Saying Goodbye

In a few hours we will begin our long journey home to America. It has been a wet past few days as we said goodbye to Ukraine for now. Fortunately, we were able to spend these final days with some of the local members of the church who have come to mean so much to us. With the great invention of Facebook and email, we eagerly look forward to following up and staying connected with our readers. We know God will have big plans in store for them.

We were reminded today that the local missionary, Kostya, was once a reader with LST eleven years ago. He read and studied with LST for two years before he accepted Christ in baptism. Now he brings teams to his hometown to help spread the Gospel to others just like him. As we process our trip over the next few days and weeks, we know that God is continuing to work in these people's hearts long after we have gone. We thank you for all the prayers offered on behalf of us and our team. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we travel home tomorrow. And keep the rest of our team in your prayers as they remain for three more weeks.

We love you and look forward to sharing more with you in person.

God bless

It's hard to say goodbye

Yesterday, I said my first goodbye to a reader. I was touched by how disappointed Nastya was when we had to say goodbye. She took awhile to warm up to me but in our last few sessions, she has been so open and willing to tell me all about her life and beliefs. I hope I was a blessing to her. It is amazing how quickly a relationship can form when you share God's love with another person. I am surprised how quickly Bila Tserkva has come to feel like a second earthly home to us. Nathan and I both hope that God will return us to Bila Tserkva in the future. We came here to share with others and to hope plant seeds to change in people's hearts, but God has used this time to change our lives and hearts as well.  While I still have many more goodbyes to say, I know it is not goodbye forever. The internet is a wonderful thing in that it allows us to keep in contact with our new friends here. It is most reassuring to know that, Lord willing, I may see many of my readers not just in the future here on earth but in our eternal home in heaven. I look forward to that day when language barriers do not exist and we can praise God together with one voice. 

Joy to the World

In worship today, we sang the song Joy to the World, in Russian and English. I'm pretty sure we've sung that song every Sunday that we have been in Bila Tserkva. As I read the words carefully, since I can't read Russian fast enough to sing along, I was reminded what a universal message that song preaches. In America, we tend to sing the first verse of the song at Christmas time, but the message is for everyone all the time. The song proclaims the great news that the Christ has been born and come to the world. God dwelt among us. I like listening to this song in Russian because it reminds that Christ came for everyone--not just the people of my limited interactions.

As another reminder of the universal body of Christ, the local congregation threw Vicki and I a surprise anniversay party. They found out that our one year anniversary was on the day of our arrival, and they helped us celebrate today. We love this place and the people.

God is good.

Week Two

Greetings from Bila Tserkva! Our second work week has come to a close. Two nights ago we had another reader party down by the river where we played several silly games and cooked hot dogs. About 20 of our readers and church members showed up for the event. Over the past week, Vicki and I h\met with two dozen readers and spent over 40 hours in reading sessions. We also spent about 20 hours outside of reading sessions getting to know and visiting with our readers. Once again, we have received several invitations to spend time with readers this weekend. We plan on staying in town to rest and maximize our evangelistic free time.

We can't believe two weeks have already passed, and we are preparing for our final sessions with readers. The time is flying by! We can see God breaking through some of the traditions and history of our readers, and we feel a few real breakthroughs could occur in the coming weeks. It is bittersweet to know we plant the seeds that others will water because the harvest is exciting to see. But we rest assured that one day we will all be reunited.

Thank you for your continual prayers. From the land of beets and ice cream, we love you all.

At the Half-way point

Today's reading sessions mark the halfway point of our trip! It's going by so quickly. Our readers are learning more and more everyday! I will certainly miss them all when we leave. I now have several students who come everyday to read.  Erin, Kayleigh and myself have had a few readers not show up for their meetings only to call later and apologize and reschedule.People are busy everywhere in the world it seems, not just America. Nathan's readers, on the other hand, have not missed a single session without rescheduling in advance! We had three new people sign up for sessions today as well. Word of mouth is certainly the best form of advertisement.
We have our second party on Thursday and we are hoping for good wether. It has been raining here for the past two days. The Ukrainians love sports so we are having a silly olympics with egg relays, leg-legged races, straw javelins and many other games.
 We are also going to organize a mini-VBS next week for the kids that play in the park near the church. They have been trying to sneak into the building lately to talk with us. They start learning English very early in school here. They seem very eager to practice and to see what these crazy Americans are doing! We plan to teach them some bible songs in English and have a puppet show.
Please continue to pray for our readers and that our mini-VBS goes well.

First Party with Readers and free time!

