We have received commitments from 2 families for $50 each ($100) for our camp needs for this summer. 2 others have told me that they are going to talk to their local congregations about our needs. This is very much appreciated!
Let me remind all who read this that our needs are at least $500 for our VBS Day Camp at the beginning of June for 2 weeks and at least $2,500 for our 2 week Bible Camp in July.
We have 2 of our young Christians here that have told me that they are each going to donate more than $100 towards camp this year ABOVE what their cost of camp will be, so we can be sure and have camp!!! That is over ½ of the money they will make for an entire month!
Will you please help, too? Thank you!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Journal for May 7-15
Wednesday, May 7 and Thursday, May 8
I am lumping these two days together because they were “lumpy” kind of days! I really struggled with being productive these 2 days. Oh, I prepared for English Club and we had 4 – what is going on with that??? And it is Ukrainian holiday time and nothing much is going on. There is plenty that I could do and need to do. I have always felt that I was a pretty good self-motivator, but these days – wow – not so much. On Thursday evening at 5 I went to our Frisbee playing area and 9 of us had a good time for about 2 hours or so, but I was pretty worn down – no energy. I know that I am struggling with life like endings here and waiting for new beginnings – caught in the middle of time. The known trials of saying good byes here and the future unknown of where I will be and what work I will be doing. I constantly have to tell myself to stop worrying and turn it all over to the Lord. I could not carry the burden of life if it was not for Him!!!
Friday, May 9
Today is Victory Day – the day “The Great Patriotic War” came to and end in Europe or what we know as WWII. I expected a parade today, so I went outside with my camera and waited in the park, but nothing came. It was a bit cool, but a pleasant morning to wait in the park! So later I went shopping and then went home. I am still not much in a study mood, but am doing much better today. We met at 6 to play Frisbee again, but only 6 came – probably because of the holiday. So, I invited everyone home with me about 7 and I fixed hot tuna sandwiches and made peanut butter cookies, we played cards and had a great time together!!!
I am lumping these two days together because they were “lumpy” kind of days! I really struggled with being productive these 2 days. Oh, I prepared for English Club and we had 4 – what is going on with that??? And it is Ukrainian holiday time and nothing much is going on. There is plenty that I could do and need to do. I have always felt that I was a pretty good self-motivator, but these days – wow – not so much. On Thursday evening at 5 I went to our Frisbee playing area and 9 of us had a good time for about 2 hours or so, but I was pretty worn down – no energy. I know that I am struggling with life like endings here and waiting for new beginnings – caught in the middle of time. The known trials of saying good byes here and the future unknown of where I will be and what work I will be doing. I constantly have to tell myself to stop worrying and turn it all over to the Lord. I could not carry the burden of life if it was not for Him!!!
Friday, May 9
Today is Victory Day – the day “The Great Patriotic War” came to and end in Europe or what we know as WWII. I expected a parade today, so I went outside with my camera and waited in the park, but nothing came. It was a bit cool, but a pleasant morning to wait in the park! So later I went shopping and then went home. I am still not much in a study mood, but am doing much better today. We met at 6 to play Frisbee again, but only 6 came – probably because of the holiday. So, I invited everyone home with me about 7 and I fixed hot tuna sandwiches and made peanut butter cookies, we played cards and had a great time together!!!
Saturday, May 10
Bible Clubs were pretty much a flop today. In the morning I was working on lessons and computer started acting really weird! I couldn’t do anything buy highlight text! Finally I opened the internet and tried to write an email and it all of sudden started working ok! Well, we had 1 for Adult Bible Club and 3 for the Teen one. End of the school year is a big reason for this as everyone is SO busy!
Sunday, May 11
As we sat down for services this morning and had our first prayer and couple of songs, Andrey announced that I was preaching. I had said last Sunday that I would like to preach again next Sunday and finish my text of 2 Cor 5, but it was translated as I was going to preach! It was a very good thing that when I was preparing last weeks Sermon, that I work on the whole chapter – so I got up and preached somewhat impromptu and all said that it went really well! After services we had our monthly fellowship meal with more people than ever before! Then Sasha girl and I spent the afternoon together – with Yura (guy) joining us later on. It was a really good time with Sasha and I. At 5pm we had our Parent Beginners Bible Club with 6 students (Sasha 9th grade translated) – we have had 3 baptisms out of this Bible Club. At 6pm we had our worship with 17 present and I preached and we had a good service. Some stayed around afterwards for tea and cookies and we went home about 8:30.
