Cell Phone: 011-380-96-564-4311
Home Phone: 011-380-536-791-737
Internet Number in the USA to call me: 931-442-0937
Email: doug_berry2001@yahoo.com
Website: ukrainemission.com
Blog: Kremenchuk.blogspot.com
USA contact: Steve Jefferson: 931-433-0189
Friday, June 20, 2008
June Newsletter
Dear Family in the Lord
I have such appreciation and thankfulness in the Lord for you as you have so faithfully been with me over these last 6 years! What a blessing you have been to me and this ministry. Praise God for the love and service you have rendered to Him!
Moving Forward
We have just finished our 2 weeks of VBS Day Camp here with an average attendance of 14, with a low of 7 the first day and a high of 18 with ages ranging for 3rd grade to 8th grade. That is pretty good for us here! We have 8 of these young people that will go to the Black Sea with us this year at our Bible Camp there in July.
I have 5 main objectives in the next six weeks: 1) Prepare for the Black Sea Camp and carry it out, 2) Spend as much time with people as I possibly can, 3) Have some evening Bible Studies leading up to camp, 4) Finish helping our Orphan family come to Christ and 5) Get everything packed out, given away, and ready to be out of this apartment and shipped back to the states! The first 2 of these objectives are right now paramount in my mind, but the others are just as demanding and have to be met as well.
I have bought my ticket back to the USA for July 31, and I will first go to Fayetteville, TN to be with my overseeing congregation as we finish things up there and say good bye to those very wonderful and faithful people that have been with me all of these wonderful years. From there I will probably visit some congregations that I have been in contact with about ministry work. Please pray for my future work in the Lord’s Church.
About the future work in Ukraine, I am still planning on coming back in the summers to direct and be apart of Bible Camps. Please continue to support us in this work. Also, very important, please let us know of your intentions to continue to support us, so I can make future plans! Thank you so much!!!
Looking Back
I want to back up about 6 years! I started this work as the only worker on the field. Over the last 6 years we have had numerous short term summer workers join us as well as 4 full time workers that came for at least 18 months at a time. We have had 3 full time native workers working with us as well.
We came working in one school and over the years we have worked regularly in 6 schools in Kremenchuk and surrounding villages and cities. We have literally taught thousands of children over the last 6 years in their own schools. One School Director told me that he was glad to have me come back and work in his school, because I taught and did exactly what I said I would! He said I was always welcome to come back again!
We started working with Gregory in a small prison work that we continued to support over the full time of my work here. The prison work has grown to serving about 150 boys and we made sandwiches for them every Sunday for 6 years. We made approximately 35,000 sandwiches during this time! We also developed work in 4 orphanages as well, again teaching literally hundreds of kids during this time. We have been actively involved in Bible Teaching and in benevolence to these children.
We have also assisted in the work and development of 5 churches of Christ over the last 6 years, with different degrees of success.
As you know, our main outreach has been to school and University age students, also with the goal of also reaching parents through the young people. We have used teaching at schools, Singing, Devotionals and worship services at my home and at the church building. We have used Bible Clubs growing from 1 a weekend to 4 every weekend. Again, 100s have been taught the truth and 42 have been saved, including 8 parents! 82% of these have remained faithful and we are working with 3 of them to restore them and bring them back to the faith. Also a very large part of our work has been our summer campaigns, Bible Classes and Bible Camps. We have had 5 Black Sea Bible Camps and will have our 6th this summer before I return to the States.
The only goal I have not fulfilled as I wished was my learning of the language and being able to teach in it. Language has been one of my biggest struggles in being in Ukraine.
I have such appreciation and thankfulness in the Lord for you as you have so faithfully been with me over these last 6 years! What a blessing you have been to me and this ministry. Praise God for the love and service you have rendered to Him!
Moving Forward
We have just finished our 2 weeks of VBS Day Camp here with an average attendance of 14, with a low of 7 the first day and a high of 18 with ages ranging for 3rd grade to 8th grade. That is pretty good for us here! We have 8 of these young people that will go to the Black Sea with us this year at our Bible Camp there in July.
I have 5 main objectives in the next six weeks: 1) Prepare for the Black Sea Camp and carry it out, 2) Spend as much time with people as I possibly can, 3) Have some evening Bible Studies leading up to camp, 4) Finish helping our Orphan family come to Christ and 5) Get everything packed out, given away, and ready to be out of this apartment and shipped back to the states! The first 2 of these objectives are right now paramount in my mind, but the others are just as demanding and have to be met as well.
I have bought my ticket back to the USA for July 31, and I will first go to Fayetteville, TN to be with my overseeing congregation as we finish things up there and say good bye to those very wonderful and faithful people that have been with me all of these wonderful years. From there I will probably visit some congregations that I have been in contact with about ministry work. Please pray for my future work in the Lord’s Church.