What a week! This is going to be a long post.
 Thursday night, we had our first reader party. We have parties with our readers to show them that christians can have fun and to introduce them to the church members and missionary here. We had a game night with Uno and Spoons which we played for about an hour before splitting up into groups for team pictionary. Twenty of our readers showed up, mostly the secondary school and university students. Our younger students had such a great time, they invited us to play baksetball with them Saturday and to show us their school and the city. We got up early Friday to take a Marshutkra (a van with a crazy driver!) to Kiev. Our Missionary, Kostya, and one of our readers, Roma took us to many of the sights including the Lavra, St Sophia and St Michael Cathedrals. We learned much about the orthodox church and the challenges the church faces here in Ukraine. Most of our younger readers don't attend church except for Easter and Christmas. They seem to be most open to learnign about how we worship. Our last stop in Kiev was the University Student Center that is sponsored by Highland Park Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn. They have a great set up with a good size library of both academic and (mostly) christian books in Russian, Ukrainian and English. They have a conference room and smaller classrooms where they hold bible studies and language clubs. We met a Nigerian medical student while we were leavign who was joining  several students for a bible study. I wish we could have spoken with the student more but you could see how at home they felt at the center.
Saturday morning we met our new friend Oleg. He is one of the students who meets with Kostya and is ready to think more about his faith. He took us on a tou of Bila Tserkva's pride, the river and Park Alexandria.  The River is just a few minutes from the chruch and we walked along it for 45 min before entering the park. Now this is not a city park as we know it in Houston. It is probably close to 10 time the size of memorial park (or at least seems to be, converting kilometers squared to square miles is confusing). We spent 2-3 hours walking along its paths and seeing the ruins and very beautiful bridges.  Wa walked to the top of the "mountain" which probably is what a Texans think of mountains as well. There is what looks to be a fort that over looks the river.  The Park was created several hundred years ago and the ruins are 200-300 years old. The best part about the par is that they sell ice cream. The hospitality in Ukraine is amazing and everywhere. Oleg bought my ice cream for me since he suggested the flavor. It is delicious.  Oleg is a very and funny young man who cracks jokes when he can. He went home after the park since his hand was swollen and bothering him. He suffers from haemophilia and can only take certain pain medicine. After a few hours rest, we met my reader Alex at the church and she showed us which marshutkra to take to the city center. We then walked to her school and met some of our other secondary school readers, Kris, Anya and Helen. A few of their male friends who do not read with us joined us as well to play basketball for abotu an hour.  Then we walked around the city center (downtown type area) and visited another part of the river. We walked through what to us would be a permanent children's carnival with rides and a ferris wheel. Why do we not have one of these in Houston?
Today is a very big holiday in the orthodox xhurch. They celebrate pentecost or "the Trinity." People buy long plades of a plant to put on their floors in order to receive a special blessing. We asked the kids about other traditions and holidays and discussed a few of our beliefs with them. The kids don't seem to believe too much or even know why they do certain things as part of their traditions and holidays. I look forward to reading with them this week.
Please continue to pray for our young readers and for Oleg to heal quickly.

Our first reading sessions

We are now about half way through with our first week of reading session. The people here are very friendly and eager to improve their English. I currently have 13 readers and Nathan has 12. Our  two other team members, Erin and Kayleigh are working with 8-10 readers each so far. We have been getting new readers everyday. Most of our readers are students at either the secondary school level or at the Universities in Bila Tserkva and Kiev. We also have several teachers who love talking with Nathan about the different school systems and their students.
 Many of our students have disabilities including cerebral palsy, severe type 1 diabetes, haemophilia and strabismus.Many of them are our most enthusiastic readers and often stay after their session is over. One young man, Oleg is so eager to read and learn that he meets with Nathan and myself back to back every day. He knows a lot about the work books from reading with LST in the past and is slowly starting to read the more advanced lessons from our workbook on Acts. He is one of the many young men who meet with our missionary, Kostya. I look forward to reading the more challenging lessons with Oleg. Oleg will be taking us to the famous park here in Bila Tserkva. The Ukrainins are known for being hardworkers. One of my readers, Sasha C. has a strong stutter at times when he speaks English but taught himself how to overcome when he speaks Ukrainian. He is also very eager to read when we meet and I know God has great things ahead for him.
Please continue to pray that our readers come with open hearts and that God will give us the right words to plant seeds through the Word.

Readers Registered!

Greetings All,

We safely arrived in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, yesterday afternoon. Our flights went safely and smoothly, and all our luggage arrived on time and in tact. Kostya, our missionary host, met us at the Borisypol airport with a van to take us to our destination. We are staying in an apartment that is only a ten minute walk from the church. Kostya showed us around our neighborhood and took us the grocery story for the first time. Grocery stores are nice because you can pick out the food without knowing what to call it.

Needless to say, after the 14 hours of flights and eight hour time change, we were pretty wiped out and ready for bed. We got settled in to the apartment, ate our first (non-airplane) meal together, and then hit the sack. This morning we found our way to the church for morning worship services. The people at the Bila Tserkva church of Christ are gracious and friendly. Kostya preached his sermon (and translated himself) about facing times of hardships and struggling. There were about ten members of the church present this morning, and we enjoyed getting to meet all of them.

This evening we had our information meeting and reader registration for the rest of the time we are here. About 20-25 people attended to hear about and sign up for reading sessions. We are all excited now that we know who we will be working with and already can tell relationships are being built with "our" readers. We begin our one-on-one sessions tomorrow and will keep you informed. Continue to keep us in your prayers.

Hello Ukraine!

We leave tomorrow for Bila Tserkva, Ukraine. I just wanted to take a minute, while we finish packing and calling our families, to start our blog. I’m not sure how much internet access we will have over there, but we will update as often as possible about the work God is doing through us in Ukraine. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to travel and share the Good News with others.

 For those who are not exactly sure what we will be doing in Ukraine, here is a brief description. We are traveling as part of Let’s Start Talking ministries. They connect American Christians with churches all over the world to spread the Good News through conversational English lessons. We meet one-on-one with individuals who would like to practice their English speaking skills. We use a workbook based on the gospel of Luke to read the story of Jesus as a jumping off point for conversations. Along with the reading sessions, we have small get-togethers with our readers and the church members to foster relationships and show our readers how much fun it is to be a part of the body of Christ.  Nathan and I have already planned a Texas-themed gathering and can’t wait to see how our new friends like chili.

            God has done so many wonderful things in our lives, and I look forward to sharing His love and joy with others. We are so thankful to our supporters who have helped us take hold of this opportunity. Thank you all for the love and prayers. Please continue to pray for us as we travel and start the work in Bila Tserkva.