Monday, May 12
I had too much on my mind to have a day off today. I worked on my charts – I have decided to use them as our main study for our July Bible Camp. I did more study – again on Woman’s Role in the Church. I made granola cereal around other things. Sergie needed help so I spent a couple of hours helping him. I ate at McDonalds! I haven’t done that in quite a while! Sometimes a day just flies by and this was one of them. I picked up Olya at 5:45pm and we went to the Orphan family for our Bible study and that went very well! Olya and I afterwards picked up Yulya and I treated them to McDonalds and they bought happy meals and just delighted in them!!! We went to my house at 8:30 and joked, ate and played cards until 10:30pm and I took them home. I ended up in bed finally about 11:30 – but a really good day!
Tuesday, May 13
This morning I spent some time in emails, spent more time personal study. After cleaning up, I worked on my devo for tonight from 1 John 2:15-17 – do not love the world. Now I am again catching up on my journal. I had a busy afternoon, part of what was working on camp things. Our numbers were small for Tuesday night with 9 people present.
Wednesday, May 14
Again, I spent a lot of time on camp. I also spent time on lesson preparations. Then at 2, Yulya and I went to Bugkivka, our village 37 miles away and studied with 2 of our 11th grade girls and 1 8th grade girls. 2 of our 8th grade girls want to go to camp with us for sure, and MAYBE the 11th grade girls too, if they can finish their entrance exams into their desired universities. It is looking like we will have between 30 and 40 to go to the Bible Camp at the sea with us again this year. This is such an important time in the lives of these young people because it gives them Spiritual encouragement and hope to carry on and brings many to Christ for the first time! Our English Club had 7 tonight – a little better than last week.
Thursday, May 15
I did some shopping for food, etc. this morning – yup I have to do that for some reason! I spent a couple of hours getting ready for our studies at the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk, about 18 miles away. I had to fill up with gas today – translated into American money the cost is $4.71 a gallon now. It is almost 3 times more than what it was when I first came here! Sasha Revaykin went with me, for he will take over the leadership of teaching these classes after I leave. 3 of our young Christian sisters that are working here, also want to continue to work here. Look at my Blog site for this journal and pictures!
Bible Clubs were pretty much a flop today. In the morning I was working on lessons and computer started acting really weird! I couldn’t do anything buy highlight text! Finally I opened the internet and tried to write an email and it all of sudden started working ok! Well, we had 1 for Adult Bible Club and 3 for the Teen one. End of the school year is a big reason for this as everyone is SO busy!
Sunday, May 11
As we sat down for services this morning and had our first prayer and couple of songs, Andrey announced that I was preaching. I had said last Sunday that I would like to preach again next Sunday and finish my text of 2 Cor 5, but it was translated as I was going to preach! It was a very good thing that when I was preparing last weeks Sermon, that I work on the whole chapter – so I got up and preached somewhat impromptu and all said that it went really well! After services we had our monthly fellowship meal with more people than ever before! Then Sasha girl and I spent the afternoon together – with Yura (guy) joining us later on. It was a really good time with Sasha and I. At 5pm we had our Parent Beginners Bible Club with 6 students (Sasha 9th grade translated) – we have had 3 baptisms out of this Bible Club. At 6pm we had our worship with 17 present and I preached and we had a good service. Some stayed around afterwards for tea and cookies and we went home about 8:30.
Monday, May 12
I had too much on my mind to have a day off today. I worked on my charts – I have decided to use them as our main study for our July Bible Camp. I did more study – again on Woman’s Role in the Church. I made granola cereal around other things. Sergie needed help so I spent a couple of hours helping him. I ate at McDonalds! I haven’t done that in quite a while! Sometimes a day just flies by and this was one of them. I picked up Olya at 5:45pm and we went to the Orphan family for our Bible study and that went very well! Olya and I afterwards picked up Yulya and I treated them to McDonalds and they bought happy meals and just delighted in them!!! We went to my house at 8:30 and joked, ate and played cards until 10:30pm and I took them home. I ended up in bed finally about 11:30 – but a really good day!
Tuesday, May 13
This morning I spent some time in emails, spent more time personal study. After cleaning up, I worked on my devo for tonight from 1 John 2:15-17 – do not love the world. Now I am again catching up on my journal. I had a busy afternoon, part of what was working on camp things. Our numbers were small for Tuesday night with 9 people present.
Wednesday, May 14
Again, I spent a lot of time on camp. I also spent time on lesson preparations. Then at 2, Yulya and I went to Bugkivka, our village 37 miles away and studied with 2 of our 11th grade girls and 1 8th grade girls. 2 of our 8th grade girls want to go to camp with us for sure, and MAYBE the 11th grade girls too, if they can finish their entrance exams into their desired universities. It is looking like we will have between 30 and 40 to go to the Bible Camp at the sea with us again this year. This is such an important time in the lives of these young people because it gives them Spiritual encouragement and hope to carry on and brings many to Christ for the first time! Our English Club had 7 tonight – a little better than last week.
