Fortunately, I have been able to restore
the English list with the help of Dianne Smith. Thank you Diane! The
list we recovered is about eight months old. Therefore, we apologize
to anyone who may have unsubscribed but who is once again receiving
our newsletter. Please send me a note and I will make sure to remove
your name right away. The Russian list has not yet been restored, so
it may be a few weeks before the Russian version resumes.
I have also added a few new contacts that I have made since coming to
America. If you do not want to receive Cemya Boga, please let me know
and I will unsubscribe you.
We will pick up the Christian Growth Series where I think we left off.
Church Registration! Zinna has been able to get our government registration
for the Harkivsky congregation finished! It is finally done -- after
several years! How difficult was it? Very -- because we did not pay
a bribe! This is such a difficult process that one Ukrainian told me:
Our sponsoring congregation in America did not believe it was really
taking us several years to get our registration comlete! They thought
we were just "a bunch of lazy Ukrainians who were really not trying
to get it done!" The truth is
it really does take years ---- unless one pays a bribe. We did not!
VBS. The Harkivsky congregation is planning another VBS this year ---
eventhough we still do not have an adequate place to
have it. Once again we will have it outdoors due to a lack of space.
Polina Greboyedova. Since our last newsletter there have been some developments
concerning Polina's trip to work in a church of Christ Bible camp this
summer. The College Hill congregation is helping Polina do this, but
her visa application was turned down.
The embassy would not give her a visa because they are not sure she
will leave. Polina is appealing and I have written her a reference letter.
Pray for her. Though much of her trip is paid for, I am sure some extra
finances would be very helpful to her. If you would like to help her
with a donation, please contact me.
Quilts for Kiev. Diane Smith made contact with me about a year ago with
the idea of making quilts for orphans and others in Ukraine. Diane is
a quilter and organized a group of women from around America to make
quilts for the orphanage in Bila Tserkva. I directed her to the Highland
Street congregation in Memphis since they sponsor a congregation in
the town of Bila Tserkva. This week Diane and her group sent 20 quilts
to be delivered to Bila Tserkva through Highland. The even greater news
is that Diane says she has received notes from women in different parts
of the world who would also like to make quilts for the orphanage. That
is great. I will recommend to Diane that they find the exact measurements
for quilts that fit the beds (they are all the same size), and make
one quilt for each bed! If you would like to help us in this please
contact Dianne Smith directly at
quilt-traveler@comcast.net. She has a web site with pictures posted,
but I don't know the URL.
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DEVELOPING PLANS
Since coming to America plans for our work in Ukraine have been revised.
Every committee I have met with, as well as every administrator at Sunset,
believes it would be preferable for us to remain in Kiev, which I would
be happy to do. Rather than move to Donesk, I will travel there several
times a year to teach full time. At the very least I will be teaching
Isaiah, OT HIstory 2, Ephesians/Colossians, James, Heart of the Preacher,
and Introduction to Exegesis.
There are a number of Sunset graduates who have congregations they are
working with in Kiev. The thinking is that I can stay in Kiev and be
of help to these men in their congregations and in other ways. I think
this is a very good plan and will leave me close to the Harkvisky congregation
as well. In fact, Sergey, the preacher at Harkvisky church, is also
a Sunset graduate. As many of you know Kiev and the surrounding areas
still has a LOT of room for new congregations to be established. We
would like to set up "church planting teams" made up of Sunset
graduates. This will multiply the number of churches in Kiev, the capital
city with a population of 3,000,000 people.
I have two meetings with two missions committees with the next few weeks.
One is the College Hill church located in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.
Ukraine is the primary mission focus of the College Hill congregation.
They have direct involvement in church planting in Kiev and have been
very supportive of the Sunset school by sponsoring teachers.
The second meeting is with the Memorial church in Houston, TX. I met
Mike and Judy Haley of the Memorial church in Houston, TX., while we
were both staying in the home of JW Hamby in Lubbock. Mike is on the
MC and has set up an appointment for me in two or three weeks.
Please pray about both of these meetings and help me make more contacts!
Thanks!
