light4nations

Week 12!

2010-08-23T11:42:00.002-07:00

We're a little behind here, so now its catch up time. Life has been very busy in our lovely village of Avgustinovka. God has been doing some incredible work here. Lets go over what we have missed.

By week 9....

Slowly, but surely, the kids have started coming back to us again. Their parents are once again trusting us and allow them to come over. It was really hard to gather them when we wanted to do some kids activities so a couple of us went around, meeting the parents and talking to them. That has helped them be more open to us. Praise God. Over the last couple weeks we have done some activities with them and they just come over to hang out with us.

It was Tanya's Birthday on July 24th. We tried to make the day as memorable as possible for her.

During this time, we have continued living our typical life- washing dishes in buckets, cooking over the camp fire (we recently got a better stove!), washing hair in bowls (until we got our shower).

Tolya joined our group. We're really grateful for what he's done for us- we finally have a shower! And then some of the other guys made a bathroom for us! We're progressing!

We found a mouse in our house! Gross, but the guys took care of it..

Tanya left our group at the start of August. We all went to see her off at the train. That was another entertaining running after the train experience.

The day we had to drive Tanya to the train station, the van didnt want to start. The guys tried push starting it, but it didnt work until they did something with the engine.

Week 10.

This was an amazing week for us. We've been praying for this village for months and all of a sudden, one evening, a bunch of youth randomly piled into our yard. We were watching a movie that day and after the movie ended we turned on an informational video about drugs. Surprisingly, most of them stayed throughout the video and even came the next day. Ever since then, our house has constant visitors. God is really blessing us! Thank you for all your prayers! Throughout this week we had bonfires almost daily and really got to bond with the youth. Its amazing because they're really interested about God and why we're here.

The girls (Alina, Olga, Nina, Inna) went to the bookstore to help T. Vera who we met when we were walking through the streets. We just helped them dust, clean and iron. One of the other ladies (Oksana) that was present there confessed to us afterwards that she was really scared that we were going to come and tell them what kind of sinners they were and that they needed to repent. They were pleasantly surprised when instead we just waited for them to start asking questions about who we are and why we were here. We were happy to answer all their questions and tell them about God when they themselves became curious about him. We believe that works better than forcing it upon people.

Week 11.

The local church let us borrow thier trampoline, which we set up in our yard and the kids come over daily.

Nina left. She was hoping to prolong her ticket but due to unforseen circumstances, she had to leave earlier than expected.

Victor Lebedev (our teacher from SMBS who's from Washington) came with a couple of guys (Paul, Eddie, Val) to visit us in Ukraine. While he was here, the local church set up an evangelism tent in our village on the school property and we had a church service every evening for 5 days. With their help, we were able to reach a people in our village that we were not able to as much before. The older people that we are friends with that we typically visit one on one really enjoyed the services and we got to meet more youth as well. Victor spoke at the services along with Yevgeniy (from the local church) and Paul, Val and Eddie sang.

Week 12.

After the tent evangelism services have ended they moved the tent onto our property so now its the hang out spot for the youth every night. Its amazing. They come every day, some of them just hang out with us all day long, others come in the evening after work, some even sleep over under the tent if its too late. We have gotten really close to the village youth that comes over all the time. They have really opened up to us and share their life stories. Since there's not much going on the village, alot of them used to go to the bar, but now we're their other, better, alternative. Its amazing to see what God has done in the lives of some of the youth. Yes, they do still struggle with things, but they're definitely changing thier lives around. Some of them have already stopped doing drugs, by the grace of God, and have changed their bad ways. Many of them have told us how they prefer coming to our house, where they know they're welcome, rather than getting drunk at the bar and have people make fun of them. They're really interested in God and ask us many questions late into the night. A couple of them have been forced to choose between us or their old friends and we praise God that they're still with us. One of the boys recently told us that he wants to help his old friends to turn to God like he has once he's completely on his feet. Some of them have started going to the local church with us on Sundays and two girls came up stage to repent and ask Jesus to come into their lives. Praise God. None of this is things that we could've done, all of it is trully God's work.

Misc Pictures-

Dima washed the dishes for us girls to give us a break. He's sweet!

When we got our house, we made an agreement with the daughter of the owner since she lives in Moscow. Last week, randomly she pulls into our driveway and tells us that she's the owner and that we need to leave in two days. We were very surprised but thankfully when Alex went to talk to her later she said she'd allow us to stay if we clean up the property within two days. It was already clean but we proceeded to cut down all the little trees and bushes in our front yard so now our property is completely visible from the street. Since then, more people have started coming over randomly. God works in mysterious ways.