About the future work in Ukraine, I am still planning on coming back in the summers to direct and be apart of Bible Camps. Please continue to support us in this work. Also, very important, please let us know of your intentions to continue to support us, so I can make future plans! Thank you so much!!!
Looking Back
I want to back up about 6 years! I started this work as the only worker on the field. Over the last 6 years we have had numerous short term summer workers join us as well as 4 full time workers that came for at least 18 months at a time. We have had 3 full time native workers working with us as well.
We came working in one school and over the years we have worked regularly in 6 schools in Kremenchuk and surrounding villages and cities. We have literally taught thousands of children over the last 6 years in their own schools. One School Director told me that he was glad to have me come back and work in his school, because I taught and did exactly what I said I would! He said I was always welcome to come back again!
We started working with Gregory in a small prison work that we continued to support over the full time of my work here. The prison work has grown to serving about 150 boys and we made sandwiches for them every Sunday for 6 years. We made approximately 35,000 sandwiches during this time! We also developed work in 4 orphanages as well, again teaching literally hundreds of kids during this time. We have been actively involved in Bible Teaching and in benevolence to these children.
We have also assisted in the work and development of 5 churches of Christ over the last 6 years, with different degrees of success.
As you know, our main outreach has been to school and University age students, also with the goal of also reaching parents through the young people. We have used teaching at schools, Singing, Devotionals and worship services at my home and at the church building. We have used Bible Clubs growing from 1 a weekend to 4 every weekend. Again, 100s have been taught the truth and 42 have been saved, including 8 parents! 82% of these have remained faithful and we are working with 3 of them to restore them and bring them back to the faith. Also a very large part of our work has been our summer campaigns, Bible Classes and Bible Camps. We have had 5 Black Sea Bible Camps and will have our 6th this summer before I return to the States.
The only goal I have not fulfilled as I wished was my learning of the language and being able to teach in it. Language has been one of my biggest struggles in being in Ukraine.
Monday, June 16, 2008
June 1-15 Journal - Featuring VBS Day Camp
Our afternoon 6th-8th grade Bible Class with Frankie teaching.
Olya (Univ student and teacher) in the middle of 2 campers
It's dinner time! We had 2 snack times and dinner every day!
One of our devotionals during camp!This was a special time every day.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Worship was at 10am – a long service to 12 today as a visiting American had a long sermon – good but long! Then I had a meeting with our workers for camp. We have 6 women from the Church that are teaching Bible Classes for the first time!!! I am very proud and excited for them! We have a great group of ladies working with us this year! Then we made sandwiches for the boy’s prison and had chili at my house for 6 of us. At 2 we went to the Orphan family home to celebrate with the Katya, who is 6 years old today! I got back from there about 4:30pm and had my English Bible Club at the Church building at 5pm. That ended well – that was the last class for this study. Then at 6pm, we had a good worship service and I got home about 8.
Monday, June 2
We started our Day Camp from 8 to 4:30 today with 7 students (ages 3rd grade through 8th grade). We had no idea how many to expect! It’s a fewer than we hoped for, but hopefully it will grow! We changed our schedule up because of the kids schedule and started our Devotional at 10 and our first class at 11 with just one class in the morning instead of 2. We had lunch and our 2nd class at 2:30. In between we played a lot of games and had a lot of fun!!! We finished with a devo at about 4:15.
Tuesday, June 3 – Jenise’s Birthday (daughter) and Yulya’s 4th Spiritual Birthday today, too!
Today we had 11 at camp and we did it all over again! A good day. Then at 6 we had our devo with 13 people. People stayed around until 9:30.
Wednesday, June 4
Again Camp with 14 today! We are growing. We moved our starting time to 9am. Camp is going really well. I took my first evening off after camp – no plans tonight!
Thursday, June 5
Camp had 12 today, but our 15th new camper was with us! We have had just great help from the church ladies and our young people! It has been a great blend and mixture of workers and has gone really well. Tonight at 6:30 Artem, Olya and I went to the Orphan family for a Bible study and we had all 3 older kids and mom and dad there. First we had our traditional tea and cookies. Then we got into a very serious Bible Study. Artem and Olya shared their conversion and faith stories, we looked at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. We talked to the twin boys who were baptized 2 years ago at camp very serious about coming back to faithfulness. We were there until almost 10 and I didn’t get home until after 10:30.
