When we were looking for a house and starting to get desperate to move into the village ASAP, a lady in the village offered to take the girls into her home till we found a house. She encouraged us to move in that evening and we were very tempted to do so, but decided to take some time to think and pray about it since some of the group members felt uneasy about this decision. After talking to some of the village people, it was discovered that she was the prime suspect in the murder of her son. Her son was involved in the murder of someone else and another one of her sons is in prison. Thankfully God kept us out of that situation. We will continue visiting her because God wants everyone to be saved, but we are glad we found an alternative place to live.
Recently we had a new problem come up. There are Jehovah witnesses whom we have not met yet that visit our village and play with the kids. They took the kids to the river one day without telling their parents and this caused quite a commotion in the village because the parents got scared and called the police. We were not aware of this situation because we were not in the village that day, but learned of this later on when we tried to gather the kids together to do another Sunday school lesson. We were shocked that so few kids came. When we asked why there were so few, they told us that a lot of the parents do not allow the kids to come play with us because they confuse us with the Jehovah witnesses. Please pray with us to resolve this issue and help us win the parents trust in us again.
One of the most interesting things that has happened to us on the second day that we moved to the village one of the young guys that helped us repair our home stole our lap-top. We were only gone from the house for about 40 minutes handing out fliers. The most interesting thing about this was that he told us he felt like we were accusing him when we did not even mention anything about the lap-top to him. He helped us cook the meat for our dinner that night and then left. Came back about two hours later with the lap-top, all wet and muddy but it was there. He put the blame on someone else making it seem like he did us a huge favor by getting it back for us. The next day he brought the charger for the lap-top. We talked to some others from the village and we know 99% that it was him who had stolen it. By having all this occur this gave us a chance to have our group bond even more and put all our faith in God.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Week 6!
It's been 6 weeks since we left!
Since the last post, we have continued cleaning the house. It took us almost a week to clean it before it was good enough to be livable in. It still needs work, which we will continue to do as we live there, but it has come far from where it has started.
Cleaning, painting, and working on the house.
The kids brought us flowers as we worked on the house! So sweet! Beautiful flowers!
The final outcome! Our cute little kitchen! By the way, we don't have a stove yet so we cook on that little one stove thing you see on the table. Takes about 3 hrs to cook a meal! Some people offered to give us an old gas stove though so hopefully that problem will be solved soon.
Slavik AKA Chris got a dog that he named Max, he was so cute! Unfortunately we only had it for a couple days because Alesha's (a little kid that plays with us) uncle liked it and took it away into the city. Didn't know that was legal! With Ukraine, you never know.
Inna's mom sent us the flanel picture board and we had to cut out all the people and objects for it! 16 sheets of things to cut! The whole group helped cut- even the guys!
The local church we attend in Zaporozhye.
The girls cooking at our apartment in Zaporozhye. We make all sorts of food, we even made borsh, which is as Russian as can be!
Tanya made a new friend, he's kinda cute!
Our lovely group!
Living in the new house! Our new house doesnt have any water so we have to get water from our neighbors well down the street. We also don't have a bathroom, not even the cool outside kind, so we have to go to the school in order to use the restroom. It's not too bad, it's just down the street. As for shower facilities, we don't get those here either, only when we go to our apartment in the city. The pastor at the church said that they'll try to help us out with the water situation and hopefully the guys will figure out the bathroom situation as well. We're definitely learning alot here!
This is how the girls wash dishes.
The girls bedroom. Check out our home made curtains! Those aren't just rugs on the wall, they're actually covering some windows.
Sometimes when we cook, the electricity stops working because it gets overloaded when more than a couple things are on at once so Alex made us dinner over the fire!
Bogdan and his group came for a visit!
Evangelism event! Several days prior to the event we walked around the whole village and invited people to a music concert. We gave out fliers and also hung up fliers around the vilalge. During the concert we sang as a group, had two skits, Tanya said a poem, Inna did a solo, the pastor from the local church talked as well as Bodgan and then Pastor Bondarenko ended the service. Even though we have not had the chance to work with the people as much as we would've liked due to the fact that it took a while to find a house, God really blessed us and our event and we had around 30-50 people attend the service! Five of them raised their hands to repent and asked Jesus to come into their lives. Praise God!
