More details of our first month

Well for those of you who have been here and know many of the same friends
as we do I would like to give you all an update on who we have seen and
reconnected with. Also I apologize to everyone for not knowing everyone’s
last names but I will try to describe everyone in a way that those of you
who know them will recognize them.

On Tuesday the 11th we met with Pastor Armen and Pastor Igor Kuraksin
(He came with Bill once to St Luke’s) who had invited us out for lunch to
find out if there was anything they could do to help us while we are here
and we also made the same offer to them. It was a good time and for those of
you who know both of them we had a lot of good laughs together. I should
mention here that Jenya is usually always with us for translation etc so if
your wondering if their English got that much better since you were here,
well not necessarily:-) That evening we went to Nella's homegroup (which is
a women’s group :-/) and we ended up praying for most of the women. It was
really good to see Nella again as the last time here we really got to
connect with her. The next morning we went to Tomah Sashchuk's homegroup
(women again) and had a good time of fellowship and prayer which i should
mention here usually includes us getting prayed for which is a blessing for
us. Funny thing we noticed lately is that we can tell when they are praying
in "tongues" or in Russian, we can actually tell the difference :-)!! We
have been going to these two homegroups every week so the bigger part of
those 2 days every week are filled up since we go early and leave later than
the rest to have time to spend with the hosts of those homegroups. We are
meeting also with just a couple of young people on Wednesday nites to just
get to know them and what is on their hearts. May end up as a small
discipleship group like what we experienced in Mexico. That is also
something that usually happens every Wednesday nite. We have also started
our sessions of pre-marital counseling with Kostya and his fiancée Sasha.
Those times started on Thursday evenings but since have switched to Monday
nites. For those of you who are not familiar with the culture here in
Ukraine, you will not understand how much time you spend doing things. The
most we have been able to squeeze into one day is three appointments (not a
good word to describe this) because everything is based on relationships so
if you want to be effective at all you must spend the time it takes to build
those relationships because without trust things will never go anywhere.
We got to connect with Lena Apalkova on Friday the 14th for lunch at our
flat. She spends the summer and fall seasons working in Turkey during their
tourist season. Lots of Russian speaking people go there for their holidays
so the need for Russian speaking clerks etc is high there and it pays fairly
well also. For those of you who know her she came to America with Tanya
Lynch and stayed with the Wagler’s (Phil and Diane and their youngest girls)
one summer. She left later that evening to go to Turkey. That evening we had
Larissa over (I don’t think i need to explain who she is :-) for dinner and
a great time of catching up with her. We got to hear all about how she got
her new job of being the Regional Director for Eastern Europe for Hope
international. Hope international is the organization that helped set up the
crisis pregnancy center here in Kharkiv. They also have centers all over
Eastern Europe. It was interesting how God has been calling her to something
like this for a long time now. She shared how God has been "connecting the
dots" in her life to end up in this position. She is really doing well!

Kostya Sashchuk and his worship band, which includes his fiancé Sasha
on keyboards, Vova Sukhov on bass, Jenya's boyfriend Oleg Ivanov (Igor and
Luba Ivanov's son) on drums and Kostya (last name??) on electric guitar, led
the worship for the Saturday(the 15th) morning service at Fathers House. I
should say here that they have a Saturday and a Sunday service so that they
can accommodate more people being in a smaller building. Being their first
time leading worship we went to hear them play, it was truly anointed and
awesome to see and hear them play!

Also on Saturday the 15th we visited Sergei Bykov's church which
started I believe sometime in the month of January. This church was born out
of a family ministry at Fathers House, He and His wife Yana started. He felt
led to start a smaller church with family ministry in mind and being blessed
by Bill Lynch He stepped out on faith. He had invited us to go to lunch
after church with Him and Yana. I guess i should share here what He did when
we were there. We have struggled with sharing this with everyone in this
update but I feel like I should. After the service he invited us up to the
front to introduce us. We were not prepared for what he said! He told us
that it was because of our marriage ministry we did when we were here before
that birthed this church in his and his wife's hearts. He told us to look
and see the fruit of our ministry here. That was some kind of an emotional
experience that i can truly say we have never experienced. God knows and for
that matter we do too, that without God we couldn’t have done a thing that’s
for sure. You know that when you think of these things you would think it
would make a person proud to have someone give you that kind of respect and
credit. But just the opposite happens when it is done for the Lord because
we couldn’t have been more humbled! Couldn’t even say anything except that
it was all because of God! It brings tears to the eyes just to write this.
Ok that is off my chest so now I can breathe better. We had a great time
with them at "Pizza Bella" where they took us for lunch. What a good time
getting caught up with what is happening in their lives. We have also gotten
to spend time at their church on Easter which is a week later here than at
home since they celebrate the Orthodox Easter here. We want to also have
them over to our flat and continue talking about what is happening and their
vision for their church.