Friday, June 6
Olya insisted that she would come and work at camp all day today, if I would take the day off and rest! Last night I was soooo tired! So, I got her to camp (our camp has been at the church building). There was plenty of help and they did fine. I then went to the market (I hadn’t been in over a week!). Then I came home and took a nap!!! Then I fixed lunch and ate. Then took another nap! I told you I was tired! I did take time to work more on camp stuff. There is always so much to do with the Bible Camp! I went back to the Day Camp at 4 and we finished up there – they did great without me! I guess that is good – sure it is! At 6 we had Frisbee with a great turn out of 16 people and we played 3 really good games – I played the first 2. Then we had a meeting at my house to look at another camp site in the same town on the Black Sea that we were at 2 years ago. It is a lot better place and offer than anything else we have seen and decided to change our plans and take it. We will leave on the 15th at 9pm and be there for 10 full days before returning on the 26th. That leaves me just 5 days to finish up here before moving back to the US, but God will provide a way! The last of our young people – Olya and Yura left my house at 10:30pm.
Saturday, June 7
It seems strange not preparing for Bible Clubs – last weekend was our last. With the Day Camp, there was just too much to do. And now I have one day to catch up on a week – really 2 for there is next week and our Day Camp. Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed. I know that the Apostle Paul felt that way – 2 Corinthians is full of that for him – even though I do have to say that the trials that he went through were a lot more severe than mine!
Sunday, June 8
A good morning of worship. At 2:30pm Vika came to me very distraught and crying. Her grandmother, that has been living with them, passed away. I spent some time with her and wanted to go to the family, but families are very private here and it was not the thing to do. In the afternoon, I also went to where Ksusha was working (her grandmother too) and tried to speak some words of comfort to her, but she was dealing with it ok and was very busy at work. I spoke to our evening service about God’s comfort.
Monday, June 9
We got off to another good start with VBS Day Camp. We are up to 16 registered and had 15 in attendance. Most of the time, we have had nearly all our campers coming back every day. Many times they ride across town and walk to us – sometimes 30 to 45 minutes. One of the girls who is in the 5th grade comes by 2 buses about 45 minutes away to come to our camp every day! In the evening, Artem, Olya and I again went to the Orphan family for our Bible Study. Tonight we studied many passages in the NT about Baptism and what God commands of us and the blessings He brings to us when we are Baptized into Christ. At the conclusion of our study, Inna (mother) said she wanted to be baptized! Then Victor (father) said that he wanted to be baptized too! The first we expected, the 2nd we were all taken by surprise. I think that Inna was more surprised than anyone else! I tried to encourage them to do it now, but they insisted that they wanted to be baptized on Sunday. I have been strongly encouraging them to come to church services, even though this is difficult for them with a large family and a small car. They said that they would come on Sunday, then we would go to a local river and baptize them! This is such a joyous evening as we have been working towards this for nearly 2 years!
Tuesday, June 10
I put these 3 days together, because nearly everything was the same about our Day Camp. It continues to go well and we hit a high of 18 on Tuesday! The teachers are doing great, we have had great help from our young people and the kids – on the whole – are doing great. We have had a couple of boys that have caused us some bad headaches, but that is normal, too! On Tuesday night we had our devo and as usual, that went well. Frankie led the devo this evening.
Wednesday, June 11
Wednesday morning, Frankie and I spent the morning at the funeral of Vika, Ksusha and Nadya’s (Ksusha’s mom) grandmother and mother. After the funeral, the family practically begged me to also come to the funeral dinner, so I did taking Frankie back to the church building to help with the camp. I returned to the camp, after the dinner about 1pm. Our Church ladies and young people did a good job of keeping the camp going while we were gone.
Thursday, June 12
Thursday was our last day of classes, as we plan to have a fun day on Friday! We had 14 today at camp.
Friday, June 13 – Anton’s 4th year Spiritual Birthday
One of the things that I haven’t mentioned is that several of our young people are going through exams at this time and are working around their exams to help at camp! I am very proud of how hard they have worked. These are such difficult and demanding exams – both at the school and university level. Today we went to the park for the morning and played outside games. Then after lunch we had games inside – we were going to have outside water games, but it rained – no fun having water games in the rain – you want to have them in the sun! In between I had to try and find a color cartridge for my printer. I thought I could just go to the store where I have gotten one for the last 5 years – but no, that would be too easy! They were out and didn’t have one! So I went to 4 different stores and NO ONE had one!!! What is going on here??? So I had to make our final rewards in black and white – ok, but not what I wanted to give to the kids! Back to camp. We finished with a nice devotional and awards presentation of best boy and girl campers. But everyone received a gift package put together by the ladies of the church and the kids really seemed to like that. We also gave each child either a full Russian Bible or a Children’s Bible Story Book – whichever they wanted. In the evening 10 of us played Ultimate Frisbee and that was good, but I was pretty exhausted afterwards! Then people came over to my house until about 10.
Saturday, June 14
Today is Ksusha’s 18th birthday! But is a sad, sweet day for her as she is still mourning her grandmother’s loss. Again, it is a day of recovery for me after Frisbee and a long week of camp. I worked on our Bible Camp again and more – there is just so much to do with this!
