March 8th – one of the most celebrated holidays in Ukraine - Woman Day. It is something similar to a Valentine’s Day, except more focus and honor is on woman.
Guys decided to honor girls in a special way. They turned Artem’s living room into a restaurant and served them all evening. Some were waiters, some cooks, and some washed the dishes. You had to see the excitement and pleasant surprise of the girls at each meal was brought to the table. At times they applauded. See more photos here…
Every winter JV does a great conference for all participants of Summer Camps. It bonds stronger those who remained with the youth group and draws back those who disappeared since Summer. Great lectures, great fun, great time in small groups! See more photos here…
We had a special retreat for boys in February. I took them to spend the night at our country house. The goal was to have fun, food, and a Sex Talk.
It was very cold during that week. The temperature was as low as -30C (-22F). But that did not stop them from doing manly stuff like you se on the pictures above 
The house consists just of one room and a kitchen. Cooking and heating on firewood which we took turns chopping. The water is brought in buckets from a well couple hundred yards away. But the funniest part was the bathroom – an outhouse. Can you imagine going to the outhouse in the middle of the night when it is -30C (-22F)! But this is what makes it exiting for boys.
We had a time of teaching on relationships with he opposite sex – a very relevant topic at this stage of life.
Then we had a good hockey fight on a frozen pond. We made half of the hockey sticks by ourselves and when they broke, we used the shovels. See more photos here…
After a long series of Christmas holidays our youth resumed their meed-week meetings, called Shift. On the picture above, you can see Elina teaching on worship.
Our apartment is one of the favorite places for the youth to hang out. We love do have them for the youth meetings here. See more photos here…
January 7th – Ukrainian Christmas! We had a special service on Christmas. You can see our kids sharing poems and songs about coming of Christ on the picture above.
New Year is a big celebration in Ukraine. When I lived in the States, it was just like any other night. But not in Ukraine! Parties, fireworks, food and fun all night. See few more photos from the youth New Years Party…
This is one of the ways we change the world into a better place – by bringing joy and the love of Christ to the kids in the orphanage. Our youth came with a program full of fun, crafts, games, and the Gospel. They had a blast with the kids. See more photos here…
FBI – Fancy Beautiful Intelligent – is what our girls call their weekly hang outs. They do the regular girly things (don’t know exactly what, cause no boys allowed). But from what I heard, Nadia, Tania, and Elina do a good job teaching. It is so good, girls continue to discuss it many days after the meeting. See all the fun photos here… and here…
It was a very special Sunday Morning Service because the youth did it all, from the set-up to worship, sermon, announcements, offerings, tea-coffee and clean-up. Great team work! There was so much panning and praying involved! Everyone loved the service! See more photos here…
As the girls from the youth group have their FBI (Fancy Beautiful Intelligent) meetings where they do their girly things, our boys do what man do – they fight. It was fun to shoot each other with the pain balls and then talk about it for a long time. Se more photos here…
The focus of this youth retreat was on spiritual growth of those who just came to Christ during the Summer Camps. It was edifying, and it was fun. Great time of worship, learning and fellowship. Artem and Vasyl did a great job teaching. Good team work produces such a wonderful event. See more photos here…
Even though we celebrate Thanksgiving in our church each year, this is not the same holiday that is observed in the USA. In Ukraine it is not official holiday. This is just one of the Sundays in the fall that our church chooses to make a special accent on thankfulness. We make it one of the special services where people can invite their friends. We have such a things as pie contest, kids sing and do drama, and such. See more photos…
Four of our youth leaders went to JV Fall conference in Czech Republic. The conference’s focus was on evangelism and discipleship. They came exited eager to share everything they learned with other youth. Big thank to JV for a great job they do in equipping churches of Eastern Europe in reaching the next generation with the Gospel.
It was a great seminar on question driven coaching. Peter Scheele is known evangelist, speaker and author taught how to share your faith through the means of Internet.
Mighty men from two EN churches (London and Lviv) went on a mission trip to Carpathian Mountains to do construction work on a mission base. A lot was accomplished. As a result we have hot running water in the house, inside toilet is hooked to a septic now, we have a floor on the attic where we plan to make two rooms. Men worked hard even under the rain. Some of the things we moved weighed over 600 kilograms (1200 lb).
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We also had great times of sharing the Word. We had no ladies and kooked by ourselves and we survived! Not only survived, but you had to try the stakes pastor Wolfi and Max made!
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I believe it was one of the largest Varenyky Festivals we ever had. This is one of our annual events where we encourage people to invite their friends.
We had fun making our food together, cooked in on fire and ate it together. Then we shared testimonies. Clicking on a picture will take you to Varenyky Festivals photo-gallery.
Here is a short presentation of our small groups that have resumed in this semester. To view, keep clicking Play button.
We had a special guest speaker that morning who taught on a doctrine of man during the Sunday afternoon seminar. His name was Petro Kovaliv.
The reason he is very special to us is because this professor of a Seminary in Kyiv has his rots in our church. Petro and I (Igor) were saved at about the same time. Who would think in 1993 He would become a Dean in Seminary and I would become a pastor. As I think about this I am grateful to all the people God placed in my life to help me to become who I am and to help me come to where I am now.
Five day journey down the Dnister River. Adventures, sharing hardships together, having fun and playing together, cooking and eating together, worshiping under the stars together, daily Devotions and Bible study… and much more Just click on this photo to see for yourself…
This is one of our church’s favorite events…
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