Off and on over the last couple of years we have done a Newspaper/Newsletter for our young people here in Kremenchuk. I thought that I would start to add some of the articles to this Blog that we have been putting into the Newsletter. We call the Newsletter: "Living For Jesus."
I have not included activities that we do, birthdates, and that type of thing in this blog. If you would like to receive these newsletters in a whole - both in Russian and English as they are translated as we do them every 2 weeks by the fine work of Anya Vaughan. I will be glad to email it to you in that fashion if you want. Right now we are currently on #17 and started again at #14. You will find the articles #14-16 in reverse order in this blog at this time.
May God continue to richly bless you in all that do and say in service to Him!
Love in Christ,
Doug
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Articles from Oct 21 In House Newsletter
Encourage One Another Daily!
“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”
Hebrews 3:13
As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to encourage one another daily. That is the focus of a new program we are starting within our group.
Starting Tuesday October 23, we will have a place set up at the church building for you to write encouragement notes to one another. Please take part in this, you don’t have to write a long letter, just a quick note letting that person know that you are thinking of them.
We are also going to start a program called “Today is My Day.” We will have four encouragement teams. Each team will have different people to encourage each day of the month. They can do this by calling the person or sending a text message or writing them a short note. You can even call and say “I love you” in under two seconds so that you won’t be charged. If you would like to be part of an encouragement team, please let Kelli know by Tuesday the 23rd.
You do not have to be in one of these groups to encourage people. Please look around you and see who isn’t here. Who have you not seen in a while? Give them a call. Let them know that they are loved and that you miss them.
GOODNESS
Before you read this grab your Bible and read Psalm 23
Goodness is an uprightness of soul that abhors evil, it also refers to a clean-cut honesty of motive and conduct. It takes total commitment to God and His word for a Christian to dedicated his/her life to goodness. With the help of the Holy Spirit, this fruit of the spirit will enable us to first recognize the works of the flesh, wherein we walk in the past and empower us to resist the devil (Psalm 1:1-3). Let us watch out for the companies we keep today.
All our transactions must be in honesty and good mind. The Bible says that we should do honest business.
Also, we should let our yes be yes, and no be no, anything short of this is deceit (James 4:17). We must do good always, otherwise it is sinful. All we have to do today, is to practice what we have studied, read, and heard.
Philippians 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. …James Vaughan
Prayer for Understanding
Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring the moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love. Matt 5:44
A Rainy Afternoon
One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick.Suddenly my daughter, Aspen, spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. "Dad, I'm thinking of something."This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear."What are you thinking?" I asked."The rain!" she began, "is like sin, and the windshield wipers are like God wiping our sins away."After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond. "That's really good, Aspen."Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take this revelation? So I asked..."Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?"Aspen didn't hesitate one moment with her answer: "We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us."I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.
An Eternal Question for 2 reasons:
1. To check your faith and relationship with God.
2. To ask your friends to make them think about eternity.
If you died today, would you go to Heaven?
“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.”
Hebrews 3:13
As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to encourage one another daily. That is the focus of a new program we are starting within our group.
Starting Tuesday October 23, we will have a place set up at the church building for you to write encouragement notes to one another. Please take part in this, you don’t have to write a long letter, just a quick note letting that person know that you are thinking of them.
We are also going to start a program called “Today is My Day.” We will have four encouragement teams. Each team will have different people to encourage each day of the month. They can do this by calling the person or sending a text message or writing them a short note. You can even call and say “I love you” in under two seconds so that you won’t be charged. If you would like to be part of an encouragement team, please let Kelli know by Tuesday the 23rd.
You do not have to be in one of these groups to encourage people. Please look around you and see who isn’t here. Who have you not seen in a while? Give them a call. Let them know that they are loved and that you miss them.
GOODNESS
Before you read this grab your Bible and read Psalm 23
Goodness is an uprightness of soul that abhors evil, it also refers to a clean-cut honesty of motive and conduct. It takes total commitment to God and His word for a Christian to dedicated his/her life to goodness. With the help of the Holy Spirit, this fruit of the spirit will enable us to first recognize the works of the flesh, wherein we walk in the past and empower us to resist the devil (Psalm 1:1-3). Let us watch out for the companies we keep today.
All our transactions must be in honesty and good mind. The Bible says that we should do honest business.
Also, we should let our yes be yes, and no be no, anything short of this is deceit (James 4:17). We must do good always, otherwise it is sinful. All we have to do today, is to practice what we have studied, read, and heard.
Philippians 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. …James Vaughan
Prayer for Understanding
Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring the moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love. Matt 5:44
A Rainy Afternoon
One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick.Suddenly my daughter, Aspen, spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. "Dad, I'm thinking of something."This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear."What are you thinking?" I asked."The rain!" she began, "is like sin, and the windshield wipers are like God wiping our sins away."After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond. "That's really good, Aspen."Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take this revelation? So I asked..."Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?"Aspen didn't hesitate one moment with her answer: "We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us."I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.
An Eternal Question for 2 reasons:
1. To check your faith and relationship with God.
2. To ask your friends to make them think about eternity.
If you died today, would you go to Heaven?
Article from Oct 7 07 In House Newsletter
Prayers For Us, God’s Children
As you read Ephesians 3:14-19, you see the Apostle Paul, inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, writing a prayer from his heart. He is praying for these bothers and sisters that he dearly loves and whom he wants the very best for. Do you know that this prayer is for us? It is, because through the Holy Spirit, God knew that we would need this prayer in our lives as well!
There are several places in the Bible that prayers are offered for faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus prayed for us in John 17:20-21 - "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Another prayer is in Ephesians 1:15-23 where Paul prays for us to know the wisdom, power and strength that Jesus Christ has waiting for us! In Philemon 6 Paul prayed: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” He prayed for us to be active in sharing our faith so we could understand what good God has for us! John even prayed for health for us in 3 John 2, “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” God wants us to be in good health, so our souls can be strong to serve Him! Remember these are prayers guided by the Holy Spirit! These are the things that not only these writers wanted for us, but what God wants for us!
Let us end these prayers with the end of Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3: 20,21. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” God wants us to know how much He is ready to work in your lives – if we let Him! Have faith, trust in God to fulfill the promises that He has for our lives and praise Him for His greatness!
...Dougchik
As you read Ephesians 3:14-19, you see the Apostle Paul, inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, writing a prayer from his heart. He is praying for these bothers and sisters that he dearly loves and whom he wants the very best for. Do you know that this prayer is for us? It is, because through the Holy Spirit, God knew that we would need this prayer in our lives as well!
There are several places in the Bible that prayers are offered for faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus prayed for us in John 17:20-21 - "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Another prayer is in Ephesians 1:15-23 where Paul prays for us to know the wisdom, power and strength that Jesus Christ has waiting for us! In Philemon 6 Paul prayed: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” He prayed for us to be active in sharing our faith so we could understand what good God has for us! John even prayed for health for us in 3 John 2, “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” God wants us to be in good health, so our souls can be strong to serve Him! Remember these are prayers guided by the Holy Spirit! These are the things that not only these writers wanted for us, but what God wants for us!
Let us end these prayers with the end of Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3: 20,21. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” God wants us to know how much He is ready to work in your lives – if we let Him! Have faith, trust in God to fulfill the promises that He has for our lives and praise Him for His greatness!
From the Kremenchuk In House Newsletter for Sept 20 07
Welcome Back To Our Newsletter!
“Living For Jesus” is back by popular demand! Many have said, “Why don’t we have a Newsletter any more?” So we have decided to bring it back.
I have a better question for you. What is going to make “Living for Jesus Newsletter” work?
You need to take it and read it!
You can give it to friends to interest them in what we are doing.
You can write poems and articles for the newsletter. (I happen to know that several of you are very good poets!)
You can give questions to be answered in the Newsletter.
You can encourage those that write for the paper and give them your ideas.
You can donate pictures to be used in the paper.
We want this paper to inform you, encourage you and train you in living the life that God has called us to live.
What Do You Want To Become?
If you are still in school, you may be thinking about what University you want to attend and what area of study you will take. If you are studying in a University, you may be thinking that you will need to get another degree than the one you now have. If you have graduated and are working, you may be thinking, “Is this really what I want to do?”
If you choose to make the decision to become a child of God, the other decisions in life take on a different perspective. You learn to look at life through the eyes of Jesus – the famous saying, “What would Jesus Do?” Remember that Jesus would stay close to God every day. Jesus would think of others before He thinks of Himself. He would serve others always. He would love people even when they don’t deserve it. He would always be ready to forgive them, no matter how many times they hurt him.
So, what will you become in Jesus? …Dougchik
“Living For Jesus” is back by popular demand! Many have said, “Why don’t we have a Newsletter any more?” So we have decided to bring it back.
I have a better question for you. What is going to make “Living for Jesus Newsletter” work?
You need to take it and read it!
You can give it to friends to interest them in what we are doing.
You can write poems and articles for the newsletter. (I happen to know that several of you are very good poets!)
You can give questions to be answered in the Newsletter.
You can encourage those that write for the paper and give them your ideas.
You can donate pictures to be used in the paper.
We want this paper to inform you, encourage you and train you in living the life that God has called us to live.
What Do You Want To Become?
If you are still in school, you may be thinking about what University you want to attend and what area of study you will take. If you are studying in a University, you may be thinking that you will need to get another degree than the one you now have. If you have graduated and are working, you may be thinking, “Is this really what I want to do?”
If you choose to make the decision to become a child of God, the other decisions in life take on a different perspective. You learn to look at life through the eyes of Jesus – the famous saying, “What would Jesus Do?” Remember that Jesus would stay close to God every day. Jesus would think of others before He thinks of Himself. He would serve others always. He would love people even when they don’t deserve it. He would always be ready to forgive them, no matter how many times they hurt him.
So, what will you become in Jesus? …Dougchik
Finding Ways to Grow Through Trials
James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
We all face trials many times in our lives. Somone has said we will always either be coming out of trial, in a trial or getting ready to enter a trial! God isn’t interested as much in our happiness as He is in our Holiness! God want us to try all the time to become like Him! He is always there to help us through the trials we are facing in our lives. 2 Peter 2:9 says, “the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials.” Remember that this life is a life that prepares us to become like Jesus so that we can spend eternity with Him in Heaven!
For those of us that went to our Black Sea Bible Camp this year, we know that we had some real trials and struggles there. Did you grow from those experiences? Did you trust God through them and become more faithful and stronger in Christ? What good things happened while you were there? What did you learn? What do you need to learn from it? I am going to share some pictures with you from camp. Think about the good times we did have. Think about what we learned at camp through our Bible lessons. Think about how we can become better people, how we can become more Christ like through our 13 days at camp.
…Dougchik
James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
We all face trials many times in our lives. Somone has said we will always either be coming out of trial, in a trial or getting ready to enter a trial! God isn’t interested as much in our happiness as He is in our Holiness! God want us to try all the time to become like Him! He is always there to help us through the trials we are facing in our lives. 2 Peter 2:9 says, “the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials.” Remember that this life is a life that prepares us to become like Jesus so that we can spend eternity with Him in Heaven!