Sunday, June 15
Today was to be a glorious day, but it fizzled out. Again, I have had Father’s Day away from my kids. I don’t know where I will be next Father’s Day, but at least it will be someplace where my kids can easily call and talk to me! Victor and Inna, of the Orphan family didn’t come and bring their family to church today as they had said they would. I found out that Victor was called into work. So also, they won’t be baptized today. This was a real discouragement to me. I worry for them! Maybe tomorrow evening. My afternoon was long. Jenise, my oldest daughter did call at 5pm and that was nice. At our evening services we had 12. I had bought a gallon of fresh strawberries and took them to the church building with me and then after services bought ice cream, and we had them together. Then a thunderstorm hit and I took people home in 2 car loads – 3 decided to walk! It was really raining hard. At 10:30 Ben also called and Janessa and Butch left messages on my answering machine. So I did at least hear from all my kids today!
Worship was at 10am – a long service to 12 today as a visiting American had a long sermon – good but long! Then I had a meeting with our workers for camp. We have 6 women from the Church that are teaching Bible Classes for the first time!!! I am very proud and excited for them! We have a great group of ladies working with us this year! Then we made sandwiches for the boy’s prison and had chili at my house for 6 of us. At 2 we went to the Orphan family home to celebrate with the Katya, who is 6 years old today! I got back from there about 4:30pm and had my English Bible Club at the Church building at 5pm. That ended well – that was the last class for this study. Then at 6pm, we had a good worship service and I got home about 8.
Monday, June 2
We started our Day Camp from 8 to 4:30 today with 7 students (ages 3rd grade through 8th grade). We had no idea how many to expect! It’s a fewer than we hoped for, but hopefully it will grow! We changed our schedule up because of the kids schedule and started our Devotional at 10 and our first class at 11 with just one class in the morning instead of 2. We had lunch and our 2nd class at 2:30. In between we played a lot of games and had a lot of fun!!! We finished with a devo at about 4:15.
Tuesday, June 3 – Jenise’s Birthday (daughter) and Yulya’s 4th Spiritual Birthday today, too!
Today we had 11 at camp and we did it all over again! A good day. Then at 6 we had our devo with 13 people. People stayed around until 9:30.
Wednesday, June 4
Again Camp with 14 today! We are growing. We moved our starting time to 9am. Camp is going really well. I took my first evening off after camp – no plans tonight!
Thursday, June 5
Camp had 12 today, but our 15th new camper was with us! We have had just great help from the church ladies and our young people! It has been a great blend and mixture of workers and has gone really well. Tonight at 6:30 Artem, Olya and I went to the Orphan family for a Bible study and we had all 3 older kids and mom and dad there. First we had our traditional tea and cookies. Then we got into a very serious Bible Study. Artem and Olya shared their conversion and faith stories, we looked at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. We talked to the twin boys who were baptized 2 years ago at camp very serious about coming back to faithfulness. We were there until almost 10 and I didn’t get home until after 10:30.
Friday, June 6
Olya insisted that she would come and work at camp all day today, if I would take the day off and rest! Last night I was soooo tired! So, I got her to camp (our camp has been at the church building). There was plenty of help and they did fine. I then went to the market (I hadn’t been in over a week!). Then I came home and took a nap!!! Then I fixed lunch and ate. Then took another nap! I told you I was tired! I did take time to work more on camp stuff. There is always so much to do with the Bible Camp! I went back to the Day Camp at 4 and we finished up there – they did great without me! I guess that is good – sure it is! At 6 we had Frisbee with a great turn out of 16 people and we played 3 really good games – I played the first 2. Then we had a meeting at my house to look at another camp site in the same town on the Black Sea that we were at 2 years ago. It is a lot better place and offer than anything else we have seen and decided to change our plans and take it. We will leave on the 15th at 9pm and be there for 10 full days before returning on the 26th. That leaves me just 5 days to finish up here before moving back to the US, but God will provide a way! The last of our young people – Olya and Yura left my house at 10:30pm.
Saturday, June 7
It seems strange not preparing for Bible Clubs – last weekend was our last. With the Day Camp, there was just too much to do. And now I have one day to catch up on a week – really 2 for there is next week and our Day Camp. Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed. I know that the Apostle Paul felt that way – 2 Corinthians is full of that for him – even though I do have to say that the trials that he went through were a lot more severe than mine!
Sunday, June 8
A good morning of worship. At 2:30pm Vika came to me very distraught and crying. Her grandmother, that has been living with them, passed away. I spent some time with her and wanted to go to the family, but families are very private here and it was not the thing to do. In the afternoon, I also went to where Ksusha was working (her grandmother too) and tried to speak some words of comfort to her, but she was dealing with it ok and was very busy at work. I spoke to our evening service about God’s comfort.
