare it to be delivered for taping purposes. All my sermons and classes that I do here are with a translator and I am sure stateside churches wouldn’t be interested in hearing a sermon that way! This took up most of my day. Olya and I did go to the twins family and studied and spent about 2 ½ hours with them about 6pm this evening.
Tuesday, March 25
I noticed the first green leaves on some of the bushes and the some of the trees are starting to bud – kind of early. Spent a lot of time in study today with sermon and devotional prep. I have more free time this week than normal because of this being spring break, so no orphanages, no village, etc. We had a nice group for the devo with 11 present. Everybody seemed to be pretty busy and went home early.
Wednesday, March 26
I am making extra effort to try and spend more individual time with people, so was with a few people extra today. As time draws nearer for my departure, it becomes a more urgent time with people. It reminds me that it should always be that way! I spent time preparing for English Club as well as practicing a sermon I want to tape and deliver onto CD. We had 9 for our English Club tonight and that lasted from 6 until about 8. One of the things that I have been thinking about this English Clubs and my English Bible Clubs is that they would be very effective tools to be used in the US to reach out to other language cultures such as Spanish speaking people as an example. I am excited about using them when I move back to work with a Church in the States!
Thursday, March 27
I am involved in a lot of personal Bible Study and prayer for the work here and for my future work in the states that I want to strengthen me and also to use in the building up of the Christians here. I had several of our group in and out today and so that was good. At 5pm, Vika (she is 14 and in Technical School or equivalent to 10th grade) came to me and we went to the Circus together! I had invited all who wanted to go to come, but Vika was the only one who could come, but it was great because we had a good time together and then I took to McDonald’s to eat and it was only the 2nd time in her life that she had eaten at a McDonalds – the first time was in Kiev several years ago. I got home around 9:30pm.
Friday, March 28
As I have mentioned, this has been rather a slow week, because the schools and the orphanages being on spring break. The weather has been beautiful. I prepared for my study tonight on 1 John. At 5pm Ksusha came for the study but no one else. It is frustrating right now that people are so busy, but again as last night with Vika, we had some good quality time together. 9 more people did come by around 6:30pm and we celebrated Artem’s birthday together with him (he has just turned 24). We were together until around 9pm.
Saturday, March 29
A busy morning in the Market and final lesson preparations for Bible Clubs. We had much better attendance today than we have had for awhile with 7 in our Adult/University Club at noon and then 7 in our Teen Club in the evening. In between times, I started a personal Bible Study with Ksusha’s mom. That is something we have been working towards and wanting for a long, long time! Ksusha became a Christian 4 years ago and has been a strong steady influence on many. She has brought her cousin Vika to Christ last May and now Lord willing we will see her Mother added to Christ before long! Her Mom, Nadya has been coming to services and other activities for a long time and has been a host mother to many of our American friends that have come to Ukraine to work with us in summer mission work.
Sunday, March 30
It was a pleasant surprise to have Charles and Margaret Bryan and LT and Jo Ann Gerganus here this morning! They are here to teach at the Bible College for the next 3 weeks. They are such fine people! I thought they weren’t coming until May. Well, after services I took several people home and then went and ate lunch with Zhenya, who had been in Germany for 3 weeks and we had a nice lunch and visit together. I went home and finished working on my lesson for tonight from Isaiah 53. We had 12 for evening services and that went well. Everyone went home around 8.
Monday, March 31
Inna, who is also 23 and one of my first students, was married back in September to a man from Peru who is now living in Spain. She had been in Peru to meet his family and to have a honeymoon that they never had. She came at noon and we ate together and looked at pictures of her travels. At 3 I picked up Olya and we went to our Wal mart type store – Prostor and did some shopping for a birthday present for one of our orphan boys with the Orphan family that we study with and have become very close to. He is 4 years old. We got a couple of presents for him and some food I needed. Then I took Olya home and she wrapped the gifts and I went home for awhile, eating supper and then at 5:40pm I picked her up, then Oksana who we met at the train station, who had just come in from Kiev getting her visa for Germany. Then we went and bought a birthday cake and went to the family and was there until 8:45pm. We Didn’t study tonight, just celebrated Artem and visited and ate! I got home about 9:30.
Well 2 days after travel and I catch a bit of jet lag today and am pretty tired. My car insurance is due today (I renew it each year on about the date I bought the car). I couldn’t get into the insurance office until the afternoon after 2 and it took about an hour and then I will have to finish it up next Monday – signing papers and all that. I am of course just making it for 4 months this year or until the end up July. I picked up working on a Sermon plan for a year that I had started before I went to England. I think that it is a very good plan, but will try to mold it what a local congregation may want or need in the way of preaching.
Friday, March 21
I continue to work on my year sermon plan. Also I am working and planning for tonight’s Bible Study in 1 John and that took several hours. At about 2, I fixed lunch for Yulya after she finished her University and we had a good couple of hours together. She was up until 4am studying and then got only 3 hours of sleep, so she went home tired. We had 6 for our Bible Study and fun night afterwards.
