WITH RENEW HOPE IN GOD!

 

 Dear friend!

Due to the complex political situation in Ukraine, our ministry with many other churches and missions are constantly in prayer and fasting for our people.

As the Apostle Paul wrote:
"So, first of all, I urge prayers, supplications, requests, thanks for all men;
for kings and all those in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim 2:1-4)

 

We are preparing to have the WBC (Winter Bible Conference) on Feb 13-16, which is the annually Campus ministry since 1995.  They have this in different parts of Ukraine, but this year will be in Odessa.  About 300 students from all over Ukraine will have the opportunity to meet other Christians to study the Bible and to take steps of faith to be able to share the gospel with others. Matt 28:18-20 is the verse for WBC and the theme in fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ in our generation.  Please pray for the preparations of WBC and God's work in the student's hearts!

We intend to continue to conduct English clubs for students at three Universities after WBC. The purpose is to meet with new students and to give them the opportunity to get acquainted with the Christian youth.  Please pray that God will give us 12 American teachers and 6 classes for 25 students.  Also pray that God can use us as instruments to reach students who are interested to know God and build friendship with Christians.

Thank you for praying with me for students, for our country and for the other people who live among us that they may know the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2014!

Thank God for another year in my life with ministry and doing His work to the day when Jesus returns to us with greatness of His glory!
     May our God of miracles, the Almighty bless you and your family with the special gift of understand who He is.  May the Savior of all nations be given to us, the peace of God and the kingdom of heaven!

                                                                LONG-AWAITED MEETING

 

And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
 And he came by the Spirit into the temple: and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law,
Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.
(Luke 2:25-33)

 

STUDENT - LED MOVEMENT

 

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:24)

 

 

A big joy for me this year was discipleship with Nastya. She just graduated from KPI and joined our ministry where I also train with her in God’s mission.  Nastya is bold to share the Gospel and already has her own disciples.

 

      I met Tonya (on right on the picture) last year when she first came to Christ and during the year, she learned to read the Bible, pray, and joined a local church.  With God grace, her mother and sister also began to understand the bible.  Her evangelism in her dorm reached freshman Sasha to received Christ and Tonya helps her grow spiritual.
  Tonya also began to gather once a week in her room with other girls and 11 came to her meeting. They do not follow Christ, but they want to be friends with Christians.

 

GOD, BLESS UKRAINE!

 

God teaches us to pray for our leaders, managers and mentors. (1 Timothy 2:1) The current political situation in Ukraine has the people pray even more and we have the great opportunity to share the love of Jesus to people there.  For about a month, the Ukrainians been protesting against government policy and this again leads to the country to dependent on Russia. Together with other Christians, we prayed for peace for our nation, peace with each other and God's grace for Ukraine, which today continues to be recorded. Let the Holy Spirit guides you and please, pray for my country!

 

PLEASE, PRAY WITH US:

Thank God for the various events that we can conduct in the service of the students this semester.  The following event will be English club, themed weekly meetings, group Bible studies, weekly student prayer, prayer nights and leadership training in practical ministry.  About 300 students heard the Gospel in personally conversations from us this semester.  Please pray that among those who have heard the Gospel will be ready to follow Christ. 

The preliminary work for the new evangelization of the English club at KPI is schedule on Feb 4-11, 2014 and Winter Bible Conference for students in Ukraine, Feb 13-16, 2014 in Odessa.

HARVEST & THANKSGIVING!

      Harvest time inspires me in different ways. It reminds me of the parable of Jesus speaking about fruit that He has positioned us to bring to Him and about the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us.  With this, my heart is filled with gratitude to God for the fruit of diversity that every year He so richly enables people.

I recently visited my parents and helped them harvested their garden with beets and carrots (picture of my dad and me in the garden). It was a sunny day and we had a great time together!

 

     I ask you to continue to pray for my parents and my other relatives for the day when they do ask for “repentance” (Matthew 3:8)  “confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in heart that God raised him from the dead." (Rom 10:9) And they would be "filled with the fruits of righteousness which are in Jesus Christ and the glory and praise of God." (Phil. 1:11)

 When I’m with my parents, God gives me the opportunity to visit with one of the local churches, which I love.  I thank God I can go on this holiday for the harvest and to praise Him together with my big family in Christ.

Thanks God:
For His devotion to care about me with protection, management and delivery.
For my family, parents, church brothers and sisters in Christ and including you.
For a Ministry of evangelism, discipleship, the missionary team and students.
For all the Lord will accomplish in our prayers this year.

     I also thank God that you  serve on the mission field with me.  Not many people nowadays choose to follow Christ or give their time, energy and resources to serving.  But God continues to make history, and today we are His members.
Always remember to pray with gratitude and ask the Heavenly Father to bless you in five areas: spiritual, emotional, social, health and physical labor.
     We do not often have the opportunity to meet, but prayer helps us touch the lives of each other and continue to serve our Amazing God!