Thursday, May 15
I did some shopping for food, etc. this morning – yup I have to do that for some reason! I spent a couple of hours getting ready for our studies at the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk, about 18 miles away. I had to fill up with gas today – translated into American money the cost is $4.71 a gallon now. It is almost 3 times more than what it was when I first came here! Sasha Revaykin went with me, for he will take over the leadership of teaching these classes after I leave. 3 of our young Christian sisters that are working here, also want to continue to work here. Look at my Blog site for this journal and pictures!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Journal May 1-6 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
I went shopping this morning for chicken! I bought 36 drumsticks for our cookout and picnic. I dug out my grill, charcoal and lighter fluid (even though it is not called that here.) People started coming around 10am and 9 of us gathered for our Holiday picnic – many are out of town. We started hunting for more charcoal and ended up going all the way across town to get some more. Then a little after 11 we went out to the river side in a park area and had a good time. There are no picnic tables, so we spread a large blanket on the ground, blew up a couple of air mattress. The guys gathered wood for another fire besides my grill and the girls prepared salads. We had enough chicken for 2 meals so we ate about 12:30 and then again about 5. In between we played Frisbee, prayed together, played cards together, went for walks and had a really lovely afternoon. We headed for home around 6.
Friday, May 2
I have been working on my sermon for Sunday all week. It will come from 2 Cor. 5:1-10. In the evening at 6, nine of us gathered to play Frisbee and we had a really nice time together. I got home about 8:30 pretty exhausted!
Saturday, May 3
I prepared 3 new Bible Club lessons. The Adult Bible Club had 1 person, so we just talked. The Teen Bible Club had 4, with several absent. But we celebrated Lera’s 12th birthday and that was great! 2 more came after Bible Club and we had 6 for the party – pretty small, but we had a great time. I have known Lera since she was 6! Her and her Mom, Nadya, will both go to camp with us. Lera has been nearly every year. I asked Nadya what Lera wanted for her birthday and her Mom said a skateboard! A very rare thing for a girl in Ukraine to want that! But she said that she had been asking for it for a year, so I got her a skate board and pads for her knees, arms and wrists. She was so excited!!! She literally jumped up and down for joy! All went home around 9.
Sunday, May 4
A day of great blessing! Ksusha’s Mom, Nadya (different one from the above mentioned) has been coming to most things for most of the last year. Kelli studied with her, Ksusha has and lately I have too. This morning as we approached the church building, Nadya told me she wanted to be baptized! Oh, what great joy! We have to basically fill the baptistery – a very large bathtub – by hand – at least the hot water part. So, I came, with Sasha girl’s help at 4pm and began to fill it up. At 5 we had our Parent’s Bible Club (we had 5, with 2 non-Christians in attendance) – this is our 3rd baptism from this class as Nadya was one of our first Parents to attend this class. Though some were skeptical of my original plan to reach parents through our youth, several parents have become Christians over the years through their children. At about 6:15pm I baptized Nadya into Christ! This is our 40th baptism of our work since we have been in Ukraine. We had 22 for our worship service tonight and it was very rewarding service. I preached for both services today and one of the ladies from the morning worship told me that was the best sermon she had heard in 10 years! I think people react like this when a sermon really touches their hearts, so I am thankful that I could have blessed her life in this way. At about 8:20pm, I had about a 45 minute talk with the elders and deacons from the Ottawa Church of Christ, in Ottawa, IL. It was a nice conversation! It was a really great day!
Monday, May 5
About 9am I left home to gas up my car and take Ksusha to Poltava (120 Kilometers away) for her 3 weeks of University study. She does this study as a kind of extension study. She always finds these 2 to 3 weeks very hard as she gets very lonely being away from home. After taking her, we ate lunch together and I came home, getting back around 2:30pm. Then at 5:30 we went to our Bible study with the Orphan’s family and that went very well. We left about 8:30 and I got home around 9. So a 9 to 9 day with a little break in between!
Tuesday, May 6
Ben, my son, called me this morning at 6:10 my time (I was up at 5:20) on Skype. We talked about several things and it was great visiting with him! He told me that one congregation that I applied to in CO that he is familiar with, was very interested in my working with them. The retiring preacher, Bob Lewis, was the preacher at York, NE Easthill Church of Christ when I was a student at York. I always loved him and looked up to him so much! So Ben called to tell me that and encourage me! It worked! At 10am, Zhenya girl (really young woman of 23) called and asked for my help, so I took her on a couple of errands and then took her to work. From their I went to a big super market, shopped and got home around noon. Then I caught up on my journal and fixed lunch and now it is 1:13pm!