For those of us that went to our Black Sea Bible Camp this year, we know that we had some real trials and struggles there. Did you grow from those experiences? Did you trust God through them and become more faithful and stronger in Christ? What good things happened while you were there? What did you learn? What do you need to learn from it? I am going to share some pictures with you from camp. Think about the good times we did have. Think about what we learned at camp through our Bible lessons. Think about how we can become better people, how we can become more Christ like through our 13 days at camp.
…Dougchik
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Journal for Oct.1-15 07
Monday, October 1, 2007
A busy day getting ready for classes and visiting classes. Also we went out to be with the Orphan’s family for a Bible Study, but because the Grandmother is in such poor health, we didn’t study, just talked, had tea and comforted the family. Grandmother has cancer, but it is not yet determined exactly how bad.
Tuesday, October 2 – Ella’s 3rd Birthday (granddaughter) and Alina’s 20th Birthday
I happy for Ella – she is such a darling granddaughter! I miss her so much, but enjoyed my time with her and he family this summer. It is a very sad time for me with Alina, for Alina has not been to services or anything much since camp and I have not seen her since I have been back. She didn’t want to celebrate her birthday with us this year. We started our 6th grade class today with 3 boys at school 11. We were also supposed to start the 7th grade class, because I forgot. You see, I got distracted today when I went outside this morning and found my back window on my car smashed in. Who did it? No way of knowing. After the morning class, I took it to the insurance company and they told me to take it a repair place, pay for it and I would get my money back in a week or so. They pay 100% for any window damages, so that is good. It will be repaired tomorrow. Well, in all that, I forgot the class I set up for the 7th grade. We had 8 for devo tonight. I spoke.
Wednesday, October 3
I got my window repaired in the morning and picked it up after afternoon classes. I traveled by using taxis today! I started my 5th grade class at School 11 with 5 kids. This age is always so much fun! We also tried to start an English Club at School 11 for 8th-11th grades, but 2 girls came and we decided to start next week. We will advertise more. At 6:30pm, we also started a University English Club, invite 3 different Universities in town to come and we had a grand total of 3! We had it and it went okay. We are having to rent a room in one of the Palaces of Culture (community buildings) for $80 a month for 2 hours a week. We don’t have this money in our budget, but Lord willing it will come from somewhere if this succeeds. We will try it for a month and see how it goes. We are doing these English Clubs as a way to get to know more people and let them see that we are okay people. We will then invite them to our Bible Classes in the future as we get to know them better.
Thursday, October 4
My main class today is at the village with 5th-7th graders. We (Oksana my translator for the village work) went out and they were busy with a teacher appreciation day. So a wasted trip. I really like this work out in the village (37 miles away) but it is so frustrating to drive all the way out there and not be able to have the classes that you want to hold. Our Thursday evening Bible Study had 6 in attendance tonight.
Friday, October 5
We were again going to the village for the 8th grade and then 11th grade classes, but they also canceled for other things, this time sending me a text message on my phone saying it wasn’t going to work for us to come. We had fun night with 5 people. Our attendance in the evening weekday classes continues to be way low and frustrating. We are trying to do all we can to encourage the young people to come. More have jobs. More have extra classes at schools and some I just don’t what’s going on – but am trying to find out.
Saturday, October 6
I did my normal Saturday morning marketing, shopping, lesson preparations, etc. for Bible Clubs. We had 5 in attendance today for Univ. Bible Club – for this class, that’s pretty good right now. Then we started the Church Discussions at the Church building at 4 with maybe a dozen and that went well and pleasant. Then we had 7 for our Teen Bible Club which also is good.
Sunday, October 7
Good attendance at services today and a good worship too! I was pretty tired and rested most of the afternoon. I spoke in the evening services and we had 12.
Monday, October 8
I am trying to take this day off, but it is nearly impossible for me to take a day off if I stay in Kremenchuk! I had 3 people calling me for assistance with different things during the day and then we again went to be with Orphan family. We come trying to bring love and encouragement to them. They really do appreciate it and we are really coming to love this family and all the kids!
Tuesday, October 9
1 6th grader showed up but we didn’t have class and he promised to come back next week. No 7th graders came, even after our visiting classes and inviting them. I also visited in the morning a lot of 8th -11 grade English classes and invited them to come to our English Club tomorrow. We had 10 at our Devo tonight and we did a split devo. What that means is that we sing together for about ½ hour and then the girls go to a different room. Kelli led the girls discussion this time and Yura had the boys lessons for us. In the evening, Inna, the mother of the Orphan home family and the daughter of the Grandmother that is struggling with her health called and asked if I would drive them to Poltava to the Dr. and Hospital there for her Mother to possibly have cancer surgery tomorrow. I agreed to do this for them.
Wednesday, October 10
Oksana went with me. I left the house at 5:20am, picked up Oksana and then we went out to their home in the village that they live at, fairly close to Kremenchuk. It is a little over an hour to Poltava and we found the hospital about 7:30am. About 11am Inna came out and told us that they had x-rayed the Grandmother after again draining a lot of excess fluid off of her abdomen and found that her cancer wasn’t as bad as they thought but still bad at stage 3 out of stage 5. They think that they can operate. She was admitted to the hospital. I abhor these hospitals. Poorly heated, dimly lit, 8 old beds to a room that have no bedding, pillows and no towels. They are fed one meal a day by the system (supposed free care!!!). They have to bribe the nurses to take care of the ones staying in because they get paid so little. Enough said. We got back in time for my afternoon classes and I had 9 5th graders and my translator didn’t show up! That was a struggle! We played Frisbee outside after reading the lesson together. One boy came to English club this time. We will see about next week – last chance as far as I am concerned. Then in the evening we had some encouragement with 4 new people! That made for a lot better time together! Our club is lasting 2 hours an evening. As you can see my day was long from 5:20am to 9pm.
Thursday, October 11
We went to the village today again and found out – again – that there was other special events going on. We got out to talk to the kids running races outside and the ones that have been in our classes for 2 and 3 years were as cold as ice! What happened???? It hurt both Oksana and I terribly! We will try to find out what is the matter and what is going on here. They have always been so friendly and welcomed us with friendliness and hugs! Again a disappointing Thursday night class with 6 in attendance. A very difficult day.
Friday, October 12
It is always amazing to me how God brings encouragement in the midst of discouragement! We didn’t see the 8th grade kids at the village today, but we had a wonderful study with our 11th grade girls about the plan of salvation! 3 of the 4 girls were there. They continue to be so open with us! We have canceled our Friday night fun night for lack of interest and I am scheduled with activities 7 nights a week. I need at least 1 night a week that I can have for myself.
Saturday, October 13
University Bible Club had 2. Bible Discussion went well with maybe 20 people. Teen Bible Club had 4. A rather discouraging week. We found out that the Grandmother can’t have surgery because she has a bad heart and bad liver. They went into her by removing her woman’s organs and cutting a piece of the cancer and it is very active cancer. She filled up with fluids again and when they drained it there was pieces of cancer floating in it – the cancer is all over her now. Very sad.
Sunday, October 14
4 of us went to Komsomolsk Church of Christ to encourage them. They continue to work hard, but continue to struggle there as the Orthodox church is very strong in that city of 60,000. They did have one new lady that has started to meet with them. There were 10 us for morning services. Then we went home, bought things for sandwiches and made 112 sandwiches for the boy’s prison. Then after eating (5 of us ate together today) we rested for a while. Then I made croissant roll dough for making sweet rolls tomorrow morning and rolls for dinner tomorrow for lunch. My electricity went off about 3:30 today. Then we had bible club for parents and we had 6 in attendance. And we had 15 for evening worship.
Monday, October 15
I got up 6am and fixed breakfast – sweet caramel rolls – for 2 of our girls who said they wanted to come at 7:30am, but they never showed! I spent much of the rest of the morning preparing dinner (lunch) for 4 Americans that are visiting here for America and teaching at the Bible School. We had a good meal and visit together. They left at 2pm. So I had my “8 hour day” in on my day off by 2pm! But it was a good time spent. Then we went to the Orphans’ home again, picking Inna up at the bus station at 5:30pm as she came back from Poltava and caring for her Mom. I got back home tonight about 8pm. It has been a hard and trying month since I have been back. I would greatly appreciate all of your prayers. I know you do pray for me and the work here. I am very thankful for that!
A busy day getting ready for classes and visiting classes. Also we went out to be with the Orphan’s family for a Bible Study, but because the Grandmother is in such poor health, we didn’t study, just talked, had tea and comforted the family. Grandmother has cancer, but it is not yet determined exactly how bad.
Tuesday, October 2 – Ella’s 3rd Birthday (granddaughter) and Alina’s 20th Birthday
I happy for Ella – she is such a darling granddaughter! I miss her so much, but enjoyed my time with her and he family this summer. It is a very sad time for me with Alina, for Alina has not been to services or anything much since camp and I have not seen her since I have been back. She didn’t want to celebrate her birthday with us this year. We started our 6th grade class today with 3 boys at school 11. We were also supposed to start the 7th grade class, because I forgot. You see, I got distracted today when I went outside this morning and found my back window on my car smashed in. Who did it? No way of knowing. After the morning class, I took it to the insurance company and they told me to take it a repair place, pay for it and I would get my money back in a week or so. They pay 100% for any window damages, so that is good. It will be repaired tomorrow. Well, in all that, I forgot the class I set up for the 7th grade. We had 8 for devo tonight. I spoke.
Wednesday, October 3
I got my window repaired in the morning and picked it up after afternoon classes. I traveled by using taxis today! I started my 5th grade class at School 11 with 5 kids. This age is always so much fun! We also tried to start an English Club at School 11 for 8th-11th grades, but 2 girls came and we decided to start next week. We will advertise more. At 6:30pm, we also started a University English Club, invite 3 different Universities in town to come and we had a grand total of 3! We had it and it went okay. We are having to rent a room in one of the Palaces of Culture (community buildings) for $80 a month for 2 hours a week. We don’t have this money in our budget, but Lord willing it will come from somewhere if this succeeds. We will try it for a month and see how it goes. We are doing these English Clubs as a way to get to know more people and let them see that we are okay people. We will then invite them to our Bible Classes in the future as we get to know them better.
Thursday, October 4
My main class today is at the village with 5th-7th graders. We (Oksana my translator for the village work) went out and they were busy with a teacher appreciation day. So a wasted trip. I really like this work out in the village (37 miles away) but it is so frustrating to drive all the way out there and not be able to have the classes that you want to hold. Our Thursday evening Bible Study had 6 in attendance tonight.
Friday, October 5
We were again going to the village for the 8th grade and then 11th grade classes, but they also canceled for other things, this time sending me a text message on my phone saying it wasn’t going to work for us to come. We had fun night with 5 people. Our attendance in the evening weekday classes continues to be way low and frustrating. We are trying to do all we can to encourage the young people to come. More have jobs. More have extra classes at schools and some I just don’t what’s going on – but am trying to find out.