Monday, June 9
We got off to another good start with VBS Day Camp. We are up to 16 registered and had 15 in attendance. Most of the time, we have had nearly all our campers coming back every day. Many times they ride across town and walk to us – sometimes 30 to 45 minutes. One of the girls who is in the 5th grade comes by 2 buses about 45 minutes away to come to our camp every day! In the evening, Artem, Olya and I again went to the Orphan family for our Bible Study. Tonight we studied many passages in the NT about Baptism and what God commands of us and the blessings He brings to us when we are Baptized into Christ. At the conclusion of our study, Inna (mother) said she wanted to be baptized! Then Victor (father) said that he wanted to be baptized too! The first we expected, the 2nd we were all taken by surprise. I think that Inna was more surprised than anyone else! I tried to encourage them to do it now, but they insisted that they wanted to be baptized on Sunday. I have been strongly encouraging them to come to church services, even though this is difficult for them with a large family and a small car. They said that they would come on Sunday, then we would go to a local river and baptize them! This is such a joyous evening as we have been working towards this for nearly 2 years!
Tuesday, June 10
I put these 3 days together, because nearly everything was the same about our Day Camp. It continues to go well and we hit a high of 18 on Tuesday! The teachers are doing great, we have had great help from our young people and the kids – on the whole – are doing great. We have had a couple of boys that have caused us some bad headaches, but that is normal, too! On Tuesday night we had our devo and as usual, that went well. Frankie led the devo this evening.
Wednesday, June 11
Wednesday morning, Frankie and I spent the morning at the funeral of Vika, Ksusha and Nadya’s (Ksusha’s mom) grandmother and mother. After the funeral, the family practically begged me to also come to the funeral dinner, so I did taking Frankie back to the church building to help with the camp. I returned to the camp, after the dinner about 1pm. Our Church ladies and young people did a good job of keeping the camp going while we were gone.
Thursday, June 12
Thursday was our last day of classes, as we plan to have a fun day on Friday! We had 14 today at camp.
Friday, June 13 – Anton’s 4th year Spiritual Birthday
One of the things that I haven’t mentioned is that several of our young people are going through exams at this time and are working around their exams to help at camp! I am very proud of how hard they have worked. These are such difficult and demanding exams – both at the school and university level. Today we went to the park for the morning and played outside games. Then after lunch we had games inside – we were going to have outside water games, but it rained – no fun having water games in the rain – you want to have them in the sun! In between I had to try and find a color cartridge for my printer. I thought I could just go to the store where I have gotten one for the last 5 years – but no, that would be too easy! They were out and didn’t have one! So I went to 4 different stores and NO ONE had one!!! What is going on here??? So I had to make our final rewards in black and white – ok, but not what I wanted to give to the kids! Back to camp. We finished with a nice devotional and awards presentation of best boy and girl campers. But everyone received a gift package put together by the ladies of the church and the kids really seemed to like that. We also gave each child either a full Russian Bible or a Children’s Bible Story Book – whichever they wanted. In the evening 10 of us played Ultimate Frisbee and that was good, but I was pretty exhausted afterwards! Then people came over to my house until about 10.
Saturday, June 14
Today is Ksusha’s 18th birthday! But is a sad, sweet day for her as she is still mourning her grandmother’s loss. Again, it is a day of recovery for me after Frisbee and a long week of camp. I worked on our Bible Camp again and more – there is just so much to do with this!
Sunday, June 15
Today was to be a glorious day, but it fizzled out. Again, I have had Father’s Day away from my kids. I don’t know where I will be next Father’s Day, but at least it will be someplace where my kids can easily call and talk to me! Victor and Inna, of the Orphan family didn’t come and bring their family to church today as they had said they would. I found out that Victor was called into work. So also, they won’t be baptized today. This was a real discouragement to me. I worry for them! Maybe tomorrow evening. My afternoon was long. Jenise, my oldest daughter did call at 5pm and that was nice. At our evening services we had 12. I had bought a gallon of fresh strawberries and took them to the church building with me and then after services bought ice cream, and we had them together. Then a thunderstorm hit and I took people home in 2 car loads – 3 decided to walk! It was really raining hard. At 10:30 Ben also called and Janessa and Butch left messages on my answering machine. So I did at least hear from all my kids today!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Journal for May 16-31 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
I didn’t mention that I spent considerable time yesterday filling up 5, 6 and 10 liter water bottles – all that I had in the house with water – and that’s quite a few as I used to get all my drinking water this way. Because they are going to turn off all water in all the city until Monday! Isn’t that wonderful? I am not sure why. Some say maybe it is because they are going to clean the sewer systems out. Well, true to form, we had no water when I got up this morning. Interesting, huh? I worked on our add for the upcoming Day Camp the first of June. I prepared for a class that didn’t show up at school 10 at 2. We had Frisbee at 5 that just 5 people came to and that’s not enough to play ultimate Frisbee with!
Saturday, May 17
Again no water. We had 2 and 2 for our Bible Clubs today – our last ones. Sad. An end of an era. Everything slows down this time of year as the Universities and Schools come to and end and prepare for exams in June.
