Greetings from Ukraine!

Eastern European EN Conference

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:22:40 +0000

The total experience was worth of 20 hours driving one way to the conference and Eastern European Pastors Gathering. I do not know about others, but I personally need periodically get inspired, broaden and refresh my vision, be encouraged by seeing what God is doing through my brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, and hear how God keeps doing what he promised to do - build His Church and the gates of hell will tot prevail it.

This trip has become a perfect discipleship moment. There were 8 of us traveling in a van and a family in a car behind us. All of them are key people in the church. It brought us very close to each other.

We thank God for the opportunity to see such a beautiful country. Every time I looked out in the window, I had hard time believing that the mountains are real and not just a picture!

See all photos here…

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Date Talk 09

admin — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:06:00 +0000

To follow up after summer camps and keep the momentum, we planned our Big Fall Outreach Project - the Date Talk weekend conference for youth. We rented a nice facility in Carpathian Mountains for three days.

Conference preparation was no lesser job then the conference itself. We hanged many posters and handed out thousands of flyers. We went on campus of Lviv’s largest university (31 000 students) and were personally inviting students. On the photo above you see Britney and Max doing a skit incinerating a fight between husband and wife to draw a crowd of students so that we can hand out conference invitations.

The project was a success. There were 38 people total, few of them were new. By the tears on the eyes of some, I saw God was working in their hearts. Listening to students’ feedback and reports of their parents, I could tell, the conference has deeply impacted the souls of students.

We divided our conference into five sessions, each followed by small group discussion. We also had a lot of fun together, games, dramas, prises, making and shooting the potato canon, hikes, and hotdogs on fire at night. After the conference we took the students on a tour of near by Mukachevo Castle.

This high quality project has increased the level o respect and prestige of our ministry in the eyes of the students.

Besides achieving the main goal – reaching the lost with the Biblical principles about the relationships and dating, there was another blessing. Making a conference like this has caused a huge growth and built-up of our Youth Ministry Team. Half of them are young believers. Responsibilities for leading groups, games, dramas were very beneficial for their maturity.

See all photos here…

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JV Youth Ministry Conference

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:05:20 +0000

The theme of this conference was Passing the Baton. It was all about discipleship. The conference was in the mountains of Czech Republic. It was done by Josiah Venture, an organization whose goal is to equip local church leader of Eastern Europe to reach the youth with the Gospel.

This is the second time Elina and I attend this great conference. This time we were able to bring two more people from our church. Tanya and Vasya have a real burden for the lost youth and they are part of our Youth Ministry Team.

I believe God sent Jay (top picture) and his wife, Cameron, as an answer to my prayers. Jay has become a great source of wisdom and inspiration in reaching youth of Lviv for Christ. He is mentoring me in leading a Youth Ministry. Why me in Youth Ministry? Because in addition to pastoring a church, I am playing that role now until we have a permanent Youth Worker. And when it happens, Jay said he is willing to mentor him also.

We met with Terry, who leads Fusion, a successful ministry in reaching teens with arts. The picture above is very memorable, because it captured, what I believe, a moment of a birth of a vision. I believe God wants us to do the same in Lviv and Terry is willing to come with his team and help our church start this wonderful ministry.

See all the photos here…

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Varenyky Day 09

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:13:33 +0000

We had our annual Varenyky Day. Varenyky Day has become our Church’s good tradition. Varenyky is a national Ukrainian Dish. It is normally served on Sundays. On Varenyky day we have a picnic. We make a dough and filling from scratch outdoor and then cook Varenyky in a large pot on fire. The is a requirement for each person to make at least one Varenyk. After fun of making them together it is even more fun to eat Varenyky together.

We invited several unchurched guests to the celebration and teens from our Change-The-World Outreach. They liked the spirit of family that was present there and all the fun they had with us. Events like this is a great opportunity to show to the world how we live, how we love and fellowship. This is exiting!

There were 25 kids among us. Some of them already made their own Varenyky. See all photos here…

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Happy “New Year!” + New Programs + Vision for 2010

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:40:18 +0000

Is it not a bit too early to have New Years Party in September? Not if you are a student

After Summer we decided to begin a new School Year with a party to give us a nice start. It was great to see all the students again. Some of them did not go to our camps during the Summer. Plus there were some new students. We had fun! Now we are looking forward to working with them in 2009-2010. See other photos here…

Youth Church, Bible Studies, and Sports…

We are exited to make some major changes in our weekly routine in our work with the students. Up until now we had two major weekly events: English Club and Student Caffe, plus occasional movie nights, picnics, or games. All of it were non-Christian events, designed to build relationships, bless and help students.

We introduced a new meeting. From now every other Thursday we are having a “Youth Church” called The Rock. Other Thursday nights are still for Student Caffe.

We also started three weekly Bible Study groups, one for boys, one for girls, and one mixed.

We add a Sports Night on Saturdays. We rent a gym at a local school to play sports with the students.

