Busy Summer!

It seems like only yesterday I was posting about how it was already spring. Now it is already summer! I can't believe this year has gone by so fast, but we still have a lot of work to do. This summer will be very, very busy for us. Already it is more busy than usual because we have started doing more activities in Horodok since the kids are out of school. It has been pretty hot and some days it feels to me like Florida, but then it might rain and cool down for a day or two and you might even have to grab a light jacket or sweatshirt again. In general the evenings and mornings are pretty comfortable which is nice since we don't exactly have an air conditioner.

Some of the activities we have recently started doing is on Friday we go to the big stadium and play many games. Relay races, sports, and even a sort of tag game where you choose prince, princess, or dragon (like rock, paper, scissors) are among some of the games we play but it is a great time getting to know some of the kids and families in Horodok better and connect them with some of the Ukrainians that are also working here. This picture doesn't show all the kids there were more than 30! Also on Saturday our group is still going strong, we have been trying to meet every Saturday and get our group reading the Word and much as possible than discuss it. It has been pretty cool. Even one week we had only 2 people because a few were busy studying for exams so we thought this week we will just maybe play games, or go outside and play football or something, but one of our students asked, "well aren't we going to read the Bible?" That they actually wanted to read is a very good sign I think, and very encouraging to us, and I pray, and hope that you will pray also, that God will really work on these young people here in Horodok.

We ask expecially for your prayers in the coming weeks as we will be taking a few of them to camp where they will pretty much hear the Gospel everyday, without distraction or interruption. The first one will be July 4th-9th and we will take 20-25 students away to some lakes not far from Horodok. We will be staying there for 5 days. I will try to take a 3g modem or something so we can keep everyone updated while we are there. The next week we will have a day camp like we usually have here in Horodok with games, bible stories, and other activities. Please pray for this also and that God would use us, and draw these people to Him. After this our team from America this year (Merrie and Tanya) and our friend from Japan (Hikaru) will be going back home and Sebastian and I will be going to 3 camps in a row with GrapeVine church. It will be in the mountains. We will do a social camp, youth camp, then family camp. We will keep you updated on this as well, although I am not sure what internet capabilities we will have in the mountains. Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support and we ask that you continue to pray for us as we start our camps in a couple weeks. Talk to you later and God Bless!!!

Spring Is Here!

After a much colder winter than I was used to, I think it is safe to say that spring is here. Although it could get cold again and it was snowing a little only a week ago, today was warm and comfortable. Still it is chilly when the sun is down, but not really uncomfortable. All in all, even with the cold weather, it has been a nice change from Florida.

We have still been very busy and we even added some more work to our schedule. We are teaching one more English Class on Wednesday for our friends at GrapeVine and have met 2 times already. It is going very well. I have around 8 people for that group and Sebastian also has a group of beginners each Wednesday evening. It is great to see these students show up every week for English, and then stay for the Bible study which the Ukrainians do after our English lessons. I think I mentioned it before, but GrapeVine does an amazing job at building relationships with students and people that attend their camps. They are always willing to help them and try to include them in whatever they can. They don’t just have them at one camp, tell them about Jesus, then say good-bye, but they build strong friendships with them. Sunday we spent time with some of them at one of their houses and had a really great time playing a version of catch phrase, eating together, and just enjoying one another’s company.

A couple weeks ago we had a week long English camp every night in L’viv with Trinity Church. It was a long week, but a good week. There were probably around 60 people there every night and we had a really great time. A team of 7 came from Texas from Clear Creek Community Church and we were blessed to get to know them and to serve with them during the week. Each night we had 1 hour of English, 1 hour of bible study, and 1 hour of games and singing. Many students, 26 to be exact, said they would be interested in continuing in some sort of Bible study, and many of them wished to continue with some sort of English lesson, and so after this camp we decided to add a Bible study class in English and Ukrainian and will be starting on Monday.

Our Saturday group is also still going strong. Every week we have had no less than 9 people and usually there have been around 11. Please, please, please pray for this group. We have been going through Matthew and are currently on Matthew 7. If you aren’t familiar with these passages or haven’t read through them in a while, please read them. There are so many things in this book. It is a very heavy book, and I also ask that you would pray that God would give us the wisdom as what to say about these verses and how best to explain them to our group. We can’t just read through this chapter in English and then in Ukrainian. There is just too much there that we want them to fully understand, and so we are bringing in a friend to translate and Sebastian will be presenting the Gospel to them. Once again please pray for this. Your prayers are our biggest need right now!

Also we have some good news regarding our friends and fellow family working here in Horodok Andriy and Alona. They had their first child yesterday and as far as I know everything went well. I haven’t seen them yet, but I think they both will be home on Saturday. Thank you for your prayers for Alona and her baby. As far as I know everything is great with them.