I went shopping this morning for chicken! I bought 36 drumsticks for our cookout and picnic. I dug out my grill, charcoal and lighter fluid (even though it is not called that here.) People started coming around 10am and 9 of us gathered for our Holiday picnic – many are out of town. We started hunting for more charcoal and ended up going all the way across town to get some more. Then a little after 11 we went out to the river side in a park area and had a good time. There are no picnic tables, so we spread a large blanket on the ground, blew up a couple of air mattress. The guys gathered wood for another fire besides my grill and the girls prepared salads. We had enough chicken for 2 meals so we ate about 12:30 and then again about 5. In between we played Frisbee, prayed together, played cards together, went for walks and had a really lovely afternoon. We headed for home around 6.
Friday, May 2
I have been working on my sermon for Sunday all week. It will come from 2 Cor. 5:1-10. In the evening at 6, nine of us gathered to play Frisbee and we had a really nice time together. I got home about 8:30 pretty exhausted!
Saturday, May 3
I prepared 3 new Bible Club lessons. The Adult Bible Club had 1 person, so we just talked. The Teen Bible Club had 4, with several absent. But we celebrated Lera’s 12th birthday and that was great! 2 more came after Bible Club and we had 6 for the party – pretty small, but we had a great time. I have known Lera since she was 6! Her and her Mom, Nadya, will both go to camp with us. Lera has been nearly every year. I asked Nadya what Lera wanted for her birthday and her Mom said a skateboard! A very rare thing for a girl in Ukraine to want that! But she said that she had been asking for it for a year, so I got her a skate board and pads for her knees, arms and wrists. She was so excited!!! She literally jumped up and down for joy! All went home around 9.
Sunday, May 4
A day of great blessing! Ksusha’s Mom, Nadya (different one from the above mentioned) has been coming to most things for most of the last year. Kelli studied with her, Ksusha has and lately I have too. This morning as we approached the church building, Nadya told me she wanted to be baptized! Oh, what great joy! We have to basically fill the baptistery – a very large bathtub – by hand – at least the hot water part. So, I came, with Sasha girl’s help at 4pm and began to fill it up. At 5 we had our Parent’s Bible Club (we had 5, with 2 non-Christians in attendance) – this is our 3rd baptism from this class as Nadya was one of our first Parents to attend this class. Though some were skeptical of my original plan to reach parents through our youth, several parents have become Christians over the years through their children. At about 6:15pm I baptized Nadya into Christ! This is our 40th baptism of our work since we have been in Ukraine. We had 22 for our worship service tonight and it was very rewarding service. I preached for both services today and one of the ladies from the morning worship told me that was the best sermon she had heard in 10 years! I think people react like this when a sermon really touches their hearts, so I am thankful that I could have blessed her life in this way. At about 8:20pm, I had about a 45 minute talk with the elders and deacons from the Ottawa Church of Christ, in Ottawa, IL. It was a nice conversation! It was a really great day!
Monday, May 5
About 9am I left home to gas up my car and take Ksusha to Poltava (120 Kilometers away) for her 3 weeks of University study. She does this study as a kind of extension study. She always finds these 2 to 3 weeks very hard as she gets very lonely being away from home. After taking her, we ate lunch together and I came home, getting back around 2:30pm. Then at 5:30 we went to our Bible study with the Orphan’s family and that went very well. We left about 8:30 and I got home around 9. So a 9 to 9 day with a little break in between!
Tuesday, May 6
Ben, my son, called me this morning at 6:10 my time (I was up at 5:20) on Skype. We talked about several things and it was great visiting with him! He told me that one congregation that I applied to in CO that he is familiar with, was very interested in my working with them. The retiring preacher, Bob Lewis, was the preacher at York, NE Easthill Church of Christ when I was a student at York. I always loved him and looked up to him so much! So Ben called to tell me that and encourage me! It worked! At 10am, Zhenya girl (really young woman of 23) called and asked for my help, so I took her on a couple of errands and then took her to work. From their I went to a big super market, shopped and got home around noon. Then I caught up on my journal and fixed lunch and now it is 1:13pm!
Journal for April 16-30, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Normal work day in the morning. In the afternoon, Ksusha and I went to the village and had a real good study with our 4 11th grade girls there. Because of exams and future Univ. plans, they don’t know if they will be able to come to camp with us this summer. I really want them to come! We had 10 for our English Club tonight and that was fun and went well finishing about 7:30.