The following day after our evangelism concert, we took a train to Kiev, to go to a camp in Malin, a couple hours west of Kiev.
That was quite an experience, the train stops for about 5 min, we had to run to our wagon (with all our luggage that included clothes, tent, mattresss, sleeping bags, blankets), which was really far away, jump on and then it left. Some of our people had to get on another wagon and then walk to ours. Thankfully we got two cabins that were right next to each other so all of us got to stay together. The train ride was 13 hrs long but it was at night so we slept through most of it. We stayed in Kiev for about a day, then went to Malin camp, where we met up with our fellow SMBS students. It was great to see everyone and hear stories of how thier missions are going! We also sang as a chior with song locals from Ukraine, Nikolaev region. Pictures to follow shortly.
As always, we ask you to please keep us in your prayers for God to use us to make a difference in peoples lives. Our group thanks you for your prayers and support! God bless you!
Since the last post, we have continued cleaning the house. It took us almost a week to clean it before it was good enough to be livable in. It still needs work, which we will continue to do as we live there, but it has come far from where it has started.
Cleaning, painting, and working on the house.
The kids brought us flowers as we worked on the house! So sweet! Beautiful flowers!
The final outcome! Our cute little kitchen! By the way, we don't have a stove yet so we cook on that little one stove thing you see on the table. Takes about 3 hrs to cook a meal! Some people offered to give us an old gas stove though so hopefully that problem will be solved soon.
Slavik AKA Chris got a dog that he named Max, he was so cute! Unfortunately we only had it for a couple days because Alesha's (a little kid that plays with us) uncle liked it and took it away into the city. Didn't know that was legal! With Ukraine, you never know.
Inna's mom sent us the flanel picture board and we had to cut out all the people and objects for it! 16 sheets of things to cut! The whole group helped cut- even the guys!
The local church we attend in Zaporozhye.
The girls cooking at our apartment in Zaporozhye. We make all sorts of food, we even made borsh, which is as Russian as can be!
Tanya made a new friend, he's kinda cute!
Our lovely group!
Living in the new house! Our new house doesnt have any water so we have to get water from our neighbors well down the street. We also don't have a bathroom, not even the cool outside kind, so we have to go to the school in order to use the restroom. It's not too bad, it's just down the street. As for shower facilities, we don't get those here either, only when we go to our apartment in the city. The pastor at the church said that they'll try to help us out with the water situation and hopefully the guys will figure out the bathroom situation as well. We're definitely learning alot here!
This is how the girls wash dishes.
The girls bedroom. Check out our home made curtains! Those aren't just rugs on the wall, they're actually covering some windows.
Sometimes when we cook, the electricity stops working because it gets overloaded when more than a couple things are on at once so Alex made us dinner over the fire!
Bogdan and his group came for a visit!
Evangelism event! Several days prior to the event we walked around the whole village and invited people to a music concert. We gave out fliers and also hung up fliers around the vilalge. During the concert we sang as a group, had two skits, Tanya said a poem, Inna did a solo, the pastor from the local church talked as well as Bodgan and then Pastor Bondarenko ended the service. Even though we have not had the chance to work with the people as much as we would've liked due to the fact that it took a while to find a house, God really blessed us and our event and we had around 30-50 people attend the service! Five of them raised their hands to repent and asked Jesus to come into their lives. Praise God!
The following day after our evangelism concert, we took a train to Kiev, to go to a camp in Malin, a couple hours west of Kiev.
That was quite an experience, the train stops for about 5 min, we had to run to our wagon (with all our luggage that included clothes, tent, mattresss, sleeping bags, blankets), which was really far away, jump on and then it left. Some of our people had to get on another wagon and then walk to ours. Thankfully we got two cabins that were right next to each other so all of us got to stay together. The train ride was 13 hrs long but it was at night so we slept through most of it. We stayed in Kiev for about a day, then went to Malin camp, where we met up with our fellow SMBS students. It was great to see everyone and hear stories of how thier missions are going! We also sang as a chior with song locals from Ukraine, Nikolaev region. Pictures to follow shortly.
As always, we ask you to please keep us in your prayers for God to use us to make a difference in peoples lives. Our group thanks you for your prayers and support! God bless you!
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