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.