Saturday, October 6
I did my normal Saturday morning marketing, shopping, lesson preparations, etc. for Bible Clubs. We had 5 in attendance today for Univ. Bible Club – for this class, that’s pretty good right now. Then we started the Church Discussions at the Church building at 4 with maybe a dozen and that went well and pleasant. Then we had 7 for our Teen Bible Club which also is good.
Sunday, October 7
Good attendance at services today and a good worship too! I was pretty tired and rested most of the afternoon. I spoke in the evening services and we had 12.
Monday, October 8
I am trying to take this day off, but it is nearly impossible for me to take a day off if I stay in Kremenchuk! I had 3 people calling me for assistance with different things during the day and then we again went to be with Orphan family. We come trying to bring love and encouragement to them. They really do appreciate it and we are really coming to love this family and all the kids!
Tuesday, October 9
1 6th grader showed up but we didn’t have class and he promised to come back next week. No 7th graders came, even after our visiting classes and inviting them. I also visited in the morning a lot of 8th -11 grade English classes and invited them to come to our English Club tomorrow. We had 10 at our Devo tonight and we did a split devo. What that means is that we sing together for about ½ hour and then the girls go to a different room. Kelli led the girls discussion this time and Yura had the boys lessons for us. In the evening, Inna, the mother of the Orphan home family and the daughter of the Grandmother that is struggling with her health called and asked if I would drive them to Poltava to the Dr. and Hospital there for her Mother to possibly have cancer surgery tomorrow. I agreed to do this for them.
Wednesday, October 10
Oksana went with me. I left the house at 5:20am, picked up Oksana and then we went out to their home in the village that they live at, fairly close to Kremenchuk. It is a little over an hour to Poltava and we found the hospital about 7:30am. About 11am Inna came out and told us that they had x-rayed the Grandmother after again draining a lot of excess fluid off of her abdomen and found that her cancer wasn’t as bad as they thought but still bad at stage 3 out of stage 5. They think that they can operate. She was admitted to the hospital. I abhor these hospitals. Poorly heated, dimly lit, 8 old beds to a room that have no bedding, pillows and no towels. They are fed one meal a day by the system (supposed free care!!!). They have to bribe the nurses to take care of the ones staying in because they get paid so little. Enough said. We got back in time for my afternoon classes and I had 9 5th graders and my translator didn’t show up! That was a struggle! We played Frisbee outside after reading the lesson together. One boy came to English club this time. We will see about next week – last chance as far as I am concerned. Then in the evening we had some encouragement with 4 new people! That made for a lot better time together! Our club is lasting 2 hours an evening. As you can see my day was long from 5:20am to 9pm.
Thursday, October 11
We went to the village today again and found out – again – that there was other special events going on. We got out to talk to the kids running races outside and the ones that have been in our classes for 2 and 3 years were as cold as ice! What happened???? It hurt both Oksana and I terribly! We will try to find out what is the matter and what is going on here. They have always been so friendly and welcomed us with friendliness and hugs! Again a disappointing Thursday night class with 6 in attendance. A very difficult day.
Friday, October 12
It is always amazing to me how God brings encouragement in the midst of discouragement! We didn’t see the 8th grade kids at the village today, but we had a wonderful study with our 11th grade girls about the plan of salvation! 3 of the 4 girls were there. They continue to be so open with us! We have canceled our Friday night fun night for lack of interest and I am scheduled with activities 7 nights a week. I need at least 1 night a week that I can have for myself.
Saturday, October 13
University Bible Club had 2. Bible Discussion went well with maybe 20 people. Teen Bible Club had 4. A rather discouraging week. We found out that the Grandmother can’t have surgery because she has a bad heart and bad liver. They went into her by removing her woman’s organs and cutting a piece of the cancer and it is very active cancer. She filled up with fluids again and when they drained it there was pieces of cancer floating in it – the cancer is all over her now. Very sad.
Sunday, October 14
4 of us went to Komsomolsk Church of Christ to encourage them. They continue to work hard, but continue to struggle there as the Orthodox church is very strong in that city of 60,000. They did have one new lady that has started to meet with them. There were 10 us for morning services. Then we went home, bought things for sandwiches and made 112 sandwiches for the boy’s prison. Then after eating (5 of us ate together today) we rested for a while. Then I made croissant roll dough for making sweet rolls tomorrow morning and rolls for dinner tomorrow for lunch. My electricity went off about 3:30 today. Then we had bible club for parents and we had 6 in attendance. And we had 15 for evening worship.
Monday, October 15
I got up 6am and fixed breakfast – sweet caramel rolls – for 2 of our girls who said they wanted to come at 7:30am, but they never showed! I spent much of the rest of the morning preparing dinner (lunch) for 4 Americans that are visiting here for America and teaching at the Bible School. We had a good meal and visit together. They left at 2pm. So I had my “8 hour day” in on my day off by 2pm! But it was a good time spent. Then we went to the Orphans’ home again, picking Inna up at the bus station at 5:30pm as she came back from Poltava and caring for her Mom. I got back home tonight about 8pm. It has been a hard and trying month since I have been back. I would greatly appreciate all of your prayers. I know you do pray for me and the work here. I am very thankful for that!
Monday, October 1, 2007
I'm Back! Sorry I've been gone so long!
Here is my catching up on my Journal! I am having some problems again with my blog. It's all in Ukrainian langauge and I know very little of Ukrainian and not very good in Russian! So be patient with me please!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
For the first time in many a year, I have been become very lax as far as my journal is concerned. It is my goal and desires to become regular at this again, for my own record of my life and for those of you who read this. The end of June was really the last time I wrote in my Journal, but now I want to catch up in a general way and then be much more specific from here on out. So we are going to go back in time!
June 28-July 11 – Black Sea Bible Camp
First from my Sept. 17th Newsletter:
Camp was a real struggle and trial this year. A week before camp began, I sprained my ankle very badly (it is much better now, but not yet completely well). At first, the Drs. even thought it was broken and put me in a cast. That was on a Friday and on Monday, we had the x-rays taken to another Dr. and they confirmed it was only a bad sprain, but they wanted me to keep the cast on to immobilize it. Drs. and friends in the states said I should take it off so I could ice it, etc. So we cut it off on Tuesday. I went to camp without crutches on Friday evening.
We took 43 people to camp with us this summer to a “brand new camp.” Well it was brand new and not completely finished and a very dirty place. We got a real bargain on the price – 600 Grievnas or $120 per person for 13 days. The other cheapest place we could have gone was closer to 1000 Grievnas for the same period of time. Another reason that the place was so cheep was because the food was so little and so poor! Everyone lost weight – I guess that is good! Also, the owner/cook of the camp was very much opposed to our Christian teachings and never failed to take the chance to put us and our faith down whenever she could. We had several confrontations with her that were very difficult, to say the least. We were told that we would have a lot of room to play games with our kids. There were some empty fields near by, but they were all filled with thistles and thorns! Then 2 of our oldest campers, one boy and one girl caused us all kind of problems in not following the rules.
So what good came from camp? Really, many things! We had some great Bible lessons and devotionals! We grew together because of the trials and difficulties. We learned that we could depend on others when we had hard times. We very much enjoyed the Black Sea this year. The weather was hot and the sea was a great temperature. We had no baptisms this year at camp, but we have 2 girls that are much more seriously considering this for their lives. God is good! We will learn and grow from this camp! One thing we learned for sure, is that we definitely will not do camp with those same people again!
Second from my Newsletter of September 20th that I write to my young people here in Kremenchuk:
James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
We all face trials many times in our lives. Someone has said we will always either be coming out of trial, in a trial or getting ready to enter a trial! God isn’t interested as much in our happiness as He is in our Holiness! God want us to try all the time to become like Him! He is always there to help us through the trials we are facing in our lives. 2 Peter 2:9 says, “The Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials.” Remember that this life is a life that prepares us to become like Jesus so that we can spend eternity with Him in Heaven!
For those of us that went to our Black Sea Bible Camp this year, we know that we had some real trials and struggles there. Did you grow from those experiences? Did you trust God through them and become more faithful and stronger in Christ? What good things happened while you were there? What did you learn? What do you need to learn from it? I am going to share some pictures with you from camp. Think about the good times we did have. Think about what we learned at camp through our Bible lessons. Think about how we can become better people, how we can become more Christ like through our 13 days at camp.
PRESENT TIME: Hopefully these writing will help to give a good perspective on what camp was like this summer.
July 21-August 4
These 2 weeks I spent with my daughter Janessa, her husband BJ and my grandson Gavin in Grand Island, NE. Janessa worked about 6 hours a day and BJ worked long hours. I got to take of Gavin (2 yrs. 4months) some. We went to some movies, swimming together, to a company picnic in Omaha, NE and finally on the Friday before I left, Janessa, Gavin and I went to the Omaha zoo. Omaha was the city I flew out of the next day.
August 4-11
I spent this time in Arkansas with some friends. We went to a lake for a couple of days, spent a couple of days in Branson, MO, and saw some great shows.
August 11-25
I spent this time with my oldest daughter Jenise, her husband Jon and I met my newest grandson, Malachi (5 months) in San Angelo, TX. Jenise is working on her internship as commercial artists and so I took care of Malachi each weekday for 2 to 3 hours! I was a bit worried about it, as I hadn’t taken care of baby by myself for a long time! But all worked out great – with just a little stress! Jenise and went down to San Antonio, TX for a couple of days, visited my sister Margaret in Kerrville, TX. While in San Antonio, we had a good time at some good restaurants and on Saturday, we spent time on the beautiful river walk and visited the Alamo.
August 25-Sept 7
I traveled to Puyallup, WA to spend the rest of my time in the states with my oldest son Butch, his wife Erin, and my two oldest grand daughters, Hannah (5) and Ella (almost 3). My son Butch is a Chiropractor and worked most of the time. Erin is home with the girls and we did a lot of fun things together, shopped together and just had a good time. Part of the time when Butch was free, we went Salmon fishing and I caught 9 about 5 pounds each. This was a lot of fun! Also we to Seattle one day on the fairy (sp?), and went one afternoon to the mountains which was absolutely beautiful! I hadn’t been in the big mountains for a long time and it was great!
Through all of this travel, I had such a wonderful time with my family! I enjoyed all the things that we did, but mostly, I thoroughly enjoyed just being with my family! It was such a blessing from God and I am so very thankful for it!!!
September 7-9
My return to Kremenchuk took 3 days; because of the flights across the country to NY City, then to Paris for a 10 hour lay over. Finally on Sunday the 9th at about 5pm, I returned to Kremenchuk and my spiritual family here. It is good to be back home!
