Hello and GOD bless!  Just wanted to update everyone on the ministries here in Poltava over the last week or so, as many of you know our family is here on volunteer basis only. Thanks to support from Mississippi Baptist and our home Church, Springdale Baptist, we are able to be here on the field each summer.   Having said all that, we do work with  International Mission Board strategic coordinators, Mike and Lynda Ray.  They are the ones who suggested that Poltava would be a great match for our family and they were so right, now eight years later we are still coming and partnering with them and Salvation Church.

This week we had the wonderful blessing of working with two teams that came to Poltava through the Rays and IMB.  They were from F.B.C. Garden City, Georgia and F.B.C. Crossett, Arkansas.  They did children’s camps every day in four different areas.  The teams did a great job sharing the Gospel through Bible stories, testimonies, as well as just being Christ love, hands and feet.  Please pray for the continued work in these areas and the local Ukrainians who will we continue to try to meet with these children.  These are some of the people and places we would like to ask you to lift up daily, prayer is the key so please pray for these, GOD bless, I’ll post some of the photos from the week below.
Please pray for – The Red Way community (No Church here) please pray for Natasha as she continues to meet with these kids at her house, the Za Vorskala village (No church here) please pray for Roman & Ira as they continue kids meetings and adult home groups in this village, the Bethlehem area of Poltava (Pastor Slavic and Church family, Church construction), Chutivo village (pop. Around 6,000 with one small, young Church, please pray for Pastor Slavic and his family, their ministries in this village) Please pray for all the children and several parents and grandparents who heard the True Gospel of GRACE this week, many probably for the first time and please continue to pray for the Ray family as they live here permanently and coordinate various ministries all over east central Ukraine, especially these summer months when they are having multiple teams almost every week.  The Lewis family,  apprentice missionaries working here with the Rays, and Andrew Khudakov, our main missions coordinator for Poltava oblast, and very close friend.  He and a team of Ukrainians are in Georgia (the country) on missions this week.  Thanks again and GOD bless!  

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.  Jer 33:3

 

“ONE GOD / ONE WAY to GOD”

•   "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deut 6:4-5
• Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.  John 14:6
• For there is ONE God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,  . . . 1 Tim 2:5

This has been the central theme of our Bible studies with kids and adults alike this week. This ONE, HOLY, PERFECT indescribable GOD who has stepped out of eternity into time, the WORD of GOD made flesh.  The ONE who made all and sustains all, the ONE with all authority, all power, all glory, the GREAT I AM made manifest in the flesh, JESUS CHRIST, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS.  Please pray for all those who heard about HIS story this week, please pray for us as we attempt to share HIS STORY in the power of HIS SPIRIT, with the people of Poltava, Ukraine.  Please pray that even now and throughout the rest of the summer that the magnitude of this ONE HOLY GOD would weigh on the hearts of all those who have heard of HIS judgment to come and HIS amazing available GRACE.  Thanks so much for all your prayers!  Below are some pictures from different ministries that we were so graciously blessed by the LORD to serve in this week.   

 Tuberculosis rehab center

 Scoliosis rehab center

 Neurological rehab center

 Neurological rehab center

 Neurological rehab center

 Page and Madison waiting for the kids to come out.

 Za Vorskala Village

 Still bearing Soviet emblems  in hall where we meet.

 Karl Marx still standing in from of the building where we meet for Bible study

 Students from our English classes - we have taught them for 4 summers

 Red Way community

  Red Way community

 Sports at Red Way community

 One of the many, many buses or trollies we have taken this week :))

This week in Poltava, Ukraine 6-5-2013

This week we have been in several children’s hospitals (rehabilitation centers) and two schools.  One is a private English school that we have been working with for several years and one is a public school in the Levada district of Poltava (pictured above).  Please pray for all these students and teachers as we share English practice with them and invite them to our Bible based English club that meets each Saturday.  Please pray for us as we attempt to share Christ with them, that we would be doing so only in the power of HIS SPIRIT and that the words of our mouths and the attitudes of our heart would be just exactly what the LORD wants from us at this special time of openness in Ukraine.  We would also like to ask you to pray for two communities close to Poltava where we have been working for a couple of years, these villages are called Red Way and Za Vorskala.  We will be meeting with children and teens there weekly but are also planning for two larger camps at the end of June.  These camps will be held by our IMB Strategic coordinators, Mike and Linda Ray, and teams from the U.S.A.  Thanks so much for your prayers!  GOD bless!

Levada district apartments

ESL classes

Student groups during English practice

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Student groups during English practice



 Sports time!

 

Masha during sports time

Old friends, we taught these guys in school 8 years ago

Felesha, Page, & Madison (our team - me.)



 Children's rehabilitation centers