Thursday, March 22, 2012

March Madness


Well as you can tell probably by the title, this month has been a little hectic. And I am not talking about the basketball games (of which I have not seen one minute. This month was filled with my normal tasks and responsibilities...Youth club, English Bible Study, English classes in L'viv...but added on to that a couple more things. First of all, time has gone by very fast and already I am nearing my 3 month mark which means I must get my Visa. This requires some official stuff, documents, etc. and then a trip to Poland since you can't actually make the visa while you are in Ukraine. So have been busy, to say the least, and still a little nervous about it, as of course I need the visa to continue living and working here. Please pray that this process would go smoothly without any problems and that I would have a safe trip to Poland next week.

Last week, as I mentioned in some earlier posts, we had an all week English camp. Nine Americans came from Texas, and along with myself, we spent our mornings teaching some English classes in some of the local schools, and in the evenings we had our English club from 5 until 8 o'clock. The first hour was English, the second bible study in English and Ukrainian, and the third hour we had like a fun time of games and singing, as well as testimonies from our team. It was a great week, very exhausting, but super. There were round 60 youth at this camp ages 14-18. A lot of great relationships were built and we will continue to work with these young people in the coming year. This Tuesday I started an English class with them, like I had done last year and 15 of them came from camp which was super. Please pray that the relationships they made, the words they heard about the Bible, and about Jesus, that they would grow in their hearts and lead to salvation.

As for me everything is super, everyone around me seemed to get sick but so far I have stayed healthy, praise God! And I know many of you prayed, as I asked, for some open doors here in Horodok. Today we met with a leader in school number 3 and it seemed to go well, so I will be able to let you know more about this in the coming week. Thanks for your support and interest and prayers in what we are doing here in Horodok and in L'viv, Ukraine. God Bless you and have a nice week!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

March Update

Well it is March already, here in Ukraine March 1st is known as the first day of spring. It is warmer and I have had some enjoyable days this week, but still can be cold and will probably snow a few days this week. Actually last week was Sunny then out of nowhere a snow storm came. It was very windy and crazy for me, but kind of cool! Here is a small video for you to enjoy of how crazy the weather can be here sometimes. It was taken from my phone :)



Anyway, my schedule here still has some free days so I am really praying and hoping that we will be allowed to teach some sort of English class or English club in the schools here in Horodok. It would be great to have on a regular basis contact with some of the youth and children here in Horodok that we have been working with for the last 7 years. For now we just can invite them to group and hope that they will come. We have one Saturday "Youth Club" which is many fun activities, crafts, games, singing, and then a short message from the Bible. And for English we are reading through the gospel of John with the children. We read in English first and then in Ukrainian and talk a little about it. For both groups we have seen from 5 to 12 people, but we would like to see that number increase a little so please pray for that. Really just want to reach out to as many people as we can so please pray that we will have more opportunities to serve.

Also we are working with some poor families here in Horodok, and some families with handicapped children or people. It is sometimes hard because we don't just want to give them money but want to help to teach them how to live better, to make better choices, and to be more organized in caring and feeding for their children (most have 5-7 children). Some of the families need this more than just financial help. It is great though and many of these mothers are coming regularly to a woman's bible study which Alona leads from their apartment on Sundays after church. Please pray that God would open up for us more opportunities to serve her in Horodok.

I know I keep saying it, pray, pray, pray but really for now the most and best support you can give us is to lift us and our ministries and the people we are working with up to God in prayer! Also pray as we are beginning to plan the Summer trip with a team from Calvary. Pray that God would lead the people who should be on the trip to have the courage and means to come! Thanks so much for your support. I hope this month will be completely used in every way to serve God here in Ukraine.