Our Ministry Team…

God blessed us with a great Youth Ministry Team. Without them all this would have been impossible. I meet with them for prayer and planning every other week. But we continue to pray for a full time Youth Worker, because everyone on our present Youth Ministry team has jobs and volunteers in their free time.

Vision to reach teens trough Art…

We believe God wants us to do four camps next Summer. Three of them we wave had before: Kids Camp in Carpathians, English Camp and Boat Camp. But the new would be the Arts Camp. We will do it in partnership with Fusion, a ministry based in Czech Republic. As result of this new camp we dream to begin a new outreach program. It would be designed to reach teenagers with the Gospel through a Rock Choir. As we move farther toward this goal I will explain it later in more details.

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Outreach Boat Camp 09

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:13:55 +0000

We did this camp as a follow-up after our English camp. We partnered with JV and they generously provided us with the boats and other equipment.

We had a Bible talk around a camp fire each night followed by a discussion in small groups. The most exiting thing was that two of the small group leaders were the guys whom we were reaching out to during our Boat Camp 2008!!

During the last camp fire meeting several of us shared about the difference Christ has made in our lives. There in nothing like a personal testimony. A someone may say he does not believe in God but he can not say that my transformed life does not exist!

A friend of mine, Carl, gave me this chain saw last summer. He thought it would become helpful in making firewood for my village house. But if unexpectedly became a central attraction for all the boys during this camp. They all lined up to use it every night. We alway had more firewood than we actually needed

This time we had no bus following us. We had to carry all our tents, backpacks, food, water and other supplies with us on boats. They were heavy to move with all the load. Every night and morning we took turns to prepare a meal for everybody. The camp was a lot of physical work. It was real bounding and character testing time.

We made near 100 kilometers (60 miles) on our boats. It took a lot of pedaling. But we also had time for some real fun.

We also celebrated few people’s birthdays with balloons and fireworks at night.

Nothing connects people better than emergency. We had one, as one of our boats got a large hole. It is a good thing we had a repair kit and boys who can save the boat

Click here to see more photos from this camp.

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Baptismal Service

admin — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:20:32 +0000

We had water baptism on Saturday. We have a tradition of going to the lake with the church and have a time of celebration afterwards. This time out of ten candidates for baptism only two, Vasyl and Dema, felt they were ready. Others decided to take more time to test their own hearts.

Vasyl

Vasyl came to our church through the Rafting Camp we did in 2008. God has been working in his heart even prior to meting us and he felt that he found a spiritual family right away. By now Vasyl has become a very fruitful in ministry, even fulfilling some leadership roles in our youth outreach.

Dema

Dema is 18. He is an orphan. He has had a difficult life. His criminal “friends” were his only family for quite a while. Dema told me that he got him a new phone number, and threw the old one away because now he has a new family. But knowing Dema, it will not be long before he will start contacting his old friends himself, to hare his new hope he has found in Jesus.

By the way, he is the same Dema, I was writing about in “A 30 km Hike in the Mountains”

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Nastya

As we finished baptizing Vasyl and Dema, one of those who hesitated, Nastya, said that she can not wait to another baptismal service and wants to be baptized right now. As we found out later the reason for her hesitancy was the fear of going under the water. It was brave of her to step over her fear in order to fulfill Christ’s command.

Galya

Out of sudden, Galya, a guest that came with one of our church members, asked us to baptize her as well. After a short interview to make sure she wanted to do it out of right reasons, we baptized Galya. Our regular encouragement for people to bring their friends to church events gave its fruit. Praise God for continuing building His Church!!!

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English Camp

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:32:03 +0000

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Our English Camp lasted only seven days, but it made an eternal impact on many precious young souls. It was full of fun, games, activities, swimming, good food, but the main thing that excites me as I think back of the camp was the fact that over thirty non-church kids camped a week together with another thirty people who are the walking testimonies of God’s love, grace, power and goodness, and who are full of His Spirit and have a heart for the lost (total camp size was 65 people). I mean sharing tents, meals, fun, joy and sorrows, but the main thing sharing each others life’s story and sharing The Story. Because most of you read about in my newsletter I will not repeat myself here, but show you some photos from the camp. Click here to see the photos… Shocker video

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Kids Camp/Mission in Carpathians

admin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:09:58 +0000

We just had our first camp this Summer. It was camp for our church kids, but what made it special was the fact that our kids went to minister to the local children in Carpathian villages. They went well prepared to do games, drama, and different fun activities through which the Gospel was presented and the Love of God was shared.

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Another fact that made this camp very special was that it was done together with a great mission team from EN London. They made it all Extra Fun, Extra Colorful, Extra Joy, and Extra Love.

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Please click here to see pictures from this camp.

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Youth Bicycle Trip

admin — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:41:13 +0000

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We took the youth from our Change the World Outreach on a bicycle trip. We loaded all the bicycles into our church van and went to a starting point to a small historical town, Zhovkva, near Lviv. Evryone vent there by bus. We stopped for a picnic in the woods. We made 30 km that day. Kids were tired but happy. You can see more photos here…

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