On top of all of these things we are doing every week, we celebrated Sebastian’s 20th birthday last Wednesday. We invited many friends and students to go ice skating at the big mall in L’viv called “King’s Cross.” It was a great time to spend with friends and celebrate the birth of such a great guy as Sebastian. If you haven’t yet wished him Happy Birthday, I’m sure he would love to hear from you! Thank you for everything you all have done for us and continue to do for us! We love you and appreciate all that you do very much. God Bless you and I will fill you in again soon!

Small Group

Well tonight was exciting and I just wanted to share about it with you, my friends and family. A few weeks ago we started a group in our apartment for young people… they are between the ages of 15-19 and we have had 9-11 people each time. It is wonderful! We actually had to buy more mugs this week and for next week I think we will need to find a few more chairs. I am glad to have and really praise God to have such a problem as this! For group we usually start with games, then tea and cookies, and then we have an English/Ukrainian Bible study. Tonight was the first night we had a Bible study and everyone stayed for it! It was great to read the Bible with them in English and then in Ukrainian. To listen as they tried to understand what it was saying in English and so, of course, they had to understand what the Bible was saying in general. Please pray for this group. The Bible is God’s Word and I know it can and will do great things in the lives of those who hear it.

Isaiah says in 55:10-12

10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
12 “For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.


We know and trust that the Bible will do what it says it will do, and without it and the power that is in the Word of God, we can do nothing! Thank you so much for your prayers and support. I can’t thank you enough! Thank you Calvary and Pat Marder for getting together and sending us some Bibles so we can continue to minister in this way! We love you all and miss you. God be with you and Bless you! Oh…. And don’t forget to read the Bible for yourself!

Other prayer requests:
- We could really use a printer for our ministry in Horodok.
- Sebastian and I are still without internet which can be hard sometimes.
- Alona and Andriy, missionaries living and serving with us in Horodok, are in need of a baby bed as they will be having a baby in the next couple months!

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.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year friends and family! I hope everything is well with you back in the States. As for us everything is getting back to normal. Today is Old New Years, so last night we celebrated New Years again, it was very cool. You are probably thinking, “What is he talking about” and I was also thinking the same, but apparently Ukraine and Russia had a different calendar, an orthodox calendar, so they celebrated Christmas on January 7th and New Years on the 14th. Now they have joined the rest of the world in celebrating the New Year, but they still celebrate both days and January 7th is still their main Christmas. And so we had the pleasure of enjoying two Christmases and two New Years.
The Holidays were really great though. L’viv had very cool decorations and added some small vendors near the center. It was really beautiful. Hot chocolate, candy apples, and many souvenirs were there among other things. There was also a big, live Christmas tree! For our Christmas (Dec. 25th) we spent it at our friends the Ledford’s house. As I said in one of our previous posts they are a missionary family that has been here about 5-6 years and has been very good to us. We go to their house every Saturday for an English Bible Study. And for those who were praying for them I appreciate it, they needed to get some documents in order for their visas and everything worked out, so thanks again for your prayers. As for Seb and I we also got our visas so if you were praying for us in this matter we really appreciate it also. God took care of everything. We went to Poland in one day made our visas and came back. It was a fast trip, but we did everything we needed to do and even got to enjoy the mall there for a few hours as we waited for our bus. (It had Starbucks, Subway, and KFC!)
For New Years we went to a winter camp with GrapeVine church. It was great to get to spend time with some friends from GrapeVine , to serve with them, and to enjoy the holidays while reaching out to Ukrainian youth and telling them about Jesus and his love for them at the same time. GrapeVine does a great job of reaching out to the Ukrainian people, loving on them, and sharing with them from God’s Word. They often have camps which take people away from everything they know, and expose them to the Gospel for a week or two while they are away from home. This combined with love and the power and working of the Holy Spirit on their hearts is just so amazing to witness and be a part of. It is a real pleasure to serve with them in furthering God’s Kingdom, and we hope to be a part of more of their camps in the summer. It is also heartening to see how much they all serve. It isn’t a large church especially by American standards but they are very active in serving, maybe 80% or more of them are involved as much as they probably can be which is a great example and encouragement to me. Pray for them that God would continue to use them and bless them.
The Holidays really were great, but they did make us miss you more! To our friends in family back in the states, Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for us. For all your sacrifices and prayers! We love you and miss you. We will update you again soon. Please pray for our work here that God would continue to use us and that He would use us even more here in Horodok. That He would increase and we would decrease! We are still having trouble getting things started in School #3 here so please pray that God would open doors there or lead us in a different direction. Thank you and God Bless! - Joey