Sunday, May 18
A good day of worship and fellowship. We made sandwiches for the boy’s prison. Then 6 of us ate together. Then we went to Potoki orphanage for the last time – I probably won’t be in Kremenchuk next Sunday and after that schools are done and the orphanages basically shut down for the summer or take the kids to summer camps for the summer months. We had 5 at our Adult beginner Bible Club at 5 at the church building and we had 14 for our evening worship. By the way, we got water back about noon today! Early but good. I am not complaining!
Monday, May 19
For us our weather is really turning hot – low to mid 80’s. At 2, Olya, Yulya and Vika and I went to Bugkivka for their annual spring celebration. It’s always on May 19. This is the 5th time (I think!) that I have been to this event. We watched them play games, get awards, and have a concert. They also fed us with buck wheat which is a tradition – they do a very good job of fixing it! We got home after 10pm. They went till midnight, but we didn’t want to stay that long!
Tuesday, May 20
I’m working on the day camp and camp. I went, with translation help, of course, to the director at School 11 and she said we could pass out invitations to our day camp in the hall way between classes, so we will do that later in the week. Devo with 9 people tonight.
Wednesday, May 21
I visited School 9 today to ask about inviting kids and the new director said yes, but come later – tomorrow we will come! I prepared for English club plus worked on a number of other things. We had only 3 at our last English Club. We were able to make contacts that we would have never made any other way, and yet we saw no Bible studies or conversions out of this class. 2 of the students have come to some of our other Bible Studies.
Thursday, May 22
Went to School 9 and handed out, with the help of Yulya translating and a school assistant, invitations to the Bible Day Camp! That went well. Prepared for the afternoon at the Orphanage and those classes went well with Olya, Yulya and Natasha. At 8pm we went to the Orphan Family study – late because they were working in the fields. When we got there they were still working. They were haying the old fashioned way. There was an extra pitch fork – and I had done a lot of this as a kid – so I pitched in and helped for about an hour. I probably shouldn’t have as I hurt my lower back and am in a lot of pain. We left without having a Bible Study and they were still working.
Friday, May 23
I struggled with a lot of pain in my back this morning, but I decided that I had some things that I had to do. So, Sasha R. – older buy and preacher in Komsomolsk – went with me to School 11 and 10 and handed out invitations for the Day Camp. I have probably handed out over 350 so far! We will hand out at one more school - #1. Olya and Yulya have agreed to do that one! I had lunch with Buddy Baker and Jerry Morgan today as they are in town. They are missionaries that bring clothes, food, special needs, etc. to 10 orphanages in our area. They do a great work! I came home and rested my sore back – it is a bit better. At 6 we were supposed to play Frisbee but it rained! It finally has cooled things down!!! So 3 came here and we played cards. I also packed 2 suitcases of clothes and books that Buddy Baker will take back with him and to Fayetteville for me! This will be a great help! We (fellow card players) met Nastya at the train station and took her home and then took the 2 suitcases to the Church building for Buddy to get on Sunday. Then Olya and Yura and I came back and played another game of Phase 10, finishing up about 10pm.
Saturday, May 24 and Sunday May 25
Natasha (a year old Christian and a 27 year old student) has been asking me for some time to go and visit her family, so today I went with her to village, 100 Kilometers away – 60 miles, to visit her family. Her main family in the village consists of her Mom, her sister and a niece and nephew. They were all really nice and I enjoyed spending the time with them and walking with them in their village. They were really nice to me! We came back on Sunday afternoon and were back in time for evening services where I preached. Then I had to get ready for my trip tomorrow!
Monday, May 26 and Tuesday, May 27
I left the house at 6:30 in the morning to pick up Ksusha, Vika and Zhenya for our trip down to the Azov Sea to check out a site for Bible Camp. We have had so many unpleasant surprises over the years of campsites we have not seen, so I decided that we would look at this one! This trip was 500 Kilometers or about 300 miles and took us 6 hours to get there, with getting lost a couple of times in big cities! But it was a nice place for Ukrainian camp sites and the Sea is only about a 5 minute walk away and the water was warm! The Azov Sea is not near as deep a sea as the Black Sea. It is located on the South eastern part of the country. Overall, we liked the place a lot. On the way back we stopped in another city and saw a Kosak museum that was really nice and we also stopped for dinner – so it took us about 8 hours to get back. We were back in time for devo and we had 10 for devo tonight. The travel on both days was hard on my back, but I believe it is getting better.
Wednesday, May 28
An extremely busy day of catching up after being gone for 4 days. At 5pm I had a meeting with my new teachers and workers from the Church. I have 6 ladies that have volunteered to help teach this year at the Children’s Day Camp that have NEVER taught before. So we have a lot of work that we are doing with them. By late afternoon, I was wanting a break, so I called Artem and Ksusha to see if they would like to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie with me – and translate for me! They agreed, so we got tickets and went at 6:30. It was pretty good and Ksusha did a good job translating most of it for me!