       Thank you for every prayer and assistance in organizing the English Club at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute.  80 students came every night to our three-hour classes to join our conversational English.  God has provided our needs - rooms, American teachers, the necessary materials for their lessons and all new students. Even when we had unplanned changes, God gave us strength and wisdom to make are decisions in a new way and stay in touch with students.  After the club at Institute, we went with 30 students to the English camp for two days in Fastiv, Kiev region.  The neutral territory is where we got acquainted with each other.
 Each new student who went to the club has heard the Gospel from us. Now, we continue on Thursdays for the English club.  We show movies in English and have discussion about various aspects of life.  Pray please that God will give the students a desire to follow Christ.  Thank you!

" You are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God " Eph 2:19

     This year we are continuing to meet with foreign students who study at universities in Kyiv.          Sydney from Cape Verde is a second year student at the KPI and last year, he was a member of our conversational Ukrainian club for foreigners. He also became a friend in the summer and entrusted his life to Christ. Now Sydney attends church, a Bible study group and invites other students to Ukrainian club.
     Fola, from Nigeria, is also a student in Kiev and he is a believer.  We are pleased that Fola began helping Sydney in spiritual growth, and he dreams that others foreign students would love God!

BEGINNING of a NEW SCHOOL YEAR 2013

      Hello friend. It’s a beginning of a new school year for students at KPI and our work for them. We met with some freshmen’s this year and gave them gifts to be in touch with us throughout the year.  

These are colorful diaries to help them plan their time to develop in different areas of student life at university and beyond. We pray and expect God "who does not want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth" miraculously to act in our hearts and through out our lives this year!

           From the beginning, we felt God's support and guidance to work in us.

We strive to equip the students to be diligent, grateful children for parents, conscious and patriotic citizens.  We would like also from them to be people with fair and consistent lifestyle, spiritually oriented people with a decent standard of values, people with a healthy cultural life, able to create, to serve, be compassion, well giving, be opposed to the consumer mentality, an apathy and indifference.

         Therefore, together with our missionary team, active student-Christians and with you dear partners, we continue to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,  today, and forever” Hebrew 13: 8

   

         Meet Dima (on photo in black jacket). This year, he successfully graduated from high school in the city of Smila, Cherkassy region and entered Kiev Polytechnic Institute. He’s a smart active guy who loves mathematics and recently wanted to follow Christ.  He is also the answer to our prayers about new boys in our ministry.

         Dima quickly joined in various areas of our ministry and impressed us with his courage, dedication and openness to new freshmen friend in his group.

          More than 1,000 students received diaries as a gift and an opportunity to respond to our friendship.  Pray please for Dima, his new friends and for new lives will be changed by Jesus Christ from heart to heart!

        An answer to prayer was the support of the head of the student council of KPI, who gives permission to us in organizing thematic meetings and English clubs for students in one of the best high school assembly halls.

"12 days without mom" was the first meeting this year.

The program was prepared and conducted by our students. Some of them took the step of faith in their new responsibilities.  For example, Tonya and Vlad met with us last fall.  They both willingly entrusted their lives to Christ and now they are leading meetings.  Today they are - faithful and bold witnesses of God’s grace.

        I was encouraged that Sergiy, who is from Odessa also joined KPI and he became the leader of his group here at the University.  I met him through a summer camp in Kherson and hope this year Sergiy will choose to live his life for Jesus as a positive influence for other students to join us!

Angela met us last year and she began her 4-year study at KPI.  Then she heard the Gospel from me but didn’t show any interest. After my attempts to build a relationship with her, she still did not answer and I left her.  But recently, I wrote back to her and was surprised.  Angela said that all this time she was thinking about me but did not dare to write.  She came to our Christian meeting for the first time but I still pray she will continue to keep coming.

            

      RIGHT NOW YOU CAN TOUCH THE LIVES OF ANY PERSON 

AROUND THE WORLD WITH YOUR PRAYER.

MISSION to KAZAN - ACCORDING to EYEWITNESSES!

There were 11 people who took part in a great mission trip this summer in July 4-20. These were students and missionaries from Ukraine, Belarus and the US. On our way to Kazan we visited the Russian capital Moscow and came to “third” Russian capital Kazan, the main city of Tatarstan.  

We united with 30 Christian students from different countries who came to be a part of this project.

       The Tatar people were very friendly and it was their first big Olympic sporting event in their city.

       The first day everything around us says, we are in a Muslim country! Tourists all over the world came to Kazan to visited famous attractions for two weeks. We went to the biggest mosque, which is called the Kul Sharif and were surprise at how much the Tatar people value their beliefs.

Our goal for this project was to meet many Tatar students who help as volunteers in the Olympic games.  And to share the gospel with them so they can start a campus ministry of their own in Kazan.