September 10-23
This has been a time of catching up on many things. I have been working at getting all our classes and activities started up again at schools, Universities and of course our regular activities. Our Tuesday night devotional and our Thursday Bible study were kept on going by James and a couple of Ukrainian guys, Artem and Yura. These 2 young men have grown a great deal and are taking on a real leadership roll that is really needed here and I am very proud of them! We are in the process of starting something new this fall that we are calling “English Club.” It will be strictly an English practice time for University and school age students. We are using this as a way to get to know more people and let them know us. I believe that when people really come to know and be friends with us, we will have a greater opportunity to teach them the gospel. Please be praying for the success of this new effort. We are teaching in 5 schools again this fall and will be working with 3 orphanages again. There is always the challenge of lining up translators. We now have many good translators, it is just being able to line up there schedules with mine/ours! That’s kind of my life in a nutshell up to this point in time.
Wednesday, September 26
The main event of the day was going to the village and visiting classes and setting up classes to start next week. All of our classes at the village this fall will be on Thursdays and Fridays. There is a new big class of 5th graders this year, so that should be fun!
Thursday, September 27
I am putting the finishing touches on English Clubs for 2 schools: 1 and 11 and then for the University level, which we are trying to cover at least 3 intuitions of higher learning. They all start next Wed. Our Bible Study night had just 6 people at it tonight. We are studying Hebrews and it is a good study, but where are the people? I know that as our kids are getting older they are very busy. Our 11th form kids (3) are all taking Univ. prep classes besides their School classes that are night classes that keeps them busy every night during the week and others are working now. So please pray for our growth and success and for us to keep our spirits up with our weekly numbers are down.
Friday, September 28
We made extra trips to School 11 today to finalize everything with the Director and to visit classes to invite kids to next week classes beginning. Then at 2:10, Oksana and I went to the village to study with our 4 11th grade girls there and it went so well! They are so open and excited about the Gospel and we are so thankful to be studying with them. They got out earlier than they thought they would and waited for us for about 40 minutes! At 6 we had a party planned to encourage our young people to invite friends to come so we could get to know them better, but they didn’t come – well we had 10 and had a good time, but no visitors.
Saturday, September 29
We had our 2nd week of Bible Clubs this day. In the morning I did my normal Sat. with Bible Clubs coming up of cleaning, shopping, studying in the morning. Then we had 5 at our Univ. Bible Club and 5 at our Teen Club at 6. Next week, the Church will start church discussion time at 4pm. I get real frustrated with them some times because they asked me what time I wanted us to have it at and I said 3 or 3:30 and they said fine and then set the time at 4! Go figure!
Sunday, September 30
We had a good worship service this morning, with more people there than the last couple of weeks. Then we made sandwiches at my house with 6 of us doing that. Afterwards I made hot tuna sandwiches for us for our lunch! Everyone loves those and I hadn’t made them in a long time. This past week, the city has closed the only bridge across the river (about 1/3 or more of the city lives on the other side of the river) until Dec. 31st. Several of young people live on the other side and it is a major difficulty. One of our young women that I hadn’t had time to be with since I came back was Zhenya. It was a beautiful day, 70, no wind, clear and trees turning, so I offered to drive Zhenya home through another city. Well, it was 92 kilometers (about 50 miles) round trip, but it was a very beautiful trip and gave us time to catch up on things. It was great to spend some time with her too! At 6 we had 12 at our evening services. We have been having about 20, but this was a low number for us. I got home about 8, ate, tried to watch a movie on TV, but was soon asleep. I finally got up and went to bed about 10:30!
For the first time in many a year, I have been become very lax as far as my journal is concerned. It is my goal and desires to become regular at this again, for my own record of my life and for those of you who read this. The end of June was really the last time I wrote in my Journal, but now I want to catch up in a general way and then be much more specific from here on out. So we are going to go back in time!
June 28-July 11 – Black Sea Bible Camp
First from my Sept. 17th Newsletter:
Camp was a real struggle and trial this year. A week before camp began, I sprained my ankle very badly (it is much better now, but not yet completely well). At first, the Drs. even thought it was broken and put me in a cast. That was on a Friday and on Monday, we had the x-rays taken to another Dr. and they confirmed it was only a bad sprain, but they wanted me to keep the cast on to immobilize it. Drs. and friends in the states said I should take it off so I could ice it, etc. So we cut it off on Tuesday. I went to camp without crutches on Friday evening.
We took 43 people to camp with us this summer to a “brand new camp.” Well it was brand new and not completely finished and a very dirty place. We got a real bargain on the price – 600 Grievnas or $120 per person for 13 days. The other cheapest place we could have gone was closer to 1000 Grievnas for the same period of time. Another reason that the place was so cheep was because the food was so little and so poor! Everyone lost weight – I guess that is good! Also, the owner/cook of the camp was very much opposed to our Christian teachings and never failed to take the chance to put us and our faith down whenever she could. We had several confrontations with her that were very difficult, to say the least. We were told that we would have a lot of room to play games with our kids. There were some empty fields near by, but they were all filled with thistles and thorns! Then 2 of our oldest campers, one boy and one girl caused us all kind of problems in not following the rules.
So what good came from camp? Really, many things! We had some great Bible lessons and devotionals! We grew together because of the trials and difficulties. We learned that we could depend on others when we had hard times. We very much enjoyed the Black Sea this year. The weather was hot and the sea was a great temperature. We had no baptisms this year at camp, but we have 2 girls that are much more seriously considering this for their lives. God is good! We will learn and grow from this camp! One thing we learned for sure, is that we definitely will not do camp with those same people again!
Second from my Newsletter of September 20th that I write to my young people here in Kremenchuk:
James 1:2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
We all face trials many times in our lives. Someone has said we will always either be coming out of trial, in a trial or getting ready to enter a trial! God isn’t interested as much in our happiness as He is in our Holiness! God want us to try all the time to become like Him! He is always there to help us through the trials we are facing in our lives. 2 Peter 2:9 says, “The Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials.” Remember that this life is a life that prepares us to become like Jesus so that we can spend eternity with Him in Heaven!
For those of us that went to our Black Sea Bible Camp this year, we know that we had some real trials and struggles there. Did you grow from those experiences? Did you trust God through them and become more faithful and stronger in Christ? What good things happened while you were there? What did you learn? What do you need to learn from it? I am going to share some pictures with you from camp. Think about the good times we did have. Think about what we learned at camp through our Bible lessons. Think about how we can become better people, how we can become more Christ like through our 13 days at camp.
PRESENT TIME: Hopefully these writing will help to give a good perspective on what camp was like this summer.
July 21-August 4
These 2 weeks I spent with my daughter Janessa, her husband BJ and my grandson Gavin in Grand Island, NE. Janessa worked about 6 hours a day and BJ worked long hours. I got to take of Gavin (2 yrs. 4months) some. We went to some movies, swimming together, to a company picnic in Omaha, NE and finally on the Friday before I left, Janessa, Gavin and I went to the Omaha zoo. Omaha was the city I flew out of the next day.
August 4-11
I spent this time in Arkansas with some friends. We went to a lake for a couple of days, spent a couple of days in Branson, MO, and saw some great shows.
August 11-25
I spent this time with my oldest daughter Jenise, her husband Jon and I met my newest grandson, Malachi (5 months) in San Angelo, TX. Jenise is working on her internship as commercial artists and so I took care of Malachi each weekday for 2 to 3 hours! I was a bit worried about it, as I hadn’t taken care of baby by myself for a long time! But all worked out great – with just a little stress! Jenise and went down to San Antonio, TX for a couple of days, visited my sister Margaret in Kerrville, TX. While in San Antonio, we had a good time at some good restaurants and on Saturday, we spent time on the beautiful river walk and visited the Alamo.
August 25-Sept 7
I traveled to Puyallup, WA to spend the rest of my time in the states with my oldest son Butch, his wife Erin, and my two oldest grand daughters, Hannah (5) and Ella (almost 3). My son Butch is a Chiropractor and worked most of the time. Erin is home with the girls and we did a lot of fun things together, shopped together and just had a good time. Part of the time when Butch was free, we went Salmon fishing and I caught 9 about 5 pounds each. This was a lot of fun! Also we to Seattle one day on the fairy (sp?), and went one afternoon to the mountains which was absolutely beautiful! I hadn’t been in the big mountains for a long time and it was great!
Through all of this travel, I had such a wonderful time with my family! I enjoyed all the things that we did, but mostly, I thoroughly enjoyed just being with my family! It was such a blessing from God and I am so very thankful for it!!!
September 7-9
My return to Kremenchuk took 3 days; because of the flights across the country to NY City, then to Paris for a 10 hour lay over. Finally on Sunday the 9th at about 5pm, I returned to Kremenchuk and my spiritual family here. It is good to be back home!
September 10-23
This has been a time of catching up on many things. I have been working at getting all our classes and activities started up again at schools, Universities and of course our regular activities. Our Tuesday night devotional and our Thursday Bible study were kept on going by James and a couple of Ukrainian guys, Artem and Yura. These 2 young men have grown a great deal and are taking on a real leadership roll that is really needed here and I am very proud of them! We are in the process of starting something new this fall that we are calling “English Club.” It will be strictly an English practice time for University and school age students. We are using this as a way to get to know more people and let them know us. I believe that when people really come to know and be friends with us, we will have a greater opportunity to teach them the gospel. Please be praying for the success of this new effort. We are teaching in 5 schools again this fall and will be working with 3 orphanages again. There is always the challenge of lining up translators. We now have many good translators, it is just being able to line up there schedules with mine/ours! That’s kind of my life in a nutshell up to this point in time.
Wednesday, September 26
The main event of the day was going to the village and visiting classes and setting up classes to start next week. All of our classes at the village this fall will be on Thursdays and Fridays. There is a new big class of 5th graders this year, so that should be fun!
Thursday, September 27
I am putting the finishing touches on English Clubs for 2 schools: 1 and 11 and then for the University level, which we are trying to cover at least 3 intuitions of higher learning. They all start next Wed. Our Bible Study night had just 6 people at it tonight. We are studying Hebrews and it is a good study, but where are the people? I know that as our kids are getting older they are very busy. Our 11th form kids (3) are all taking Univ. prep classes besides their School classes that are night classes that keeps them busy every night during the week and others are working now. So please pray for our growth and success and for us to keep our spirits up with our weekly numbers are down.
Friday, September 28
We made extra trips to School 11 today to finalize everything with the Director and to visit classes to invite kids to next week classes beginning. Then at 2:10, Oksana and I went to the village to study with our 4 11th grade girls there and it went so well! They are so open and excited about the Gospel and we are so thankful to be studying with them. They got out earlier than they thought they would and waited for us for about 40 minutes! At 6 we had a party planned to encourage our young people to invite friends to come so we could get to know them better, but they didn’t come – well we had 10 and had a good time, but no visitors.
Saturday, September 29
We had our 2nd week of Bible Clubs this day. In the morning I did my normal Sat. with Bible Clubs coming up of cleaning, shopping, studying in the morning. Then we had 5 at our Univ. Bible Club and 5 at our Teen Club at 6. Next week, the Church will start church discussion time at 4pm. I get real frustrated with them some times because they asked me what time I wanted us to have it at and I said 3 or 3:30 and they said fine and then set the time at 4! Go figure!