Saturday, March 22
My Saturdays are pretty much consumed with Bible Clubs, preparations, and lessons. We had 5 for our Adult Bible Club and then only 2 for our evening Teen Bible Club. In between I went to the Church discussion at 4 at the church building and that went well and was enjoyable.
Sunday, March 23
I went birthday shopping before services for Sasha’s gift. After morning worship services, we fixed sandwiches and I cooked for 7 of us. Then, because it is spring break week, we didn’t go to the orphanage and so had a bit of a break. I prepared my evening lesson and picked up people and went to services. We had 11. Afterwards we celebrated Sasha girls 15th birthday and a good evening together.
Monday, March 24
Today Artem is 24, but we won’t celebrate his birthday until Friday. Also today is James and Anya’s 1 year wedding anniversary, so congratulations to them, too! I worked more on my one year sermon plan and began to work on redoing a sermon that I preached recently here. What I am doing with this sermon is to prepare it to be delivered for taping purposes. All my sermons and classes that I do here are with a translator and I am sure stateside churches wouldn’t be interested in hearing a sermon that way! This took up most of my day. Olya and I did go to the twins family and studied and spent about 2 ½ hours with them about 6pm this evening.
Tuesday, March 25
I noticed the first green leaves on some of the bushes and the some of the trees are starting to bud – kind of early. Spent a lot of time in study today with sermon and devotional prep. I have more free time this week than normal because of this being spring break, so no orphanages, no village, etc. We had a nice group for the devo with 11 present. Everybody seemed to be pretty busy and went home early.
Wednesday, March 26
I am making extra effort to try and spend more individual time with people, so was with a few people extra today. As time draws nearer for my departure, it becomes a more urgent time with people. It reminds me that it should always be that way! I spent time preparing for English Club as well as practicing a sermon I want to tape and deliver onto CD. We had 9 for our English Club tonight and that lasted from 6 until about 8. One of the things that I have been thinking about this English Clubs and my English Bible Clubs is that they would be very effective tools to be used in the US to reach out to other language cultures such as Spanish speaking people as an example. I am excited about using them when I move back to work with a Church in the States!
Thursday, March 27
I am involved in a lot of personal Bible Study and prayer for the work here and for my future work in the states that I want to strengthen me and also to use in the building up of the Christians here. I had several of our group in and out today and so that was good. At 5pm, Vika (she is 14 and in Technical School or equivalent to 10th grade) came to me and we went to the Circus together! I had invited all who wanted to go to come, but Vika was the only one who could come, but it was great because we had a good time together and then I took to McDonald’s to eat and it was only the 2nd time in her life that she had eaten at a McDonalds – the first time was in Kiev several years ago. I got home around 9:30pm.
Friday, March 28
As I have mentioned, this has been rather a slow week, because the schools and the orphanages being on spring break. The weather has been beautiful. I prepared for my study tonight on 1 John. At 5pm Ksusha came for the study but no one else. It is frustrating right now that people are so busy, but again as last night with Vika, we had some good quality time together. 9 more people did come by around 6:30pm and we celebrated Artem’s birthday together with him (he has just turned 24). We were together until around 9pm.
Saturday, March 29
A busy morning in the Market and final lesson preparations for Bible Clubs. We had much better attendance today than we have had for awhile with 7 in our Adult/University Club at noon and then 7 in our Teen Club in the evening. In between times, I started a personal Bible Study with Ksusha’s mom. That is something we have been working towards and wanting for a long, long time! Ksusha became a Christian 4 years ago and has been a strong steady influence on many. She has brought her cousin Vika to Christ last May and now Lord willing we will see her Mother added to Christ before long! Her Mom, Nadya has been coming to services and other activities for a long time and has been a host mother to many of our American friends that have come to Ukraine to work with us in summer mission work.
Sunday, March 30
It was a pleasant surprise to have Charles and Margaret Bryan and LT and Jo Ann Gerganus here this morning! They are here to teach at the Bible College for the next 3 weeks. They are such fine people! I thought they weren’t coming until May. Well, after services I took several people home and then went and ate lunch with Zhenya, who had been in Germany for 3 weeks and we had a nice lunch and visit together. I went home and finished working on my lesson for tonight from Isaiah 53. We had 12 for evening services and that went well. Everyone went home around 8.
Monday, March 31
Inna, who is also 23 and one of my first students, was married back in September to a man from Peru who is now living in Spain. She had been in Peru to meet his family and to have a honeymoon that they never had. She came at noon and we ate together and looked at pictures of her travels. At 3 I picked up Olya and we went to our Wal mart type store – Prostor and did some shopping for a birthday present for one of our orphan boys with the Orphan family that we study with and have become very close to. He is 4 years old. We got a couple of presents for him and some food I needed. Then I took Olya home and she wrapped the gifts and I went home for awhile, eating supper and then at 5:40pm I picked her up, then Oksana who we met at the train station, who had just come in from Kiev getting her visa for Germany. Then we went and bought a birthday cake and went to the family and was there until 8:45pm. We Didn’t study tonight, just celebrated Artem and visited and ate! I got home about 9:30.
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