Last
month, Lena reported about Lyuda, a retired member of Nivki church
who lives in rather squalid conditions. My parents and several
others were touched by her problem and decided to help. We inquired
as to what needed to be repaired and asked Lyuda to find out how
much it would cost. Besides covering the dirt floor and repairing
the furnace, the roof needs patched or recovered and reinforced.
Members of the Central Church of Christ (Athens, TN) have so far
given more than $1,500 to improve Lyuda’s living conditions with
hopes of raising another $1000 to finish all the repairs.
The
end of March was a sad one for us. Lena’s grandmother died on
March 30th. We went to her hometown Zhitomir the Saturday
before to see her and then were there two days for the funeral.
Lena’s mother Lyuda had cared for grandmother for many years,
and we invited Lyuda to spend the weekend with us. I decided to
cook for her and Lena spent much time with her, trying to lift
her spirits and let her relax. Lena’s sister Ira is seven-months
pregnant and soon there will be a whole new kind of work for Lyuda.
Our
class on heaven and hell is moving along. We have been dealing
with some difficult passages and ideas. Vitaly Samodin has been
helping teach the class some recently. We are also working together
on our Friday Soup Group. This group, though, has not really formed
into a group. The outreach just hasn’t been as well attended as
the last two years. We do have two first-year students, Yura and
Zhanna, who come regularly, and we engage them in what we hope
is meaningful conversation about faith, Christ, and new life in
his body. Please pray for them and for those who are growing in
their faith.
We
both keep working at the UEC. Lena has her desk hours and keeps
up with overdue items. I try to manage the full-time staff and
develop a vision for where we are going as an organization. Currently,
we are involved in a project to advertise the UEC’s services to
local churches. We’ve developed some promotional materials and
will be visiting with local missionaries and church leaders to
spread the word about the UEC. When we opened four years ago,
we invited local Churches of Christ but haven’t done anything
since then to involve them with the UEC. We are beginning to correct
that. Lena and I made lunch for Jim and Marina Noyes recently.
They serve as missionaries with a two-year-old church in Vinogradar,
a suburb of Kyiv. Marina was converted and moved to Kyiv to work
with what was then the School 53 church and later became the Obolon
church. As a part of this outreach effort to other churches, we
are also thinking about how we can serve the churches not in Kyiv.
Lena has begun updating the Ukrainian church directory that was
butchered by problems with our server. It’s a long way from being
repaired, but we look forward to seeing how Churches of Christ
are doing in Ukraine. In that same regard, we are working with
Eastern European Missions in Vienna to update their Ukrainian
church directory.
I
also conducted an evaluation of the staff’s work at the UEC and
we are working on making some improvements to how the Center functions,
especially in developing leadership skills. In the same vein,
I am preparing a church leadership class for this summer. I hope
it will move us forward in the evening assembly gaining a vision
for what the church needs to become.
We
had hoped this past month to report the baptism of Yulia Idemenko.
But her baptism has been delayed several times due to a lengthy
illness and now finals. We hope, though, her rebirth will take
place very soon. Pray that God gives her good health!!
Our
other work continues about the same—Tuesday and Friday night small
groups, etc. Lena still meets with Sasha and Ira for encouragement
and Bible study. I am getting ready to launch out into an English
outreach. I have changed my mind several times about what to do.
Pray that God will lead me to begin the most helpful ministry
possible. This English outreach is in preparation for our summer
outreach. A team from Laurel Church of Christ is coming in early
June to help us some. We are glad Amy Gregg and Mike Buckley are
taking the lead in this outreach. Finally, I have had correspondence
with several people who are thinking about our internship. Please
pray that God will send us some great interns. Keep praying for
Jonathan Shaub, one of our former interns. The family got some
bad news about his recovery; it will take much longer than expected.
Personally
speaking, Lena and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary
March 22. For that celebration, I bought us two books and took
Lena to a sushi place. Not the best sushi but the books we have
enjoyed. Lena read Toni Morrison’s Love and now it is being
passed around the church. Guess Toni Morrison isn’t too well known
here. I am reading On the Missionary Trail, the story of
two men sent out by the London Missionary Society in the early
1800s to check on some of the very first Protestant missionaries
sent to the South Pacific. It’s quite an adventure. We continue
to chronicle our life at our blog www.kyivmission.blogspot.com
if you ever get a chance to drop by there.
Thanks
for supporting us and praying.