Thank you for all your prayers and support! Please continue praying for us and the people of Avgustinovka!

Random, interesting information..

2010-07-15T06:22:00.001-07:00

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.

Week 6!

2010-07-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

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!

Week 4

2010-06-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's going to be 4 weeks since we have left the states. A little over 3 weeks since we've came to this city. Time has flown by. Let's go over what has happened thus far.
Throughout this time even though we did not have a house there yet, we have been faithfully visiting the village almost every day. We have spent alot of time walking around, getting to know the people in the village as well as doing activities with the kids, as you will see later on. Our group on the way to the village!

Our happy mission bus!
(the church was so kind as to loan it to us)

It was Nina's Birthday on June 17th! Happy Birthday Nina!

We met the kids that live in the village and have came several days just to play and do activities with them. Some of them have become very attached to us and follow us the second they see our bus enter the village. Alesha and Oksana are the kids that are around us all the time, followed by Angelina and Andrey (who are siblings). We also met a neat girl named Masha (Alesha's sister) who's 17 and is very kind to help us out alot. She also spends alot of time with us when we go to the village.

The church we attend here has an Indian fellow that attends their service. He goes to school here so he understands some russian, but not well enough to fully speak it. He speaks english better so when we attend any of their services, they are very excited to use us as translators. So far Olga and Chris have translated to him (from russin to english) during service and then Alina and Dima have translated him to the whole church (from english to russian).

The PE teacher of the school was very intrigued by us and very eager to put us to work. We glued "обои" for the senior classroom in the school. It was a two full day job. None of us have ever done it before so we were a little worried about how it would turn out, but with a little training, some hard work, and God's help- they look surprisingly good!

Before-

After-

The long awaited packages have arrived! We were very excited when they came. Even though we were the ones to buy everything for them and also to pack them, it was very exciting to open them and see what we got. Alot of supplies for the kids, for our village, and everyday things for us. One of the packages hasnt arrived, but we're still hoping for it. When they came, we crammed the boxes into our very tiny apartment hallway since the rooms have all our suitcases and beds.

Nina is our very own personal hair cutter!

Tanya Kanifolski has joined our group!

We had a movie night for the people in the village. We showed them the movie- "The day after tomorrow". It was very successful for our first time. We meet some more of the youth in the village, some of whom came to help us later. Prior to the showing we had to clean the auditorium that the school so graciously has allowed us to use and tape up the windows because even though it was eight, it was still light out.

And last but not least, the most exciting news of it all- we have a house! Our prayers have been answered, thank you God! Praise Him along with us! Masha helped us find a house thru some people she knows. For the past two days we have been cleaning there full time. As you can see, it definitely needs some work but we're doing as much as we can just so we can move in and will make it presentable for people to come over. Two guys from the village- Sasha and Vanya have been helping us tremendously along with Masha and some of the kids.

First full week

2010-06-16T06:03:00.000-07:00

Beautiful country

It's been the first full week that we have spent in Zaporozye (the major city next to our village). We haven't found a house yet for ourselves there yet so we haven't been able to do as much as we would've liked to by now, but we've been trying to do as much as we can. We talked to the lead guy in the village- "sel covet" as soon as we had the oppurtunity and he told us that it's really hard to find a place to rent there right now but that he'd get back to us later (monday) because he was currently busy. When we talked to him monday he told us he hadn't found anything. In the meanwhile we got to know the director of the school as well as one of the teachers there. We also became acquainted with the director and teachers at the daycare and spent several days there playing with the kids and getting to know the locals. The kids are starting to grow really attached to us because most of their parents drink and don't pay as much attention to them. When we asked one little girl if her dad worked, she said- "No, he sleeps at home because he's drunk." When asked if they believe in God some of them say no, they don't while others say they don't know. One of the days we just walked around the village asking people about renting a home there and got a couple leads that we're working on currently.

During this time we have spent some time with the local church. We participated in their youth service and have attended some of their other services, such as prayer. We have met a couple friendly people in the youth that have been a blessing to us by taking their time to show us around so we could be more familiar with this place and know where to go to buy things. The local church here is blessing to our mission trip because we know that if or once we leave, there's going to be someone working with the people that we leave behind in the village. They told us that they would be happy to join us in our evangelism events and offer whatever help they can.