Thursday, May 29
Worked a lot on the day camp today coming up – it starts Monday! I am working on getting it all ready. At 6, Olya and I went out and had a good time and Bible Study with the Orphan family and got home around 9. What I don’t often write about, in all these trips that I take to the villages, to schools, to this family (about a 20 minute ride) I often have great opportunities to talk and share with my young people that go with me. For example, Olya and I have been working with this family for a long time now and we have some great conversations going and coming! I am really proud of her work with this family!!!
Friday, May 30
Again, I am still working on camp for Monday. I had to go to the bank today. I almost hate this time, because it seems like I have to always wait 30 to 60 minutes just to get in to take money out. But – I try – to wait patiently knowing that this is going to happen! I had to pay for utilities today, phone and run a hundred errands besides get to the market and store. It all sounds so mundane but it all takes a large amount of time! We had 9 for Frisbee tonight at 6 – which is really a good number for our first game (1 persons didn’t want to play). Then a couple left and there 7 us left. 3 girls and 3 guys besides me. So they decided to play girls against guys. Now the girls are really good, but the guys are just a lot more athletic than the girls. I played with the girls – I’m not athletic at all! (By the way, my back is much better – hope it will still be that way after tonight!) The guys beat us, but we had a lot of fun! Afterwards, all 7 of us went to my house to look at the Azov Sea pictures, eat and talk about camp! We were together until 10:30 when all went home.
Saturday, May 31
(By the way, my back is not hurting this morning!!!) I picked up Artem and Sasha girl and we left for the airport in Borispil by Kiev to pick up Frankie Villegas who is coming in to work with us for the summer! We are so thankful and excited to have him with us! We got back about 4:15pm (this is about 550 kilometers trip and about 7 hours or so of driving) to a welcome party at my house, ate, got him to his apartment that he will be staying at this summer, and I got home exhausted about 8pm.
I didn’t mention that I spent considerable time yesterday filling up 5, 6 and 10 liter water bottles – all that I had in the house with water – and that’s quite a few as I used to get all my drinking water this way. Because they are going to turn off all water in all the city until Monday! Isn’t that wonderful? I am not sure why. Some say maybe it is because they are going to clean the sewer systems out. Well, true to form, we had no water when I got up this morning. Interesting, huh? I worked on our add for the upcoming Day Camp the first of June. I prepared for a class that didn’t show up at school 10 at 2. We had Frisbee at 5 that just 5 people came to and that’s not enough to play ultimate Frisbee with!
Saturday, May 17
Again no water. We had 2 and 2 for our Bible Clubs today – our last ones. Sad. An end of an era. Everything slows down this time of year as the Universities and Schools come to and end and prepare for exams in June.
Sunday, May 18
A good day of worship and fellowship. We made sandwiches for the boy’s prison. Then 6 of us ate together. Then we went to Potoki orphanage for the last time – I probably won’t be in Kremenchuk next Sunday and after that schools are done and the orphanages basically shut down for the summer or take the kids to summer camps for the summer months. We had 5 at our Adult beginner Bible Club at 5 at the church building and we had 14 for our evening worship. By the way, we got water back about noon today! Early but good. I am not complaining!
Monday, May 19
For us our weather is really turning hot – low to mid 80’s. At 2, Olya, Yulya and Vika and I went to Bugkivka for their annual spring celebration. It’s always on May 19. This is the 5th time (I think!) that I have been to this event. We watched them play games, get awards, and have a concert. They also fed us with buck wheat which is a tradition – they do a very good job of fixing it! We got home after 10pm. They went till midnight, but we didn’t want to stay that long!
Tuesday, May 20
I’m working on the day camp and camp. I went, with translation help, of course, to the director at School 11 and she said we could pass out invitations to our day camp in the hall way between classes, so we will do that later in the week. Devo with 9 people tonight.
Wednesday, May 21
I visited School 9 today to ask about inviting kids and the new director said yes, but come later – tomorrow we will come! I prepared for English club plus worked on a number of other things. We had only 3 at our last English Club. We were able to make contacts that we would have never made any other way, and yet we saw no Bible studies or conversions out of this class. 2 of the students have come to some of our other Bible Studies.
Thursday, May 22
Went to School 9 and handed out, with the help of Yulya translating and a school assistant, invitations to the Bible Day Camp! That went well. Prepared for the afternoon at the Orphanage and those classes went well with Olya, Yulya and Natasha. At 8pm we went to the Orphan Family study – late because they were working in the fields. When we got there they were still working. They were haying the old fashioned way. There was an extra pitch fork – and I had done a lot of this as a kid – so I pitched in and helped for about an hour. I probably shouldn’t have as I hurt my lower back and am in a lot of pain. We left without having a Bible Study and they were still working.