Sunday, September 30
We had a good worship service this morning, with more people there than the last couple of weeks. Then we made sandwiches at my house with 6 of us doing that. Afterwards I made hot tuna sandwiches for us for our lunch! Everyone loves those and I hadn’t made them in a long time. This past week, the city has closed the only bridge across the river (about 1/3 or more of the city lives on the other side of the river) until Dec. 31st. Several of young people live on the other side and it is a major difficulty. One of our young women that I hadn’t had time to be with since I came back was Zhenya. It was a beautiful day, 70, no wind, clear and trees turning, so I offered to drive Zhenya home through another city. Well, it was 92 kilometers (about 50 miles) round trip, but it was a very beautiful trip and gave us time to catch up on things. It was great to spend some time with her too! At 6 we had 12 at our evening services. We have been having about 20, but this was a low number for us. I got home about 8, ate, tried to watch a movie on TV, but was soon asleep. I finally got up and went to bed about 10:30!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Catching Up
Much has happened since my last Blog. First, for some reason I was unable to get onto this blog for some time - it just wouldn't let me get on! Then I kind of gave up on it. But now that I am here I will be trying again. I hope that you have lots of patience as I try to catch you up!
June was a month long VBS style day camp at the church building with 4th-7th grade kids. Our camp was from 8am-4:30pm and we averaged 15 kids at this camp. Then at 4:30 we had a Bible Study with older kids and most of the time, we averaged 11 at these classes.
At the end of June from June 28-July 12, we had our 5th annual Black Sea Bible Camp at the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. 43 people went and shared this experience with us. After the camp, I came to US, where I now am, visiting family and friends.
As of now, I am in San Angelo, TX visiting my daughter Jenise, her husband Jon and 5 month old grandson, Malachi! I have been babysitting Malachi every weekday while Jenise goes to her internship for her university classes. She will graduate from the Univ. in Dec. of this year.
Love in Christ,
Doug
June was a month long VBS style day camp at the church building with 4th-7th grade kids. Our camp was from 8am-4:30pm and we averaged 15 kids at this camp. Then at 4:30 we had a Bible Study with older kids and most of the time, we averaged 11 at these classes.
At the end of June from June 28-July 12, we had our 5th annual Black Sea Bible Camp at the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. 43 people went and shared this experience with us. After the camp, I came to US, where I now am, visiting family and friends.
As of now, I am in San Angelo, TX visiting my daughter Jenise, her husband Jon and 5 month old grandson, Malachi! I have been babysitting Malachi every weekday while Jenise goes to her internship for her university classes. She will graduate from the Univ. in Dec. of this year.
Love in Christ,
Doug
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Doug's Journal for May 1-15 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
No Schools again today – holiday until tomorrow. The holiday is like a Veteran’s Day. At 9am I left for Bugkivka to get 4 of our 10th grade girls to come to Kremenchuk and spend the holiday with us. It was a terrible rainy morning with mixed snow in my drive to the village and back. We got back around 11 and went to my house where people began to come, fix food (I cooked sloppy joes for them – I hadn’t fixed this before for most). I end up using over 3 pounds of hamburger to feed 16 people! It was a big hit, along with other good food that others brought. We spent the afternoon together, playing, walking and then at 4:30 5 of us went to Prostor (our Wal-Mart type store) and bought birthday presents for Lera, our 11th grade girl for her birthday party after our devo at 6 at the church building. We had 29 for the devo and most stayed for the party afterwards. As you maybe could imagine, the singing was great and James had a great lesson. Lera, started coming with her mother, Nadya, when she was 5. She is really growing up and is a delight to all of us! I got home about 8:30pm to eat supper.
Wednesday, May 2
Not a lot happening today and it was good because I had a pretty bad sinus headache and cough – yes my cough won’t let go of me! By the afternoon, the headache was gone and I was able to get some studying done for Saturday Bible Clubs and for my Rev. Study tomorrow night.
Thursday, May 3
Again, a strong wind is blowing and my sinuses hurt pretty badly. I know I didn’t mention it before. On Monday of this week, Victor Nikolivna, the preacher for one of the 3 churches of Christ here in Kremenchuk died of a sudden massive stroke. It was a shock to everyone! He was 65 years old and had been a very active and strong preacher. His funeral was today. I went to the funeral. People do it all the time, right? It's never fun. He actually lived longer than the average life span for men in Ukraine which is 63. There was a LOT of people there for a Ukrainian funeral. They meet outside the house (apartment building) where he lives and they bring the body in a wooden casket - very simple - can't afford more I am sure. Everybody gathers around the best they can. Since it was for a member of the Church there is at least no morbid music playing. Several of us from the church sang and then Peter, our preacher, preached a sermon, we sang some more. People were placing flowers on the body as the preaching was going on. Then 4 men put the casket on their shoulders and take him to a large van that is waiting and the immediate family all get into this van with all the wreathes and flowers and take the body to the grave site. The friends that I was with said that the equivalent 1/3 the population of Kremenchuk (250,000) are buried at this cemetery. There is some preaching and praying and then 4 men lower the casket down into the grave after the casket is nailed shut. Then they covered the casket with dirt, with friends and family putting 2 or 3 handfuls of dirt on the casket before leaving. They were to have a dinner, but I didn't stay for that. It was hard. I cried some. Then I went home, ate lunch about 3:30pm, prepared for my evening class and we had 12 for that and 8 stayed after and I fixed hot tuna sandwiches afterwards. We studied Rev. 5 about the Lamb and the throne scene. I made the application of the funeral and having to always be ready to meet our maker! It's now about 9:40 and all have gone home about 30 minutes ago. I just wanted to write about this tonight.
Friday, May 4
I had 4 girls in my 6th grade class at School 1 today and that was good and fun. At 1:15 we went to the village (Oksana, Max and I) and we had 12 in class today. We had 2 boys that were just terrible. There is often little or no discipline in the homes I think and it is seen in the boys more than the girls. We have some good boys in our younger classes at school, but these two! Finally, I was actually getting ready to get the director of the school when they finally settled down some. 8 of us played Frisbee and then 5 came to my house for some snacks, games and a movie until about 9:30.
Saturday, May 5
I had prepared my Bible club materials earlier in the week and James was to teach the Adult – 1 came and thus no class. Artem and Oksana taught my Parent’s Club but just 2 came. I left with Alina and Olya to go to the airport to go and get Kelli, who is returning after being gone for about 6 weeks. She will be here until Dec and then go back home. We got back to Kremenchuk about 3:45 and we had a surprise party planned for Kelli, but she expected it. We had a good time anyway. She and I were both pretty tired and so all were home and gone by 6:30pm.
Sunday, May 6
Worship was good with good attendance today. Afterwards 7 of us made sandwiches for the Boy’s prison work and then fixed and ate spaghetti together. It was good and fun afternoon. Then we watched a movie together, some going home and I worked on my evening lesson. We had 14 for our evening services. I got home about 8 and ate another late supper.
Monday, May 7
I did pretty well about having a day off today until later afternoon when things got busy around my place with different people. In the evening we (Olya, Kelli, Ksusha, and Artem) went to the Bible study at the Orphan’s Home family and I gave them a survey to take about what they believed in God and then we started to discuss it and will work on it more next Monday. I got everybody and me home after 10.
Tuesday, May 8
Had a meeting with James and Kelli about camps from 9-11. At 1:15 Max, Oksana and I went to the village to have our class with the 10th grade girls and that went well. They are so much warmer and friendlier since coming to spend time with us in Kremenchuk! We had a good singing night/devo with 15 people present and the singing and fellowship was good. I got home around 8 for supper.
Wednesday, May 9 – V Day – Victory Day – the End of WWII
Or as they call here, The Great Patriotic War! You would too if your city was completely destroyed except for 6 buildings during WWII, over 95,000 people died during the war from your city and 37,000+ died in a concentration camp right in the rubble of your city. Well there were parades, carnivals, speeches, etc. honoring the vets from this time – there are still quite a few remaining. Mostly just a pretty day to have another holiday for the rest of us – no schools today.
Thursday, May 10
Nadya is Ksusha’s Mom. Her dad was unfaithful to her mom this spring and so they divorced. The income has been very low for them. Nadya started coming to our Parent’s Bible Club as one of our founding students. A few weeks ago, I asked her if she would like to cook for me and of course I would pay her. She said she would love to! (She’s a great cook!) She’s done it for 3 weeks now. Today, through her daughter, I asked to if she would like to have a personal Bible Study and she said yes! So that is my greatest news for today! We went to the orphanage in Svetlovodsk at 3:30 and that went well. We had our Rev. study at 6 with 16 people present and that also went well. People went home after 9:30.
Friday, May 11
Normal study stuff in the morning and errands, etc. At 1:15, Ksusha and I went to the village to have our study with the 5th and 6th grade kids. We had 12. But the exciting part is that several of them are getting really excited about coming to camp with us at the Black Sea! This is such an exciting thing as we have been trying to get them to come with us for 2 years and now finally the parents are trusting us enough for them to come! We got at 4. At our Frisbee tonight only 5 came, but we had a good time.
Saturday, May 12
Today was the last day for our Bible Clubs until fall because of other activities coming up. At 10am, I went out and bought Anya O. (Vaughan – James new wife!) a birthday present, took it over to her and they had a meal fixed at 11 – Max came too! It was nice to celebrate a bit with her. We had 7 for our Adult Bible Club with 2 new people that promised us they would come back in the fall. At 2, I tried for the 3rd time to have an Men’s Leadership Meeting from all the churches in the area and only 2 came. I was terribly disappointed and discouraged. Several told me they would come, but it didn’t happen! At 4pm, we had the first blank with our Parent’s Club – I know some are out of town. At 6pm, we had 9 for our Bible Club and that was good.
Sunday, May 13
Not a great day for me. I was still hurt pretty bad about men not coming to the meeting, so it was hard for me worship. I know that I should have let it go, but I didn’t. I did have lunch with a couple of Missionary couples that are here teaching at the Bible College (they around 70 or so) and they were encouraging to me. We had 12 at our evening service and that helped me some, too.
Monday, May 14
God’s Word and another book I am reading both spoke to what I needed today and it brought me to my knees in repentance for allowing hurt feelings stay in my heart, so I repented, prayed and wrote to some people about being sorry for letting anything like this stand in the way of our relationship to God. Of course today is supposed to be my day off. But from about 10 to 1:30 I worked on a report that I am trying to get ready to send to my Elders. Well, it is my day off and I can do what I want to do on it, right? And I wanted to get this done! At 5:45 we went to the Orphans family again for a Bible Study and it went really well with some really good questions coming up from them! They just found out that the Regional Govt. in charge of their kind of work is going to build them a larger home so that they can reach their goal of 12 orphan home kids! They are doing the blue prints this week and will start immediately to build! That’s so great for them. We were there until nearly 10pm! It was a really nice evening!