Thursday, April 17
Our big extra thing to do is to go to the town of Svetlovodsk to the Orphanage. We had probably 50 kids in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes. We did a puppet show for them, then classes with lessons and crafts and games. It was a beautiful day and we stopped and took pictures on a hillside. I love spring! Did I say that before?!? We got back in around 5. Artem asked me to take him for a driver’s lesson and I did for about an hour then he took me out to eat and I got home around 8:30pm. Nice day.
Friday, April 18
Today was the last day for some of our American friends and teachers at the Bible College to be here, so they invited me to come to a party for their classes and that was fun. Then I went to my house and got Frisbees and water and walked to our playing field. We had 15 tonight, but I didn’t play so the teams were even. My low back has been bothering me and more today, so I didn’t play. Ksusha brought 6 of her non-Christian friends and that went well and they had a blast! We finished up around 8.
Saturday, April 19
Bible Clubs went well – we had 5 in each. At the Church discussion there was no translator, but a couple of young people that knew a little English and with my little Russian we did ok – but rather frustrating!
Sunday, April 20
We cleaned the church building after services and then we went to my house and made sandwiches for the prison. We have roughly made 30,800 sandwiches for the boys over the last 5 ½ + years! I believe that it has been a very worthy work and I thank all those who have given money for this work! A husband and wife Dr. team that I had seen maybe a couple years ago for a rash, called me and wanted to meet with me. They are wanting to immigrate to the US and wanted my help with English and learning more about America. We had about an hour visit and he will come to my English Club meetings. In the evening worship service we had 3 adult visitors and some good discussion afterwards about Church and worship and prayer. However one lady got very obnoxious and that kind of spoiled it all.
Monday, April 21
I had about 2/3 of a day off and so that was good. At 5, Olya and I went shopping for Elona’s birthday In the evening we went to the twins home (orphan family) and studied some OT characters and talked a lot about faith and how we have to act on our faith for it to really be worth anything! We also celebrated the oldest orphan’s girl birthday (Elona) who turned 8 and that was a lot of fun, too! After taking everyone home, I got home around 9. On a sad note, my cat had at least 7 seizures today and they are getting worse.
Tuesday, April 22
I spent quite a bit of time on the internet today with contacts for future churches, but definitely nothing fixed or really close as of yet. I also studied about being ready for the second coming and accepting the fact that we have to watch and be ready at all times. My cat had one more seizure today and I thought he was going to die with that one, but he pulled through. We had 12 for our devo tonight and the lesson went well.
Wednesday, April 23
Natasha was my translator today for the village and we had 3 girls and a good study – I decided to study with them on the 2nd coming too and the study went well. We had 4 for English Club tonight – rainy day all day that may have kept people away – who knows!
Thursday, April 24
Artem wasn’t working today, so he went with Natasha, Olya and Yulya and I to the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk. It is about 15 to 20 miles away. It is a town of about 60,000 and he had never been there before. We did puppets and classes again, but not so many students today. Sunday is Easter here and then Ukraine has 3 holidays in early May, so we won’t be back here for 3 weeks! No schools next week at all! I haven’t felt good all day – felt really stressed – for unknown reasons – really! – and a headache, so I just went home and crashed afterwards and went to bed early!
Friday, April 25
We had a birthday celebration for Sasha guy (hey, how am I going to keep them separate?! I can’t pronounce many of the last names – sorry to say!) who just turned 20. Our celebration started at 5 and we had a great evening together.
Saturday, April 26
Today is the day before Ukrainian or Orthodox Easter or as they call it, Paska (Same word as Passover.) There are no Bible Clubs today because most are busy with family on this 2nd biggest holiday of the year (New Year’s is 1st). 9 of us did gather to play Frisbee and I played without hurting my back! God has really answered my prayers about my back!
Sunday, April 27 – Ukrainian Easter
Good attendance today – of course! Just Kidding! Peter preached about Easter and some thought it was good and some thought he attacked the traditions too much. Me, I got most of the ideas through a translator. Several ate together and spent the afternoon together. I preached in the evening and we had 9.
Monday, April 28
Spent more time this morning in Internet communications and study. We had 15 over to my house at 6:30 – people started coming at 5. By request from my kids – my young people – I cooked chili and chocolate chip cookies! Good combination, huh? Also, I made home made biscuits and we had 15 people for dinner and a movie. Igor, a brother from Kiev, brought a Christian movie in English and we watched it with English subtitles and most got it just fine. It was a really good movie about anything is possible with God and that we should not fear. Both lessons that we all needed! Then people hung around until 10:30. This is really a holiday week for most with no school or University because it is between Easter and May 1st, another big holiday here. No schools, no orphanages and just free time.