Thanksgiving and Other News

Sorry we haven’t been updating in a while, there has been many changes for us and for me with the arrival of Sebastian in late September. Now we are in Horodok which I think is one change that will definitely be for the better! Not better because it will be easier, because it will be harder, and not better because there will be a better place to live, because it will be more difficult and still needs much work. However, it will be better for us to minister to the people in Horodok. This is the city where we have been working year after year for the past 6 years. Many of you have spent money, given of your time, or offered prayers for our work here. Now we are living here. We walk here. We take the bus to and from here. We shop here. We do many things here and we are more a part of their everyday lives, which is really great. Already I have seen friend’s parents in the bazaar that recognized us. Even if it is a little more difficult to live here and we have to take an hour to an hour and a half on a couple buses to get to L'viv I still think it is best that we are here in Horodok, a place that has become like a second home to me and many others at Calvary.

We have also been very, very busy. On top of trying to settle into our apartment in Horodok, which includes cleaning, installing furniture, and shopping for things we need, we have been teaching many English classes. Our schedule right now is two ESL classes on Monday, one at 230 and one at 6:30, a class on Wednesday at 2:30, and we teach kids on Friday from Andriy in Alona's apartment in Horodok at 4:00. Soon we will be adding two more classes in the number 3 school in Horodok, so please pray for these classes that we have and will soon have. Pray that we would develop a good relationship with these kids and that we will live a life that shows them Jesus and His love for them. Pray that we would be bold to speak the truth whenever we can and that we would make an effort to tell these kids about Jesus at every opportunity. Also pray that we could get some small bible study group started. I really want to start some sort of group where we will get the kids simply reading the Bible. I would like to start with some kids from camp this summer that I already have a pretty good relationship with. I'm not thinking any deep study of different books, but I think it would be really great, and effective if they were just reading God's word...something they probably have never done. So pray for us that God would give us wisdom and show us what will be best to do.

Thanksgiving was a few days ago, and we had a wonderful opportunity to spend some time with some other Americans here. We really had an awesome time of fellowship and food and it was truly a blessing for us. We spent our Thanksgiving with the Blessings, and Ledfords, some missionary families that have been very good to us and a great encouragement. Please pray for the Ledfords as they need to get some papers to stay in the country and are having some difficulties. Pray for the Blessings as they renovate their house and turn it into a house for Jews migrating back to Israel, where they will minister to them and share with them about Jesus. Once again, thank you all for your prayers and support and we will update you again soon. God be with you and bless you! Your brother in Christ - Joey

Finally an update. But first an introduction.

Hello my name is Sebastian Harris. I’m sure if you are reading this post then you probably already know who I am, but I feel the need to introduce myself to those who may not know me. I joined Calvary’s Ukraine mission team in 2007 and have been returning every summer. This year though God opened a door for me to stay longer in Ukraine and allowed everything else in my life to be put on hold.

He has provided abundantly for me to come here. Besides the material aspects, He has also provided circumstantially. Anything and everything that could have prevented me from going on such a trip for a year didn’t hinder me at all. What about school? It isn’t going anywhere. What about my scholarship? I can take up to two years off without losing it. What about losing my job? My bosses assured me they would hire me the day I got back and even give me a pay increase as an incentive to come back. What about family obligations? I have none, as my parents are self sufficient. What about money? I figured if God wanted me to go then He will provide. And He has. All this goes to His glory for providing in every way.
I will boast in the Lord some more. I cannot explain how great God is. For the first time in my life I flew by myself. I left TPA and flew to JFK. From JFK I flew to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Then finally from Kiev I flew to L’viv where I was picked up by my friends. For the most part of my 24 hour journey to Ukraine I was lost and very anxious. Get this, I got lost in JFK where everyone speaks English, so imagine how lost I was when I was in Ukraine where next to no one speaks English. Again it was because God intervened and guided my every step that I arrived at the L’viv airport.
Now more than a month has passed since my arrival. In this time Joe and I have been teaching ESL at Central Baptist Church in L’viv. After each class we have there is a bible study for any who want to stay.
This last Monday we had nine students come for ESL and eight stayed for the bible study afterwards. Please pray for those who stayed, for the person who didn’t, and for those teaching the bible. We will be starting another ESL class that will be on Mondays and Wednesdays beginning next Monday the 15th. After the class we will invite them to a club called JAM that meets every other Friday. During JAM they play music and perform other activities that are fun for youth. At the end of the night Oleg the pastor at Trinity speaks to them. Pray that many will come to the club and that they will believe the gospel preached to them there. We moved to Horodok about two weeks ago and we are glad to finally be where we have been desiring to work. We will be having a meeting to discuss which new ministries we will start in Horodok, as we have already started a couple. Pray that God would lead us into what ministries He wants wants us to start next, and what ways will be best to reach these people for Christ.