Tuesday, May 15
It doesn’t seem like it can be the middle of May! I worked very hard all morning on Black Sea Camp stuff and finished printing it out as I ate lunch. I use old formats, etc. but still you have to figure out who is going to teach what, when and where, who will translate, who will do devo’s etc.! This was just the teaching part! At 1pm, Ksusha, Kelli, Vika and I left for the airport to get Frankie. His flight was supposed to arrive at 4:50 – it did, but he lost a suitcase and he didn’t get out of customs, etc. until 6:30pm! Then we drove home, arriving about 9:50pm and by the time I got everyone home and back again it was 10:45! It’s great having Frankie here again – he worked with us for 20 months with AIM and had returned home in Dec. So, it’s great having him back!
No Schools again today – holiday until tomorrow. The holiday is like a Veteran’s Day. At 9am I left for Bugkivka to get 4 of our 10th grade girls to come to Kremenchuk and spend the holiday with us. It was a terrible rainy morning with mixed snow in my drive to the village and back. We got back around 11 and went to my house where people began to come, fix food (I cooked sloppy joes for them – I hadn’t fixed this before for most). I end up using over 3 pounds of hamburger to feed 16 people! It was a big hit, along with other good food that others brought. We spent the afternoon together, playing, walking and then at 4:30 5 of us went to Prostor (our Wal-Mart type store) and bought birthday presents for Lera, our 11th grade girl for her birthday party after our devo at 6 at the church building. We had 29 for the devo and most stayed for the party afterwards. As you maybe could imagine, the singing was great and James had a great lesson. Lera, started coming with her mother, Nadya, when she was 5. She is really growing up and is a delight to all of us! I got home about 8:30pm to eat supper.
Wednesday, May 2
Not a lot happening today and it was good because I had a pretty bad sinus headache and cough – yes my cough won’t let go of me! By the afternoon, the headache was gone and I was able to get some studying done for Saturday Bible Clubs and for my Rev. Study tomorrow night.
Thursday, May 3
Again, a strong wind is blowing and my sinuses hurt pretty badly. I know I didn’t mention it before. On Monday of this week, Victor Nikolivna, the preacher for one of the 3 churches of Christ here in Kremenchuk died of a sudden massive stroke. It was a shock to everyone! He was 65 years old and had been a very active and strong preacher. His funeral was today. I went to the funeral. People do it all the time, right? It's never fun. He actually lived longer than the average life span for men in Ukraine which is 63. There was a LOT of people there for a Ukrainian funeral. They meet outside the house (apartment building) where he lives and they bring the body in a wooden casket - very simple - can't afford more I am sure. Everybody gathers around the best they can. Since it was for a member of the Church there is at least no morbid music playing. Several of us from the church sang and then Peter, our preacher, preached a sermon, we sang some more. People were placing flowers on the body as the preaching was going on. Then 4 men put the casket on their shoulders and take him to a large van that is waiting and the immediate family all get into this van with all the wreathes and flowers and take the body to the grave site. The friends that I was with said that the equivalent 1/3 the population of Kremenchuk (250,000) are buried at this cemetery. There is some preaching and praying and then 4 men lower the casket down into the grave after the casket is nailed shut. Then they covered the casket with dirt, with friends and family putting 2 or 3 handfuls of dirt on the casket before leaving. They were to have a dinner, but I didn't stay for that. It was hard. I cried some. Then I went home, ate lunch about 3:30pm, prepared for my evening class and we had 12 for that and 8 stayed after and I fixed hot tuna sandwiches afterwards. We studied Rev. 5 about the Lamb and the throne scene. I made the application of the funeral and having to always be ready to meet our maker! It's now about 9:40 and all have gone home about 30 minutes ago. I just wanted to write about this tonight.
Friday, May 4
I had 4 girls in my 6th grade class at School 1 today and that was good and fun. At 1:15 we went to the village (Oksana, Max and I) and we had 12 in class today. We had 2 boys that were just terrible. There is often little or no discipline in the homes I think and it is seen in the boys more than the girls. We have some good boys in our younger classes at school, but these two! Finally, I was actually getting ready to get the director of the school when they finally settled down some. 8 of us played Frisbee and then 5 came to my house for some snacks, games and a movie until about 9:30.
Saturday, May 5
I had prepared my Bible club materials earlier in the week and James was to teach the Adult – 1 came and thus no class. Artem and Oksana taught my Parent’s Club but just 2 came. I left with Alina and Olya to go to the airport to go and get Kelli, who is returning after being gone for about 6 weeks. She will be here until Dec and then go back home. We got back to Kremenchuk about 3:45 and we had a surprise party planned for Kelli, but she expected it. We had a good time anyway. She and I were both pretty tired and so all were home and gone by 6:30pm.
Sunday, May 6
Worship was good with good attendance today. Afterwards 7 of us made sandwiches for the Boy’s prison work and then fixed and ate spaghetti together. It was good and fun afternoon. Then we watched a movie together, some going home and I worked on my evening lesson. We had 14 for our evening services. I got home about 8 and ate another late supper.
Monday, May 7
I did pretty well about having a day off today until later afternoon when things got busy around my place with different people. In the evening we (Olya, Kelli, Ksusha, and Artem) went to the Bible study at the Orphan’s Home family and I gave them a survey to take about what they believed in God and then we started to discuss it and will work on it more next Monday. I got everybody and me home after 10.
Tuesday, May 8
Had a meeting with James and Kelli about camps from 9-11. At 1:15 Max, Oksana and I went to the village to have our class with the 10th grade girls and that went well. They are so much warmer and friendlier since coming to spend time with us in Kremenchuk! We had a good singing night/devo with 15 people present and the singing and fellowship was good. I got home around 8 for supper.
Wednesday, May 9 – V Day – Victory Day – the End of WWII
Or as they call here, The Great Patriotic War! You would too if your city was completely destroyed except for 6 buildings during WWII, over 95,000 people died during the war from your city and 37,000+ died in a concentration camp right in the rubble of your city. Well there were parades, carnivals, speeches, etc. honoring the vets from this time – there are still quite a few remaining. Mostly just a pretty day to have another holiday for the rest of us – no schools today.
Thursday, May 10
Nadya is Ksusha’s Mom. Her dad was unfaithful to her mom this spring and so they divorced. The income has been very low for them. Nadya started coming to our Parent’s Bible Club as one of our founding students. A few weeks ago, I asked her if she would like to cook for me and of course I would pay her. She said she would love to! (She’s a great cook!) She’s done it for 3 weeks now. Today, through her daughter, I asked to if she would like to have a personal Bible Study and she said yes! So that is my greatest news for today! We went to the orphanage in Svetlovodsk at 3:30 and that went well. We had our Rev. study at 6 with 16 people present and that also went well. People went home after 9:30.
Friday, May 11
Normal study stuff in the morning and errands, etc. At 1:15, Ksusha and I went to the village to have our study with the 5th and 6th grade kids. We had 12. But the exciting part is that several of them are getting really excited about coming to camp with us at the Black Sea! This is such an exciting thing as we have been trying to get them to come with us for 2 years and now finally the parents are trusting us enough for them to come! We got at 4. At our Frisbee tonight only 5 came, but we had a good time.
Saturday, May 12
Today was the last day for our Bible Clubs until fall because of other activities coming up. At 10am, I went out and bought Anya O. (Vaughan – James new wife!) a birthday present, took it over to her and they had a meal fixed at 11 – Max came too! It was nice to celebrate a bit with her. We had 7 for our Adult Bible Club with 2 new people that promised us they would come back in the fall. At 2, I tried for the 3rd time to have an Men’s Leadership Meeting from all the churches in the area and only 2 came. I was terribly disappointed and discouraged. Several told me they would come, but it didn’t happen! At 4pm, we had the first blank with our Parent’s Club – I know some are out of town. At 6pm, we had 9 for our Bible Club and that was good.
Sunday, May 13
Not a great day for me. I was still hurt pretty bad about men not coming to the meeting, so it was hard for me worship. I know that I should have let it go, but I didn’t. I did have lunch with a couple of Missionary couples that are here teaching at the Bible College (they around 70 or so) and they were encouraging to me. We had 12 at our evening service and that helped me some, too.
Monday, May 14
God’s Word and another book I am reading both spoke to what I needed today and it brought me to my knees in repentance for allowing hurt feelings stay in my heart, so I repented, prayed and wrote to some people about being sorry for letting anything like this stand in the way of our relationship to God. Of course today is supposed to be my day off. But from about 10 to 1:30 I worked on a report that I am trying to get ready to send to my Elders. Well, it is my day off and I can do what I want to do on it, right? And I wanted to get this done! At 5:45 we went to the Orphans family again for a Bible Study and it went really well with some really good questions coming up from them! They just found out that the Regional Govt. in charge of their kind of work is going to build them a larger home so that they can reach their goal of 12 orphan home kids! They are doing the blue prints this week and will start immediately to build! That’s so great for them. We were there until nearly 10pm! It was a really nice evening!
Tuesday, May 15
It doesn’t seem like it can be the middle of May! I worked very hard all morning on Black Sea Camp stuff and finished printing it out as I ate lunch. I use old formats, etc. but still you have to figure out who is going to teach what, when and where, who will translate, who will do devo’s etc.! This was just the teaching part! At 1pm, Ksusha, Kelli, Vika and I left for the airport to get Frankie. His flight was supposed to arrive at 4:50 – it did, but he lost a suitcase and he didn’t get out of customs, etc. until 6:30pm! Then we drove home, arriving about 9:50pm and by the time I got everyone home and back again it was 10:45! It’s great having Frankie here again – he worked with us for 20 months with AIM and had returned home in Dec. So, it’s great having him back!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Doug's Journal for April 16-30 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
I am feeling better today with a lot more energy! I did make myself take the day of until the early evening, when Olya, Ksusha and I went to the Orphan’s family home for our weekly Bible study that went real well. We started study about the Church in the Bible and being the Church that God wants for today. We had tea and cookies afterwards, like we usually do, and had a great time playing with the kids and visiting! Afterwards I went to Ksusha’s home for a little bit. Her mom, Nadya, is starting to do some cooking for me. I am doing this as much for them (their financial need) as I am in the need of some home cooked food, since I haven’t felt like cooking for me in such a long time, or so it seems. I got home about 8:30 and ate some of my delicious salad and a great bowl of Borsch!
Tuesday, April 17
At 8:30am I picked up the rest of my cooked meal – a delicious chicken dish with lots of vegetables and onions. It proved to be very tasty! I spent the morning studying as I will have tonight’s devo, Sunday’s sermon and Sunday night’s lesson. Olya and I went to the village for a class with 3 of our 10th grade girls that went really well and enjoyable! At 6 we had only 12 for our devo, but it went well and we had a good fellowship. I got home after 8pm, ate supper, watched a little TV and then fell asleep in front of the TV!
