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.
Friday, June 20, 2008
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.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Special Note
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!
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!
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.
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