We started our project with 40 Christian students and every morning we had bible study in Ephesians, prayer time and seminars about spiritual growth for our students.  We also had a special guest who is Tatar and came from Muslim family.  He shared his testimony with us, taught us about Tatar history and how to bring the gospel to Muslim in Tatarstan.

      Our outreach involve sport, card and street games.  It made a big difference for the volunteers to join us in these activities.  Our students organized Ukrainian, British, Moldavian and Dutch cultural evening events.  Many locals who came to these events were open to make friendship and to give us their contacts. 

     Everyday we heard 1 or 2 stories on how Tatar students came to Christ.  At the end of the project 15 people excepted Christ and it was a big joy for all of us.  More than 100 Tatar student came to participate in our events to hear the gospel and testimonies from our students.

     The faces are really small on this picture but GOD knows everybody perfectly by name.  Please pray for them that many will answer GOD’s calling and follow Christ faithfully in the near future.

        Railya saw us as the first international students she met.  After our short conversion, we invited her to meet with us the next day and we were the first        Christians she met.  I asked about her belief and she said, “I’m Muslim.”  I asked, “Do you attend Mosque?” and she said, “No, I haven’t been going to Mosque in a while because I do not keep all the Muslim Rules, and God will not forgive me.” However, she was impressed by our testimonies and our beliefs.  Our next meeting which was a big Muslim holiday, Railya spent the whole day with us playing sport games and walking around the city.  Again we had a good spiritual conversion. She took a small Bible as a gift from us.  Sunday was her first time at evangelical church. She said, “I was afraid to talk with Christians but I feel like I found good friends and I want to know more about Jesus.”

       Please, pray for Railya and for the other six Tatar students who visited the churches as well.  We will continue to stay in touch with them by internet.

STUDENT'S STORIES 

       My name is Tonya, I’m a student of Kiev Polytechnic Institute.  Last fall I accepted Christ as my Savior.  This is my first mission trip and I will never forget it.

       This summer not only turned my life upside down, but the people with whom we met in Kazan. This trip was a real blessing for me because we trained with the gospel, studying the Word and talked to veterans about Christ. The program was intensive but we managed to communicate with a large number of non-believers students to share the gospel with them. 

       I was afraid to tell others about Christ, but this project, God changed my heart and kindled a great desire to share the gospel with others.  He took away my fear and dependence on the opinions of others.

       Our first day going down town, I talked to 17 Tatar students just in 3 hours. I was very encourage when one of girls accept Jesus after our second meeting.  I understood it’s God’s work because only He is able to change people’s hearts.  On this trip I realized that I really want to become a missionary. It’s interesting to see what God prepares for us and we should always be ready to go to mission trips to talk to people about Jesus.                                                                           

         Yulya, thank you for you communication, concern and support. I really appreciate your work.  It’s hard to tell about all my emotions. I feel that I’m still in Russia.  All the time I think and pray about people whom we met there. Thank you so much to all people who prayed for me and supported me to grow in my faith to share it with others everywhere. Glory to God!

            My name is Nadia, I study at Kiev University majoring in Architecture and Civil Engineering (On picture second from right).  This was my first missionary trip and I’m grateful to God for what He put in my heart to support this project: financial and prayer! God helped me grow and strengthen me, and made ​​it possible to be an instrument in His cause.

            Evangelistic project during the Universiade was a great time God gave! Our team had a great vision to start a Christian student movement in Kazan working with different churches.  The Tatar people are open to tourists willing to spend hours talking about their culture, traditions and religion.  From the beginning, I prayed to be useful there, and to be able to communicate with Muslims. God heard my requests and I met a girl name Aigul. She is very open to communication and we became friends.  We shared the gospel with her and spent almost all our time together.  Sunday, she went with us to an evangelical church and really enjoyed it.  Six unbelievers came to church with us also and we became friends with Azaleas, a girl that goes to church there.                                                                

It is truly God's apparent victory! I am grateful to God and to you! Pray for Aigul that she accepted Christ as Lord and Savior and that God will give wisdom to Azaleas and desire to develop relationships.

            My name is Andrey, I studied at Kharkiv National University (On picture first from left).  This summer I’m grateful to your prayers and financial support.  I had a great opportunity to share the gospel in Kazan at the Universiade Olympic games.         

 God did amazing things through me and other ministry’s and student here in Kazan.

          Volunteers and local youth student were very open to meet us. They would spend a lot of time talking and listening about our Christian beliefs.    

Everyday we would spend time in God’s word and tell other people about our testimony’s on how we decided to follow Jesus. I pray that God will grow the seed which we planted.  I was very encourage to here that 15 young people accept Christ Jesus during our project. 

          I’m very grateful for God giving me a wonderful time in Kazan.  I made many new friends.  I thank God that He showed me how wonderful it is to trust Him and to rely on Him completely.  This is not my first missionary trip but after this trip, I made a big decision to serve God full time as a missionary.  Praise God!