Tuesday, April 29 – Happy Birthday to my oldest son, Butch!
We said good by to Bill, an American who has been here with us (not a member of the church) for about 3 years. He is going to the states until Sept. We had 16 for our devo tonight. It was raining so I took a carload home and got home around 11pm.
Wednesday, April 30
Not much going on above the normal today except English Club and we had 8.
Normal work day in the morning. In the afternoon, Ksusha and I went to the village and had a real good study with our 4 11th grade girls there. Because of exams and future Univ. plans, they don’t know if they will be able to come to camp with us this summer. I really want them to come! We had 10 for our English Club tonight and that was fun and went well finishing about 7:30.
Thursday, April 17
Our big extra thing to do is to go to the town of Svetlovodsk to the Orphanage. We had probably 50 kids in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes. We did a puppet show for them, then classes with lessons and crafts and games. It was a beautiful day and we stopped and took pictures on a hillside. I love spring! Did I say that before?!? We got back in around 5. Artem asked me to take him for a driver’s lesson and I did for about an hour then he took me out to eat and I got home around 8:30pm. Nice day.
Friday, April 18
Today was the last day for some of our American friends and teachers at the Bible College to be here, so they invited me to come to a party for their classes and that was fun. Then I went to my house and got Frisbees and water and walked to our playing field. We had 15 tonight, but I didn’t play so the teams were even. My low back has been bothering me and more today, so I didn’t play. Ksusha brought 6 of her non-Christian friends and that went well and they had a blast! We finished up around 8.
Saturday, April 19
Bible Clubs went well – we had 5 in each. At the Church discussion there was no translator, but a couple of young people that knew a little English and with my little Russian we did ok – but rather frustrating!
Sunday, April 20
We cleaned the church building after services and then we went to my house and made sandwiches for the prison. We have roughly made 30,800 sandwiches for the boys over the last 5 ½ + years! I believe that it has been a very worthy work and I thank all those who have given money for this work! A husband and wife Dr. team that I had seen maybe a couple years ago for a rash, called me and wanted to meet with me. They are wanting to immigrate to the US and wanted my help with English and learning more about America. We had about an hour visit and he will come to my English Club meetings. In the evening worship service we had 3 adult visitors and some good discussion afterwards about Church and worship and prayer. However one lady got very obnoxious and that kind of spoiled it all.
Monday, April 21
I had about 2/3 of a day off and so that was good. At 5, Olya and I went shopping for Elona’s birthday In the evening we went to the twins home (orphan family) and studied some OT characters and talked a lot about faith and how we have to act on our faith for it to really be worth anything! We also celebrated the oldest orphan’s girl birthday (Elona) who turned 8 and that was a lot of fun, too! After taking everyone home, I got home around 9. On a sad note, my cat had at least 7 seizures today and they are getting worse.
Tuesday, April 22
I spent quite a bit of time on the internet today with contacts for future churches, but definitely nothing fixed or really close as of yet. I also studied about being ready for the second coming and accepting the fact that we have to watch and be ready at all times. My cat had one more seizure today and I thought he was going to die with that one, but he pulled through. We had 12 for our devo tonight and the lesson went well.
Wednesday, April 23
Natasha was my translator today for the village and we had 3 girls and a good study – I decided to study with them on the 2nd coming too and the study went well. We had 4 for English Club tonight – rainy day all day that may have kept people away – who knows!
Thursday, April 24
Artem wasn’t working today, so he went with Natasha, Olya and Yulya and I to the Orphanage in Svetlovodsk. It is about 15 to 20 miles away. It is a town of about 60,000 and he had never been there before. We did puppets and classes again, but not so many students today. Sunday is Easter here and then Ukraine has 3 holidays in early May, so we won’t be back here for 3 weeks! No schools next week at all! I haven’t felt good all day – felt really stressed – for unknown reasons – really! – and a headache, so I just went home and crashed afterwards and went to bed early!
Friday, April 25
We had a birthday celebration for Sasha guy (hey, how am I going to keep them separate?! I can’t pronounce many of the last names – sorry to say!) who just turned 20. Our celebration started at 5 and we had a great evening together.
Saturday, April 26
Today is the day before Ukrainian or Orthodox Easter or as they call it, Paska (Same word as Passover.) There are no Bible Clubs today because most are busy with family on this 2nd biggest holiday of the year (New Year’s is 1st). 9 of us did gather to play Frisbee and I played without hurting my back! God has really answered my prayers about my back!
