Month: July 2012 (Page 2 of 4)

We’re about to launch a website for my neighbor Sergei. He’s a well known Ukrainian artist who has been featured in magazines, galleries in Kiev and Moscow. He is the father of Sviachik (or as my own dad likes to say, “spy-check”) who we’re essentially raising as our own.

Testing out the flickr account here on my blog-sorry to those that subscribe via RSS, but enjoy a few Ukrainian country side paintings!

Vera in Ukranian means ‘faith’. At 85yrs old, never married, Babushka Vera is the only believer in her village. Her parents were Baptist believers before WWII, in fact, so was her grandmother. During WWII, at the age of 16 she was taken by the Germans and shipped off to work. For 7yrs she lived away from her family in Germany, returning to the same home she grew up in. She’s been there ever since.

This house is over 100yrs old, it’s made of mud and various forms of concrete over the years. It’s without a foundation, only the dirt underneath it that’s kept the walls and roof up all these years. We tried our best to fill the gaping cracks in the wall with foam, and painted her windows and door while Eugene and his wife cleaned out her house the best they could.

She was definitely blessed by all the activity, she was thrilled to hear that we will come back and have some prayer and singing with her next week. She is the last living member of a church that used to congregate the next village over. At one point she said the church had 80 members which is really quite substantial considering the size of these villages. I asked her why the church had not been able to reach the next generation.. she frankly replied, ‘nobody will listen.’

We are praying that God will open the ears and hearts of the people in these surrounding villages. Pray that God would use this dear sister in Christ to bring others to the Lord – and that our next steps would be pleasing to Him.

Thank you to those who gave yesterday, it was a joy to take some of that money and truly bless this woman.  We also bought her a single top electric range as hers was really old and was overpowering her ancient electrical system.

I believe God opened an opportunity today. I’ve been praying for a particular little village nearby the past few weeks that I believe He’s put on my heart. He’s actually put a few on my heart, without any specific instructions but to pray.

There is only one protestant believer in this village, an old babushka widow. Her house is really old, and in desperate need of some repair. Tomorrow a few of us will be assessing the situation and coming up with a plan to bless her. Only an hr after making plans to do this, God blessed us with $ which we’ll use for this – we didn’t have any money, just an opportunity and took it.

It made me think of the Hudson Taylor quote, “God’s work done God’s way will never lack God’s supplies.”

I look forward to tomorrow and excited to see what God might do through this open door.

Bruce & Deborah
Missionaries | Rzhyschiv, Ukraine

We were notified that our criminal records just received last week need to be sent back to the US and receive an Apostille (international stamp). So off to FedEx (trip to Kiev) today, this piece of paper is getting some serious airmiles!

Once it returns we’ll re-submit it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and pray God gives us grace to hear what they have to say next.. so close, but so very far away!

Thank you anyone out there that is praying for this. It’s amazing how documents impact our daily lives. It even impacts our short and long term plans. We have been invited to Latvia (we’d drive) to visit some friends and I’d like to visit their bible school, but plans like that have to be put on hold because of this process. Please God let patience have it’s perfect work.. it’s working something but I don’t know if it’s always good:)

Bruce & Deb Crowe
Missionaries | Rzhyschiv, Ukraine