Local youth

Today we found a lady in the village who is willing to take us four girls in for the time being so we're packing some of our things and planning to move in with her tomorrow after we go over some details. We've been praying for God to open doors for us if this is His will and we're very excited about this oppurtunity. She didn't want to take the guys in so we'll continue looking for a home for all of us, but for the time being, this will be perfect. This will give us a place to keep all our things, a place to go between activities and also will give the locals a sense of security knowing that we're part of them now, not just some random people that come and go. This will also give us a chance to testify to the lady with whom we'll be living with.

Please continue praying for us!

Orthodox church. Main religion in this area.

Alex potty training our 15 year old cat.
(came with the apartment we're using, God is teaching us through it.)

Ukraine!

2010-06-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

We landed in Kiev, Ukraine on Friday after a 10 hour flight from New York. Everyone is safe and sound. Pasha/Andrey's group and ours got the oppurtunity to stay in Kiev for a couple days for a conference so on Friday night we got to sleep, rest, and explore Kiev.

Saturday we attended an all day conference, where Reinhard Bonnke and Daniel Kolenda spoke. The morning conference was for missionaries, evangelists, pastors, and leaders. There were thousands of people there from all of Ukraine. Pastor Bonnke talked about how we need to have a fire and a passion for God. In the evening we attended a evangelism service outside at a park where they spoke again and called people upfront for repentance and healing. Many people got saved and healed that day.

Sunday we attended a local church where we participated in their service by singing and sharing a couple of testimonies. In the evening we got an oppurtunity to attend another outside evangelism event.

Monday we got picked up and headed out on a seven hour ride to the city next to our village. We're staying at an apartment in the city until we find a place to live in the village. We're praying for God to find us good place to stay. In the meanwhile we will be doing our work from here. The local church that's going to help us when we're in need is very kind. They've been very welcoming and a big blessing to us.

Thank you for your prayers and please continue praying for us.

God bless you!

Last day!

2010-06-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today is our last day here. Tomorrow we're leaving to Ukraine!

Last couple of days have been hectic with graduation, family and friends in town, shopping and packing. We're putting the finishing touches on our luggage and getting set to go. Very excited to get to Ukraine and everything that awaits us there!

Thank you for all your prayers and support. Please continue praying for us to touch the lives of the people we will be ministering to and that God uses us for His glory.

Bus Trip!

2010-05-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

We're on a SMBS (Slavic Missionary Bible School) Choir bus trip right now. There's a big group of us traveling, 70 people in all. So far we've stopped in Ashville-North Carolina, Harrisburg-Virginia, Columbus-Ohio, Cleveland-Ohio, Erie-Pennsylvania, Rochester-New York, Utica-New York and are currently in Binghamton, New York. If you want to hear our choir sing, please look on YouTube under- SMBS 2010.

It's been a real blessing to sing for other churches and tell others about what God has done in our lives and what we have planned for the summer. We want others to be passionate for Christ and join us in spreading the gospel as soon as they can. The churches have been very hospitable to us, they've feed us very well and people have taken us in every night. May God bless them for all they've done for us. It's been a pleasure to meet so many people and know that we have a welcoming Christian family wherever we go.

The places we have left to go to before we head back home to Jacksonville are Lancaster-Pennsylvania and Philadelphia-Pennsylvania. Once we get back home, we have about two weeks left till we fly out to Ukraine! The time is coming up really quick. Please pray for our group and also the people in Ukraine that we will be ministering to. God bless you!

First Post!

2010-04-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Our first official blog post! Exciting! We’re going to try to keep on top of this to let everyone know what’s going on before and during our mission trip, but with possible lack of service in the village, that might not be as frequently as we’d like. Please become a follower of our page so you could get the quickest update!

We had a busy week last week- lots of things going on at the same time. We got our groups recently, had to start collecting money right away, buy stuff for packages, prepare to send them out, practice for the talent show, and still do our regular school activities such as class, jail, choir, church and youth. Everyone made it through in one piece and praise the Lord that the talent show was so successful, we had more people attend then was expected!

This week we need to finish buying supplies for our mission in Ukraine, everything we want to send in packages that will take a month to get there and should arrive when we do. We need to finish getting the kids supplies for crafts, games, and other fun activities. Also we need the sound equipment, sport equipment and numerous other things.

Please keep us in your prayers so that we get the money we need, get everything done in time and don’t forget anything. Also, please pray for God to prepare the hearts of the people in the village we’re going to in Ukraine. God bless you!

Donate HERE

2010-04-19T21:12:00.000-07:00