Wednesday, April 18
We have been having beautiful spring weather! I started my day, fairly normal about 5am. Much of my study over the last few months have revolved around becoming all that God wants us to be as Christians, with the focus on getting rid of the old self that still lives within us to live a new life filled with life and purpose as we prepare for eternity. It has become a matter of completely taking on God’s purpose for our lives so that we can glorify Him in all that we are and do. I have been studying this from at least 4 different approaches so I am striving to know how to pull it all together so that not only can I best live it but so that I can best teach it! What good is what we learn and study if we can’t live it and teach it to others so that they can benefit from it as well? Another great challenge is in putting it in such words and thoughts that makes it clear and understandable in translation into another language! This has taken up much of my study time the last few days. At 12:20 I had 6 sixth grade girls at school 1 and that was good! We studied, did crafts and played a little bit! I have taught the girls the game rhythm and that is all they want to do, but I said lesson and craft first and they willingly did it! I tried again at School 11 to get an older kids class going and again we had no shows. But at 2:45 as I was getting ready to leave the school, I was invited to a teacher appreciation program for young teachers – mostly young English teachers. It finished at 4:15, so I walked home and left at 4:45 for the internot school with Olya and Yulya where we thought we were going to have a puppet show, but didn’t because they had a concert of some kind for the younger kids, but we did have a class with 6 7th graders. Afterwards Yulya, Olya and I ate pizza together, I took them home and I was home about 7:30pm.
Thursday, April 19
I had another morning of study. I am preparing my Sunday sermon, Sunday night lesson, 3 Bible Clubs, plus trying to be well prepared for the Rev. class I will teach tonight. I left early for School 1 today because I was invited to a concert for the younger kids at school. The kids are just not quiet in things like this – it is not really taught because the older kids and even adults are not respectful of people that are up on the stage speaking or performing – so that is always disturbing to me. Well, I was told that this concert would last from 11:30 to 1:30 after I was in it, so I sent a text message to my translator that she didn’t need to come today at 12:20, the normal time for my class. The concert ended at 12:25 and of course I didn’t have a translator! Then as I prepared to go to the orphanage to do our puppet shows, we only had 1 person that could go – we need at least 2! (As it turned out, it was okay because I had a pretty bad sinus headache developing so I took some meds and slept about 45 minutes and it helped.) As our kids get older, they get busier and busier and it is hard to get people to do the work that we need help for. Nearly everybody would LIKE to do puppets and help, but no time! No Time!! We had 15 for our Rev. Bible Study tonight, with Natasha, our new Christian, bringing 2 of her friends. It was a good class and went well. 2 of our girls, Ksusha and Olya who are studying for Univ. entrance exams and stayed around and studied together until nearly 10pm.
Friday, April 20
My morning again was filled with study! You have study well to teach well. I set up 2 translators for classes today – one at school 1 and at the village. Neither of them came, so I had to cancel both classes! I was so frustrated, angry and disappointed that those kids that SAID they would come to class didn’t have a chance to hear the message of God today!!! One of the translators called to apologize but the other didn’t even call. God please forgive me for not being able to learn this language better! At 5pm, 8 of us gathered to play ultimate Frisbee and that was fun. Then at 6:30 people started to gather at my house to celebrate some more with James and Anya as we looked at wedding pictures and saw a video of their wedding and reception. We ate together and a grand time. There were about 20 people here tonight and the last went home about 9:30pm.
Saturday, April 21
My morning started at 5:10am. I worked on my Bible Club lessons and Sunday morning sermon in the AM. At 12pm we had 7 for our Adult Bible Club, at 4pm we had 8 for our Parents Bible Club and then at 6pm we had 5 for our Teen Bible Club. My day ended about 9pm when the last went home.
Sunday, April 22
I preached on “The Glory of God and Us” in the morning and then in the evening on “Jesus’ Glory from God at the Cross.” After morning services 4 of us made sandwiches for the boy’s prison, finished up my evening sermon preparations and then had a relaxing afternoon with 4 people here.
Monday, April 23
Mostly I had a day off. I had about ½ dozen phone calls and Olya and I went and bought a birthday present for Eloyna (7 year old orphan) at the children’s home where we study with the family on Monday nights. After we had the birthday party, we studied. This night I decided to try and find out how far along each person in the family was with their faith. Inna the mother was the closest (besides the twin 14 year old boys being Christians) with the daughter and dad A LONG WAY to go. Really all the non Christians have a long way to go! I was pretty discouraged, but it is better to know where they are so we can know where to help them. It was late when I got home.
Tuesday, April 24
Studied in the morning – well at least most of it! Oksana can’t go today, so Ksusha went with me to translate for our 10th grade class with the girls. They will come and be with us next week during the holidays (Big holidays on May 1st and 9th and basically everything in between!). Our devo numbers were down to about 12 this week.
Wednesday, April 25
No class today because of lack of translator at School 1. We would have had 2 girls. No classes at the internot school today because of concerts!
Thursday, April 26
1 girl in class at school 1. We had 15 for our Thursday night Bible Study.
Friday, April 27 – congratulations to Jenise and Jon Grottis – my daughter and son-in-law’s 1st yr of marriage!
At the class at School 1 today, we again had 1 person – class conflicts I was told. At the Village today we had 5 kids in class. Again class conflicts! At 5 Artem and I met with a “travel agency” and talked about excursions for our day camp in June and also for our Black Sea Bible Camp. We arranged for 3 excursions and possibly a better camp and price than earlier thought. 6 came for Frisbee and then they cleaned on the beach and came over to my house for chocolate chip cookies afterwards.
Saturday, April 28
Bad attendance continued today for 2 of our 3 Bible Clubs. 2 came for 2 of them. 7 came for our Parent Bible Club. This was a really bad week for attendance in most cases for most things. Rather discouraging.
Sunday, April 29 – Happy birthday to my oldest son, Butch!
4 of us went after Church services to a village called Gradisk where an orphanage is and did puppet shows for over 100 kids and a story afterwards. It was great! Then came home and rested and relaxed in the afternoon from about 3:30 to 5:30 and then evening worship with 14.
Monday, April 30
Because the twin family had illness (I’m not glad they did) we didn’t have that Bible Study and I had a full day off!
I am feeling better today with a lot more energy! I did make myself take the day of until the early evening, when Olya, Ksusha and I went to the Orphan’s family home for our weekly Bible study that went real well. We started study about the Church in the Bible and being the Church that God wants for today. We had tea and cookies afterwards, like we usually do, and had a great time playing with the kids and visiting! Afterwards I went to Ksusha’s home for a little bit. Her mom, Nadya, is starting to do some cooking for me. I am doing this as much for them (their financial need) as I am in the need of some home cooked food, since I haven’t felt like cooking for me in such a long time, or so it seems. I got home about 8:30 and ate some of my delicious salad and a great bowl of Borsch!
Tuesday, April 17
At 8:30am I picked up the rest of my cooked meal – a delicious chicken dish with lots of vegetables and onions. It proved to be very tasty! I spent the morning studying as I will have tonight’s devo, Sunday’s sermon and Sunday night’s lesson. Olya and I went to the village for a class with 3 of our 10th grade girls that went really well and enjoyable! At 6 we had only 12 for our devo, but it went well and we had a good fellowship. I got home after 8pm, ate supper, watched a little TV and then fell asleep in front of the TV!
Wednesday, April 18
We have been having beautiful spring weather! I started my day, fairly normal about 5am. Much of my study over the last few months have revolved around becoming all that God wants us to be as Christians, with the focus on getting rid of the old self that still lives within us to live a new life filled with life and purpose as we prepare for eternity. It has become a matter of completely taking on God’s purpose for our lives so that we can glorify Him in all that we are and do. I have been studying this from at least 4 different approaches so I am striving to know how to pull it all together so that not only can I best live it but so that I can best teach it! What good is what we learn and study if we can’t live it and teach it to others so that they can benefit from it as well? Another great challenge is in putting it in such words and thoughts that makes it clear and understandable in translation into another language! This has taken up much of my study time the last few days. At 12:20 I had 6 sixth grade girls at school 1 and that was good! We studied, did crafts and played a little bit! I have taught the girls the game rhythm and that is all they want to do, but I said lesson and craft first and they willingly did it! I tried again at School 11 to get an older kids class going and again we had no shows. But at 2:45 as I was getting ready to leave the school, I was invited to a teacher appreciation program for young teachers – mostly young English teachers. It finished at 4:15, so I walked home and left at 4:45 for the internot school with Olya and Yulya where we thought we were going to have a puppet show, but didn’t because they had a concert of some kind for the younger kids, but we did have a class with 6 7th graders. Afterwards Yulya, Olya and I ate pizza together, I took them home and I was home about 7:30pm.
Thursday, April 19
I had another morning of study. I am preparing my Sunday sermon, Sunday night lesson, 3 Bible Clubs, plus trying to be well prepared for the Rev. class I will teach tonight. I left early for School 1 today because I was invited to a concert for the younger kids at school. The kids are just not quiet in things like this – it is not really taught because the older kids and even adults are not respectful of people that are up on the stage speaking or performing – so that is always disturbing to me. Well, I was told that this concert would last from 11:30 to 1:30 after I was in it, so I sent a text message to my translator that she didn’t need to come today at 12:20, the normal time for my class. The concert ended at 12:25 and of course I didn’t have a translator! Then as I prepared to go to the orphanage to do our puppet shows, we only had 1 person that could go – we need at least 2! (As it turned out, it was okay because I had a pretty bad sinus headache developing so I took some meds and slept about 45 minutes and it helped.) As our kids get older, they get busier and busier and it is hard to get people to do the work that we need help for. Nearly everybody would LIKE to do puppets and help, but no time! No Time!! We had 15 for our Rev. Bible Study tonight, with Natasha, our new Christian, bringing 2 of her friends. It was a good class and went well. 2 of our girls, Ksusha and Olya who are studying for Univ. entrance exams and stayed around and studied together until nearly 10pm.
Friday, April 20
My morning again was filled with study! You have study well to teach well. I set up 2 translators for classes today – one at school 1 and at the village. Neither of them came, so I had to cancel both classes! I was so frustrated, angry and disappointed that those kids that SAID they would come to class didn’t have a chance to hear the message of God today!!! One of the translators called to apologize but the other didn’t even call. God please forgive me for not being able to learn this language better! At 5pm, 8 of us gathered to play ultimate Frisbee and that was fun. Then at 6:30 people started to gather at my house to celebrate some more with James and Anya as we looked at wedding pictures and saw a video of their wedding and reception. We ate together and a grand time. There were about 20 people here tonight and the last went home about 9:30pm.
Saturday, April 21
My morning started at 5:10am. I worked on my Bible Club lessons and Sunday morning sermon in the AM. At 12pm we had 7 for our Adult Bible Club, at 4pm we had 8 for our Parents Bible Club and then at 6pm we had 5 for our Teen Bible Club. My day ended about 9pm when the last went home.
Sunday, April 22
I preached on “The Glory of God and Us” in the morning and then in the evening on “Jesus’ Glory from God at the Cross.” After morning services 4 of us made sandwiches for the boy’s prison, finished up my evening sermon preparations and then had a relaxing afternoon with 4 people here.
