Thanksgiving 06 update

Hope this update finds all of you “turkeys” full of stuffing or at least something. Just kidding of course but we do want to update all of you on what has been happening with us here in Ukraine. Things here are going very well for us. We could be as busy as we want to be, but have chosen to take it slow in the beginning. (Well this was written a little while ago and things have sure changed. Our calendar gets booked at least 2 weeks in advance and all of our evenings are full)We have had requests for many things as far as homegroups etc but are trying to stay focused on what the Lord is showing us to do. The Lord is presenting new relationships and new opportunities to us. We are excited to see what the Lord will do with all of this.
We have been meeting with our small team of young people, and they all feel that this is where the Lord would have them rite now. So we are very encouraged with that. We have been meeting with them as a group on a weekly basis, sharing a meal at our apartment and spending time in prayer and sharing our hearts and our struggles etc just furthering our relationships with them. We have also been meeting one on one with them for inner healing and discipleship. It has been going very well and it is exciting to see the Lord working with and thru them. Also seeing them realize how God wants to use them for their own people and country.

It’s hard to know what all to put into these updates because so much is happening but we want to concentrate on our relationships to the youth and young adults. Our health has been good etc but warfare is on the rise and not only with us but with our team. Some of these things are to be expected but when they happen, often it is still a surprise, especially when it comes from someone you would never expect it to come from! No details but many of you will know what I mean. We want to thank all of you for your prayers.

A few other things that have been going on here, we were invited to attend the fundraising banquet for the Crisis Pregnancy Center here in Kharkiv. It was the first thing they have done of this kind and we were very impressed with how they did everything. It was a very nice time with good entertainment and a few church leaders talking about the importance of the center. We also viewed a short video about the center with Lena Batina the director giving her testimony and speaking of the women they have ministered to and also the babies that have been saved. Needless to say it was a very emotionally moving evening. Everything was excellently done and we pray that it was a successful fundraiser for them.

We also were able to attend the one-year anniversary of Sergei Bykov’s church which is called “River of Life”. It was a good time of music, food and fellowship. Unfortunately we were unable to stay very long as we had been asked to speak to the youth group at Father’s House that evening.
We have also been meeting with a couple every week to try and help them with their marriage. They got married without any kind of pre-marital counseling so they would like to go thru a form of it to try and help them. It just once more reminds us of how important pre-marital counseling is. We are also in the process of getting the material translated and we want to train up couples in churches here to start their own ministry of pre-marital counseling. Finding the time for all of that will be interesting!

We have been asked to come to Yalta which is a city in the Crimea which is by the sea to do a “Fathers Love” conference for 3 days sometime in the middle to end of January. This is the result of Christine going there the last time we were here and being asked to talk in their church on The Fathers Love. We met with the pastor and his wife while they were in Kharkiv a short time ago. It will be interesting to see what the Lord will do.

I guess I would just like to say here that when you see what little love most people have received even as children growing up here, it does break your heart. Some of the stories make you want to buy a gun and hunt some of the parents down and well I won’t finish that statement but you get the idea! It’s hard to imagine someone growing up in those circumstances! I know it happens all around the world but it really does seem to have such a hard edge here. Sometimes you even see it in Christian circles because legalism can be something that fits rite into this system. Thank God for freedom from legalism, we just want to help those get free that have been bound by that system. One of the reasons it is so refreshing to work with the youth and young adults is because they have such different attitudes and most of them won’t settle for some kind of controlling religion or system. We were speaking with one young man and I believe that his description really puts this into perspective. He said that he believes that his generation is the first to really experience the hope of being able to achieve their dreams. That is something that we believe God has us here for, to represent the hope we have in Him!