Sunday the 16th we visited Sasha Kosiev's church. It was good to see our
friends that go to that church also. We really didn’t get to spend much time
with anyone but it was good to see all of them. We got to chat with Sasha
for a few minutes and we hope to do more of that in the future.

Then next Monday Christine and Jenya visited the Crisis Pregnancy
Center and prayed for the volunteers there. She has been invited back to do
more of that, when Lena Batina (the director) gets back from America which
should be very soon now. That evening we visited Valery and Lena Shevchanko
at their flat which is just across the main highway from our flat. It takes
about 10 minutes to walk there. We wanted to see them since we have been
here but weren’t sure how to get in touch with them. We were in our local
market here that is by our metro stop, and I was leaning up against a kiosk
while Jenya and Christine were buying something and here comes Valery around
the corner. It took us just a second to recognize each other :-) He knew we
were here because His daughter had seen us in church. He said i looked so
serious he almost mistook me for a Ukrainian :-) He said for him it was like
seeing Angels in his marketplace. I don’t know about that, well maybe a
couple of fallen angels:-/ They are really doing well and it was such a
blessing to catch up with them. They are involved in many good things rite
now. It was good to see how good they are doing! We ended up with them again
when we went with them to visit a village that is 30 mins from Kharkiv
called Prohady (spelling?) to see some property etc on the 29th. Then that
evening they invited us to a Georgian cafe that is by the river which is
close to our flat also. Again it was an excellent time of fellowship and
sharing about what is going on in all of our lives and what the Lord is
doing.

Later in the week we got to reconnect with Nica Onisapanko (spelling)
she is Luda's daughter and has a brother named Vita and sister Nadia for
those of you who know her. It was good to see her and catch up on what has
been happening in her life. She graduates from university at the end of this
semester. She is looking forward to getting on with her life and starting
her career which is interpretation and translation for English, German and
French. We also met with her and her family the next week at their place. It
was really good to see all of them as they have been good friends of ours
ever since we came here the first time. Luda has a job selling silver
jewelry all over the western part of Ukraine. The jewelry is made here in
Kharkiv so she travels from here and her sales region is in that part of
Ukraine. We got a presentation and picked some gifts out for friends etc. It
is so amazing how big and grown up so many young people are here. 3 years
can make such a difference. Last time we were here Vita was a 15 yr old boy
but now he is a man in many ways. He is doing very well also and is on his
way to being a strong man of God!

On that same day we met with the Youth Pastor Dima Troyno. We talked
about many things about the youth and what is happening with them. It was
good to see him again and reconnect. That Saturday we had the Romananko's
over for dinner and fellowship. We got to watch some "NOOMA" videos
together. We had been to their place the week before, and had a wonderful
time with them as always. Everyone's families have grown so much. When we
first got here in 2003 Inga had just gotten pregnant for the 2nd time. About
3 months after we left she gave birth to Christy. She is now a very lively 2
year old.

Just before I had the opportunity to post this update on our website we got
to connect with John and Tanya Lynch and Ariel and Arlin. We had seen pics
of Arlin but never seen him in person since he is only 5 months old. It was
good to see all of them and have some American-Ukrainian fellowship. We
stayed for one of their youth home-groups. It was a good time of getting to
know the youth and hearing about their dreams for their lives. God just
continues to connect us with young people. We got to pray for all of them
individually and God is doing good things in their lives. I should share
this story here about one of the young girls. We were going around the room
introducing everyone and talking about what our dreams are. One 14 yr old
girl, Veronica (don’t know her last name) said that since the death of John
Lile she wants to work with people with cancer to help them get better. She
started to cry when she said this and of course it also caused us to cry.
What an impact he obviously had on her young life. When we prayed for her
she was really sobbing and we said we understood the pain she was feeling.
We let her know that it was ok to feel this way and that we all are in pain
in this huge loss in our lives. We prayed that God would bring comfort to
her in her pain. I know that John often taught the Sunday school classes
when he would come to Ukraine but it never occurred to me that such young
ones would be feeling the loss that we all feel. We should never
underestimate the love that we show even to the least of these. Reminds me
of what Jesus said about anyone offending any of these little ones would
better to have cement shoes and thrown into the ocean. John's memory will
live on here in Ukraine and his impact on peoples lives will continue.

One of the things that has been such a blessing for us to see is that
almost all of the couples that went thru pre-marital counseling with us have
gotten married and have kids now. So amazing some even have 2. Many of the
young couples that we have relationships with that were married already when
we met them now have kids. It is good to see so many people having babies
over here. There does seem to be many more children in this country in
general. For those of you who have been here before you will understand what
I am saying. Even babies riding with their mothers on the metro which I
don’t remember seeing ever before. God's light is really coming to this
country and I pray that it will continue.

Keep them in your prayers!!

God Bless Ukraine