Monday, April 23
Mostly I had a day off. I had about ½ dozen phone calls and Olya and I went and bought a birthday present for Eloyna (7 year old orphan) at the children’s home where we study with the family on Monday nights. After we had the birthday party, we studied. This night I decided to try and find out how far along each person in the family was with their faith. Inna the mother was the closest (besides the twin 14 year old boys being Christians) with the daughter and dad A LONG WAY to go. Really all the non Christians have a long way to go! I was pretty discouraged, but it is better to know where they are so we can know where to help them. It was late when I got home.
Tuesday, April 24
Studied in the morning – well at least most of it! Oksana can’t go today, so Ksusha went with me to translate for our 10th grade class with the girls. They will come and be with us next week during the holidays (Big holidays on May 1st and 9th and basically everything in between!). Our devo numbers were down to about 12 this week.
Wednesday, April 25
No class today because of lack of translator at School 1. We would have had 2 girls. No classes at the internot school today because of concerts!
Thursday, April 26
1 girl in class at school 1. We had 15 for our Thursday night Bible Study.
Friday, April 27 – congratulations to Jenise and Jon Grottis – my daughter and son-in-law’s 1st yr of marriage!
At the class at School 1 today, we again had 1 person – class conflicts I was told. At the Village today we had 5 kids in class. Again class conflicts! At 5 Artem and I met with a “travel agency” and talked about excursions for our day camp in June and also for our Black Sea Bible Camp. We arranged for 3 excursions and possibly a better camp and price than earlier thought. 6 came for Frisbee and then they cleaned on the beach and came over to my house for chocolate chip cookies afterwards.
Saturday, April 28
Bad attendance continued today for 2 of our 3 Bible Clubs. 2 came for 2 of them. 7 came for our Parent Bible Club. This was a really bad week for attendance in most cases for most things. Rather discouraging.
Sunday, April 29 – Happy birthday to my oldest son, Butch!
4 of us went after Church services to a village called Gradisk where an orphanage is and did puppet shows for over 100 kids and a story afterwards. It was great! Then came home and rested and relaxed in the afternoon from about 3:30 to 5:30 and then evening worship with 14.
Monday, April 30
Because the twin family had illness (I’m not glad they did) we didn’t have that Bible Study and I had a full day off!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
April 1-15 Journal
Lera is now 11 and has been coming to us, with her Mom for 5 years! She is with my cat Zhenya!
Sasha is a delightful 8th grader who has been a Christian for almost 2 years! We just celebrated her 14th birthday with her. She has a beautiful singing voice, too!
Vika is one of our newest girls. She also is 14 and loves all that we do. She is Ksusha's cousin.
Ksusha is with 3 year old Artem. Every week Ksusha teaches the three orphans in this home while I study with the parents and 3 teens in this family.
One of first Tuesday night singing nights at the church building in our newly remodled room! This is just some of the people that were there that night.
This morning before services began our new Natasha came to me and said she wanted to be baptized. I was really surprised! There is usually some literature on salvation at the Church building and at my home. On some of the walls at the building is the plan of salvation, spelled out pretty well. She read it all and the Bible we gave to her, too. She had brought clothes along to be able to be baptized – even a hair dryer! I was very surprised (as it doesn’t usually happen like that here!) and asked her some questions to see if she knew what she was doing and if she knew what baptism was for. She assured me she knew, even though she realizes she needs much study to be able to grow up in Christ. She assured me that she realizes that this was a very important step in her life and that she was giving her life to Jesus Christ! So after services, we baptized her into Christ!!! After services this morning, Max, Anya’s Mom and I went to the airport in Borispil, 3 ½ hours away to pick up our new married couple in James and Anya Vaughan. There flight was a bit late getting in and we left the airport about 5:30pm, getting back to Kremenchuk about 9.
Monday, April 2
Today turned out to mostly a day off. We did make a trip out to the Orphan family for our Bible Study, but they weren’t there. They had to take care of some business and forgot to call us.
Tuesday, April 3
I worked on lessons and studies in the morning and did some shopping. After being gone most of last week to Kiev and having kids here part of the time at my house, my refrigerator was pretty bare! No surprise there. Do you have teenagers at home? Well I have over 20 that circulate through my house on a regular basis and a lot of times when they come in, they are hungry. Often they don’t eat lunch because the school system really doesn’t give them enough of a break and by the time classes are finished at the school or university they are hungry! The longest break at schools during the day is 15 minutes. We went to Bugkivka in the afternoon, but because of miscommunication, no one was there and a wasted trip. We had our first devotional/singing night at the church building with 20 people and then we celebrated James and Anya’s wedding afterwards and that was fun.
Wednesday, April 4
At 12:20pm I had a 2 5th and 6th grade girls for class at School #1 where Kelli usually teaches. Sasha, older guy and preacher at Komsomolsk translated for me. Then I went to School #11 where I am trying to restart some classes that have been dormant since December when Jared and Frankie left – not enough time or translators to take care of it all. We wanted to have an older class of 8th – 11th grades today, but no one came – 7 said they would and all failed to show! I went and was going to go to the Internot school but I had a bad headache and my cough was bad, so I and we didn’t go.
Thursday, April 5
Yulya and I went to see the Dr. for my cough at the far north part of Kremenchuk and the Dr. wasn’t in! So we made arrangements to go tomorrow. Yulya translating for me at School #1 had 3 kids for class. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing my preparations of study for Rev. Then at 6 we had 12 for our Thursday night Bible Study and started studying the 2nd chapter of Revelation. Still not feeling well and coughing more than I want!
Friday, April 6
Yulya went with me again to the Clinic on the north of the city, but with Ivanna’s mother’s help (the mother, Sveta, works there) we saw a ear, noses and throat specialists, with x-rays again and it was clearly determined that I have a sinus infection and may have had it for these last 3+ months. This may have been causing my problems all along! Well, I got a handful of meds and headed home. I am feeling better today, maybe it is just knowing what is wrong. We played ultimate Frisbee for an hour on an outdoor basketball court for our fun night at 6 and then I went home to rest. One of the mothers said she didn’t know where I got all the energy I had to keep up with this younger set. Sometimes I wonder about it too!
Saturday, April 7
I spent the morning in preparations for class with writing 3 lessons, buying drinks and snacks, cleaning up around the place, setting up tables, chairs, books, etc. At 12 we had 5 for our Adult Bible Club. At 4 we had 7 for our Parent’s Bible Club and at 6 we had 9 for our Teen Bible Club. After the Teen Club, we had 17 here to celebrate Vika’s birthday. She turned 14 today. This was the first time Vika had celebrated her birthday with us and she was really happy and pleased to do so!
Sunday, April 8 – Easter both in Ukraine and US at the same time – first time since I have been here!
We really had nothing special today. We were supposed to make sandwiches for the boy’s prison, but everything was closed and we couldn’t get the things we needed to do this. 6 ate lunch with me and then I had 4 to 6 people around all afternoon. Really it was very relaxed and pleasant! Our evening service went with 18 in attendance.
Monday, April 9
I woke up to an allergic reaction on my thumb – the same way that the rash I had a few weeks ago started. The only thing that was the same is anti-biotic that was taking is the same. So I quit the anti-biotic. I would rather have the sinus infection and the cough than that terrible rash! I am still taking my other meds. It was a busy day with people in and out. Sasha guy, student from Hartakov (it’s hard trying to distinguish the different Sasha’s we have, especially since girls and guys all this same name!) and Artem went with Ksusha, Alina and I to the Orphan’s family study. We went late, because the Dad, Victor, didn’t finish working until 8pm. We had another good study and then Ksusha and Alina did a puppet show for the whole family. Sasha and Artem held the blanket for the show! I got around 10:30pm.
Tuesday, April 10
I was going to rest this morning since yesterday was so busy. I had even got back to bed at 9am for a nap! Yea, right! I forgot that I had made an appointment with our Komsomolsk preachers Sasha and Valery at 9 to discuss the work that I forgot. Well they came, I got up and we had a good discussion. Then I got a call about camp from Artem, who is trying to find us a place that we can go to and afford this year at the Black Sea for our July camp. So I ended up working on finance planning the rest of the morning until 12. Then I cleaned up, fixed lunch and went and picked up Ksusha. We went to Bugkivka at 1:30 for our 2:15 study. There were 2 girls waiting for us and we had a good study on how to choose God. As we were starting to leave the school it started to rain really hard, so we took the 2 girls home and saved them a drenching! I am really exhausted today, so got in a ½ hour nap before our Devotional tonight. We had it at 6 at the church building with 15 people present. I got home about 8pm and fixed summer, read a bit and went to bed!
Wednesday, April 11
I had 6 for my 6th grade class at school 1 and we had a good time together today! Then we went to the internot school at 5 and taught 4 classes there. We would have had more, but some of the teachers were ill. The teachers live there with them, too, at least part of the time.
Thursday, April 12
I studied in the morning. I had another 6th grade class at school 1 today, but only one girl. She is reading the Gospels on her own and is a remarkable young girl! I had a quick lunch and then Olya went with me back to the Dr. I had more x-rays of my sinus and I am still infected – I could have told them that! I have had this lingering infection/cough/sore throat etc. for almost 4 months! Well we are working on it. Most of the time, I haven’t been down and out, but some times I just don’t feel good. This afternoon was one of those times I didn’t feel good with a bad headache. We had 11 for our evening Bible Study. People went home about 8:30pm.
Friday, April 13
So what is special about today? The date? How do you look at it? This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it! We didn’t go to the village today, because they had a special project going on. I hate to keep saying this, but I’m not feeling good to day with a bad headache and sinus pressure. I am doing all I can to work on this thing. I did go to play ultimate Frisbee with the kids today, but came home early. Later some of the kids came over – about 6:30 and we ate and played some cards together for awhile and they left early, realizing my health needs. About 8, I went to a person that I know that works with natural health products and I got several to start using. I got home about 10.
Saturday, April 14 – Happy Birthday Jared Kendall!
As usual, I spent the morning getting ready for the rest of the day. By 12:15 no one had come for the adult Bible Club and I figured we wouldn’t have class. By 12:30, we had 4 and by 1 we had 2 more! So we got a late start, but it was fine. The 2 that came late were old and new. One was one that used to come to me all the time, maybe 2 years ago. He is from a denomination and by his own admittance he has been away from God and is trying to find the way back. The other young man, is minister in the same church where he goes, but has had a lot of influence from the Church in an other city. Well we talked for about 1 ½ hours and I felt that it was very good and open conversation and study. At 4pm, in the Parent Bible Club, we had 6, with 2 new people and 2 regulars were not there. At 6pm, we had 6.
Sunday, April 15
Unfortunately to say, I am still not doing well. Same conditions. I went to worship and then came home, ate and rested for the afternoon. By evening I was feeling better and went to evening services. I was going to speak, but James spoke for me because I hadn’t been feeling good earlier in the day. He did a good job. We had 20 for our evening services.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