Sunday, April 27 – Ukrainian Easter
Good attendance today – of course! Just Kidding! Peter preached about Easter and some thought it was good and some thought he attacked the traditions too much. Me, I got most of the ideas through a translator. Several ate together and spent the afternoon together. I preached in the evening and we had 9.
Monday, April 28
Spent more time this morning in Internet communications and study. We had 15 over to my house at 6:30 – people started coming at 5. By request from my kids – my young people – I cooked chili and chocolate chip cookies! Good combination, huh? Also, I made home made biscuits and we had 15 people for dinner and a movie. Igor, a brother from Kiev, brought a Christian movie in English and we watched it with English subtitles and most got it just fine. It was a really good movie about anything is possible with God and that we should not fear. Both lessons that we all needed! Then people hung around until 10:30. This is really a holiday week for most with no school or University because it is between Easter and May 1st, another big holiday here. No schools, no orphanages and just free time.
Tuesday, April 29 – Happy Birthday to my oldest son, Butch!
We said good by to Bill, an American who has been here with us (not a member of the church) for about 3 years. He is going to the states until Sept. We had 16 for our devo tonight. It was raining so I took a carload home and got home around 11pm.
Wednesday, April 30
Not much going on above the normal today except English Club and we had 8.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Two Very Pressing Needs.
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!!!
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!!!
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.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Family Pictures
I want you to know my family! So I am going to share some pictures.
My family is my eldest Butch is 32, his wife Erin and their 2 girls Hannah, 5 and Ella 3. Butch is a Chiropractor and Erin is a housewife. Then Ben is 29 and his girl friend is Erica. Ben has been a missionary in Japan for 5 years and has just started on working on His Master's Degree in Missions and Erica works in the Bible Department as a secretary. Jenise is 26 and her husband is Jon and their 1 year old son is Malachi. Jenise is now a housewife after Graduating with a commercial artist degree. Jon is the treasure for a fast growing oil company. My youngest daughter is Janessa and she is 24 and her 3 year old son is Gavin. Janessa is working as a Manager in Day Care.
Janessa, Ben, Erica, Jon, Jenise, Butch and Gavin and Malachi in arms.
Jenise and Jon Grottis on their wedding day! 
Erin, Butch, Ella and Hannah
I have tons of more pictures, and would be glad to share them with you if you want!!!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Doug’s Journal in Kremenchuk
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Good Bible Clubs with 7 in each.
Sunday, March 2
We did sandwiches and went to the Potoki orphanage and then evening service at 6 with 11 people present.
Monday, March 3
Things are getting real crazy for Oksana (she is 19 and has been one of my Christian students for 3 years and one of my most faithful students and translators) as she prepares to go to see her Mother’s wedding at Stoke-On-Trent in England. Back in late January, when her Mom was here, they invited me to this wedding and I said I would like to go. Then I promised I would help Oksana go, if I could. Then this developed into the fact that she needed a Sponsor by the British Embassy for her to be able to go, so I said I would go – her parents would pay me back for Oksana’s flight when I got there. She didn’t get her visa until today at 4:10pm! 3 of did go to the Orphan Family for our weekly Bible Study today at 6.
Tuesday, March 4
I literally spent all day trying to get us last minute tickets to go to the UK. I started at 8 and finally finished up at 4:30pm! At 6 we had our evening devo with 12 present. Then a lot of last minute packing and early to bed for our drive to the airport – we left at 1am to get our early 6:30am flight!
Wednesday, March 5 – Tuesday March 18
I went to Great Britain or as they prefer to call themselves, the United Kingdom - England, Wales and Scotland. It was terribly expensive to go as it was a last minute ticket and everything there was very expensive - basically twice as expensive as the US. But I made a promise to help Oksana get to her mother's wedding and the only way she could get her visa was for me to be her sponsor. Our flight was good and the first 4 days was basically taken up by wedding planning for the family and the wedding on Saturday and family celebration on Sunday. On Monday, Oksana and I went to Manchester, a city close by to tour and it was good and fun. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we went to London and that was great and great fun! Thursday and Friday we were back with her family - that city is called Stoke-On-Trent and there are many beautiful things to see and do around there. On Friday afternoon I rented a car for 3 days. On Saturday we went to what is called the "Lake District" - a hilly and mountainous region with many beautiful lakes - a national park. That night we ate with a pretty wealthy family from her parent's church in a beautiful 200 year old home. We had a great meal and conversation. On Sunday, I drove to a Church of Christ 38 miles to the south in another large city called Birmingham. It was a 2 year old congregation of about 50 people with a large variety of nationalities and persons. It was a good worship time with them and they had potluck afterwards! On Monday we did some last minute shopping. On Tuesday morning we got up at 3am to get ready to get to our flight that flew out at 7:30am. We arrived back into Kremenchuk at 7:30pm, worshiped and prayed with some of brothers and sisters, took Oksana home and crashed!
