What we have been up to

It has been a while since I wrote on the blog but a new update is finally here. Many things have happened since I last updated this blog so I will try to give summary of these events from the last two or so months.
During 2010 the people of Ukraine elected a new president. Since coming into office this president has been changing many things making it harder for people who are not native to Ukraine to stay for extended periods of time. Before it was required that any non-resident must have a visa in order to stay in the country for more than 90 days. If someone wanted to stay longer, all they had to do was cross the border, cross back, and then they could stay in the country for another 90 days without problem. Now the law requires that a person must be out of the country for 90 days before the person can re-enter the country for 90 more days. This change made it so that and Joe and I needed to acquire visas in order to stay in Ukraine. My deadline to leave the country was December 24th, and Joe’s was the 31th. So with help from our superiors (friends at Central Baptist) we made preparations to leave for Poland with the necessary documents before that date. After much prayer and preparation we had everything organized and left on a bus for Poland. We left on the 21st , a Tuesday Night, and arrived in Krakow, Poland on Wednesday morning. We went to the Ukrainian consulate, handed over our documents, and praise God received our visas with no problems. We took a bus that night and arrived back home Thursday evening.
We had been working on our normal activities, which are ESL classes for Grapevine, Trinity, and for a small group in Horodok every week. Before we left for Poland Grapevine had invited us to join them for a camp they were about to hold later that month. We were unsure if we could make but after receiving our visas so quickly we were able to join them for a few days of the camp. Altogether the camp had maybe 40 youth attending. Most were children from internats (orphanage schools). It was an amazing camp filled with a lot of activities, songs, games, and most importantly bible reading and preaching. God used the leaders in powerful ways as they shared the gospel message with these youth again and again. Every single people who came had the gospel preached to them in full and are now without excuse. The number of those who came forward to profess faith were at first four but later became five when our ski instructor for the camp also professed placing her faith in Christ. Please pray for these five people, their names are: Kostya, Ira, Tanya, Roksolana and Ira.

Below is a game that was recorded at the camp. I won’t give any details except to say watch it.

Click here for Sumo Video

A while ago Joe and I put together a video to show what the apartment where we have been staying looks like. The link below shows an unexciting before clip but keep watching the video and click on the link for the after video.

Click here for Our Apartment Videos

Prayer requests:
Guidance in what new ministries we may start in Horodok.
Those who are attending our events in Horodok that they would open to the Gospel and that God would draw them to Himself.