Friday, May 23
I struggled with a lot of pain in my back this morning, but I decided that I had some things that I had to do. So, Sasha R. – older buy and preacher in Komsomolsk – went with me to School 11 and 10 and handed out invitations for the Day Camp. I have probably handed out over 350 so far! We will hand out at one more school - #1. Olya and Yulya have agreed to do that one! I had lunch with Buddy Baker and Jerry Morgan today as they are in town. They are missionaries that bring clothes, food, special needs, etc. to 10 orphanages in our area. They do a great work! I came home and rested my sore back – it is a bit better. At 6 we were supposed to play Frisbee but it rained! It finally has cooled things down!!! So 3 came here and we played cards. I also packed 2 suitcases of clothes and books that Buddy Baker will take back with him and to Fayetteville for me! This will be a great help! We (fellow card players) met Nastya at the train station and took her home and then took the 2 suitcases to the Church building for Buddy to get on Sunday. Then Olya and Yura and I came back and played another game of Phase 10, finishing up about 10pm.
Saturday, May 24 and Sunday May 25
Natasha (a year old Christian and a 27 year old student) has been asking me for some time to go and visit her family, so today I went with her to village, 100 Kilometers away – 60 miles, to visit her family. Her main family in the village consists of her Mom, her sister and a niece and nephew. They were all really nice and I enjoyed spending the time with them and walking with them in their village. They were really nice to me! We came back on Sunday afternoon and were back in time for evening services where I preached. Then I had to get ready for my trip tomorrow!
Monday, May 26 and Tuesday, May 27
I left the house at 6:30 in the morning to pick up Ksusha, Vika and Zhenya for our trip down to the Azov Sea to check out a site for Bible Camp. We have had so many unpleasant surprises over the years of campsites we have not seen, so I decided that we would look at this one! This trip was 500 Kilometers or about 300 miles and took us 6 hours to get there, with getting lost a couple of times in big cities! But it was a nice place for Ukrainian camp sites and the Sea is only about a 5 minute walk away and the water was warm! The Azov Sea is not near as deep a sea as the Black Sea. It is located on the South eastern part of the country. Overall, we liked the place a lot. On the way back we stopped in another city and saw a Kosak museum that was really nice and we also stopped for dinner – so it took us about 8 hours to get back. We were back in time for devo and we had 10 for devo tonight. The travel on both days was hard on my back, but I believe it is getting better.
Wednesday, May 28
An extremely busy day of catching up after being gone for 4 days. At 5pm I had a meeting with my new teachers and workers from the Church. I have 6 ladies that have volunteered to help teach this year at the Children’s Day Camp that have NEVER taught before. So we have a lot of work that we are doing with them. By late afternoon, I was wanting a break, so I called Artem and Ksusha to see if they would like to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie with me – and translate for me! They agreed, so we got tickets and went at 6:30. It was pretty good and Ksusha did a good job translating most of it for me!
Thursday, May 29
Worked a lot on the day camp today coming up – it starts Monday! I am working on getting it all ready. At 6, Olya and I went out and had a good time and Bible Study with the Orphan family and got home around 9. What I don’t often write about, in all these trips that I take to the villages, to schools, to this family (about a 20 minute ride) I often have great opportunities to talk and share with my young people that go with me. For example, Olya and I have been working with this family for a long time now and we have some great conversations going and coming! I am really proud of her work with this family!!!
Friday, May 30
Again, I am still working on camp for Monday. I had to go to the bank today. I almost hate this time, because it seems like I have to always wait 30 to 60 minutes just to get in to take money out. But – I try – to wait patiently knowing that this is going to happen! I had to pay for utilities today, phone and run a hundred errands besides get to the market and store. It all sounds so mundane but it all takes a large amount of time! We had 9 for Frisbee tonight at 6 – which is really a good number for our first game (1 persons didn’t want to play). Then a couple left and there 7 us left. 3 girls and 3 guys besides me. So they decided to play girls against guys. Now the girls are really good, but the guys are just a lot more athletic than the girls. I played with the girls – I’m not athletic at all! (By the way, my back is much better – hope it will still be that way after tonight!) The guys beat us, but we had a lot of fun! Afterwards, all 7 of us went to my house to look at the Azov Sea pictures, eat and talk about camp! We were together until 10:30 when all went home.
Saturday, May 31
(By the way, my back is not hurting this morning!!!) I picked up Artem and Sasha girl and we left for the airport in Borispil by Kiev to pick up Frankie Villegas who is coming in to work with us for the summer! We are so thankful and excited to have him with us! We got back about 4:15pm (this is about 550 kilometers trip and about 7 hours or so of driving) to a welcome party at my house, ate, got him to his apartment that he will be staying at this summer, and I got home exhausted about 8pm.
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