Wednesday, March 19
Today was a very busy catch up day, but didn't get everything done as I forgot to take time to buy groceries! We had 9 (we had 2 Christians attend – so that means 7 non-Christians in attendance) for our English Club at 6 and that went well. So I was really scrounging for food tonight after English Club!
Good Bible Clubs with 7 in each.
Sunday, March 2
We did sandwiches and went to the Potoki orphanage and then evening service at 6 with 11 people present.
Monday, March 3
Things are getting real crazy for Oksana (she is 19 and has been one of my Christian students for 3 years and one of my most faithful students and translators) as she prepares to go to see her Mother’s wedding at Stoke-On-Trent in England. Back in late January, when her Mom was here, they invited me to this wedding and I said I would like to go. Then I promised I would help Oksana go, if I could. Then this developed into the fact that she needed a Sponsor by the British Embassy for her to be able to go, so I said I would go – her parents would pay me back for Oksana’s flight when I got there. She didn’t get her visa until today at 4:10pm! 3 of did go to the Orphan Family for our weekly Bible Study today at 6.
Tuesday, March 4
I literally spent all day trying to get us last minute tickets to go to the UK. I started at 8 and finally finished up at 4:30pm! At 6 we had our evening devo with 12 present. Then a lot of last minute packing and early to bed for our drive to the airport – we left at 1am to get our early 6:30am flight!
Wednesday, March 5 – Tuesday March 18
I went to Great Britain or as they prefer to call themselves, the United Kingdom - England, Wales and Scotland. It was terribly expensive to go as it was a last minute ticket and everything there was very expensive - basically twice as expensive as the US. But I made a promise to help Oksana get to her mother's wedding and the only way she could get her visa was for me to be her sponsor. Our flight was good and the first 4 days was basically taken up by wedding planning for the family and the wedding on Saturday and family celebration on Sunday. On Monday, Oksana and I went to Manchester, a city close by to tour and it was good and fun. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday we went to London and that was great and great fun! Thursday and Friday we were back with her family - that city is called Stoke-On-Trent and there are many beautiful things to see and do around there. On Friday afternoon I rented a car for 3 days. On Saturday we went to what is called the "Lake District" - a hilly and mountainous region with many beautiful lakes - a national park. That night we ate with a pretty wealthy family from her parent's church in a beautiful 200 year old home. We had a great meal and conversation. On Sunday, I drove to a Church of Christ 38 miles to the south in another large city called Birmingham. It was a 2 year old congregation of about 50 people with a large variety of nationalities and persons. It was a good worship time with them and they had potluck afterwards! On Monday we did some last minute shopping. On Tuesday morning we got up at 3am to get ready to get to our flight that flew out at 7:30am. We arrived back into Kremenchuk at 7:30pm, worshiped and prayed with some of brothers and sisters, took Oksana home and crashed!
Wednesday, March 19
Today was a very busy catch up day, but didn't get everything done as I forgot to take time to buy groceries! We had 9 (we had 2 Christians attend – so that means 7 non-Christians in attendance) for our English Club at 6 and that went well. So I was really scrounging for food tonight after English Club!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Tests of Faith - Who Comes 1st?
1. Who and what are we to seek first in our lives?
Bible verse(s)_________________________
2. What are the 2 greatest commands?
Bible verse(s)_________________________
3. To come to Jesus, what must we do with the cross?
Bible verse(s)_________________________
4. As a Christian, whom do I belong to?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
5. To love Jesus, who are we to love less?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
6. What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
7. What should we consider everything else in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
8. Write the top 5 things of importance in your life.
9. What does it mean to you to put God (Jesus and His Church) first in your life?
10. What price should we be willing to pay so that Jesus would be first in our lives?
Bible verse(s)___________________________
Bible verse(s)_________________________
2. What are the 2 greatest commands?
Bible verse(s)_________________________
3. To come to Jesus, what must we do with the cross?
Bible verse(s)_________________________
4. As a Christian, whom do I belong to?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
5. To love Jesus, who are we to love less?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
6. What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
7. What should we consider everything else in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus?
Bible verse(s)__________________________
8. Write the top 5 things of importance in your life.
9. What does it mean to you to put God (Jesus and His Church) first in your life?
10. What price should we be willing to pay so that Jesus would be first in our lives?
Bible verse(s)___________________________
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