Category: Bruce Posts (Page 103 of 211)

Yesterday as the US celebrated Independence Day, 2,000 newly trained Police took oaths in Kiev.  The US, Canada and other western nations have been working with the recruits to replace existing, corrupt forces.  It is a positive sign that less arbitrary ‘shake downs’ will take place in Ukraine, and a return of civic pride hopefully within this visible public service.

We can hope that this shift toward integrity and Christian based ethic will work its way into the interior of the current government, including the utilities.  We still don’t have gas at the Cafe, and we continually work at it every week (+2yrs now).  We’ve paid over $4k in fees, documents, approvals, everything you can think of – wasted months, literally in lines, driving documents from one city to the next, fixing other people’s mistakes.   I lost track about a year ago how many trips, and steps this has taken, but it’s gone beyond insanity, and continues to to bounce around in an abyss of ineptitude.

I’ve considered backtracking and documenting as best we can remember, naming names and publishing a ‘history of activating gas in a private business’, in Ukrainian.  It would reveal, in my opinion a major roadblock for this country to crawl out of this broken economy.  It can’t do the most obvious, useful things for business without bribes still, or threats.  Most non-business owners are oblivious to these things, they see new police force, and other positive things, but there are layers of roadblocks for this stalled economic engine that is Ukraine.  Still very little motivation or incentive for folks to plainly do their job, and so many unnecessary layers of employed government workers – I would guess 60% of the current labor force does nothing but impede economic recovery.   It’s a catch 22, to cut these jobs would create widespread panic, yet continuing to employ them keep a nation locked in this post communistic spiral.

Enough geopolitical blather.  It’s been hot, and Camp 120 is now underway.  110 signed up, mostly believers from the area (and some from Kiev) are headed out to essentially ‘survivor ukraine’.   Shane and Jem oversea the camp, and put lot of work into setting up the island and coordination.  Our older two are going this year again, the rest of us will enjoy a quieter week, and heading out later this week for a little camp/getaway with the little ones to Western Ukraine.  We found a white water rapid camp, with a cottage in the Carpathian Mountains.  For years we’ve heard how beautiful western Ukraine is, but we’ve yet to venture by car, it’s a 10hr or so drive, made shorter in our minds after our US 60hr adventure!  I’m really looking forward to it.  Hopefully we don’t have cell phone coverage!

No real progress on our burglary (that we know of).  We’ve been much more diligent about locking doors and windows, as well as some other security measures.  I think others have learned from our break in, hearing stories of some added measures around town from friends and neighbors.  We need to start a Crime Stoppers Ukraine.. the problem is the local police act very slowly, and even if we caught someone, it might take months before you were able to truly do anything in the area of justice.   The other night there was some hooligans from another town at our beach, some actual gunfire, police showed up, nothing was done.  The problem goes beyond simply catching thieves, we need a revolution, a Christ centered awakening to the gospel  – the reality of God, the fear of God and the love of God.  You see in America the results when this reality fades, we need to see it continue to emerge – and I believe it is emerging as we pray and more boldly represent him in our towns, outside of our spiritual huddles, and embrace a faith of possibility.

Thankful to all of you that have prayed during this past week.  We appreciate as well our home church Crossroads that generously gave this month and lessened the blow to our losses.  God is so kind, and we are very blessed.

We just finished a family study around the table, whiteboard and all.  I don’t do enough of this, and the amount of functioning minds in our family is growing .. we have a real home group now all by ourselves.  We studied ‘what is success’, and looked at what the world defines vs God defines as success.  It boiled down to love.  What do you love?  If you love God, you fear and Him and love your fellow man.  If you love mercy, kindness, humility, you are considered living with success according to scripture.  If you think of others first, if you serve and lay down your agenda for others – you are like God in Christ, and this is winning.  We can enjoy the things of this world, we can gain material things and recognition, none of which are inherently good or evil – the heart’s motives and end game focus are what determine that.  When we love God (heart, soul, mind, strength), we are free from fear of man, bondage of materialism, condemnation.

I love my kids.  I am proud of their pursuits, but recognize a lack of spiritual pursuit and energy in all of us.  We need to be infused lovers of God, lovers of others before ourselves.  We need to do this not because it makes us look spiritual or we are being obedient, but because God is amazing, and amazes us when we think upon Christ.   Motivations matter.  May we all be motivated this week, whatever we are doing, by the immense, and very real love of God – as demonstrated on the Cross, made meaningful daily by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Pray For:

– Gas (we need pizza going by Aug 1 or have to decrease worker hours)

– Permanent Residence (documents in Kiev for Claire/Rodge/Bron, need these so we can get Russian visas).

– Collins (YWAM brother praying about joining us for longer term, pray for this and him!)

– This week trip, a lot of driving, also in mountains.. and in Ukraine 🙂

– Our pastor friend scooter stolen, their only transportation for family.

– Fall/Winter plans – our big focus right now, hopefully time to also pray more this week, join us for God’s wisdom and direction.

Bruce & Deb

The last thing I want to write about is this.  The wounds are fresh.  However, in keeping with the past 7yrs and our blog journey in Ukraine, I need to keep it real and jot things down.

A couple weeks ago we noticed Deb’s laptop was missing.  We eventually came to terms with the fact that it was stolen from our kids school room which leads to our deck.  We have so many neighbor kids wandering about, we figured it was one of them.  However we remember an odd thing around this time, our power went out in our house around 3am.   That’s not entirely strange here, but the fact that we had to manually power the house back up at the breaker is strange, usually the whole town or neighborhood just goes off/on without having to touch the breaker box.

Deb grieved about it, she loved her little macbook air.  Fast forward to this past Sunday morning, I awoke to a house without power.  I was racing to go to Kiev for church, so I didn’t think much about it.  It wasn’t until I saw the breaker box was manually shut off again that my mind began swarming with bad thoughts.   I immediately checked the outside door to the basement, locked, good.   Noah then remarked how he had shut the balcony window the morning because it was too cold – ouch.  Not good.  We have generally been inconsistence with our windows and door lockings – we know better, but who in their right mind would come into our house with all of us actually there?

The first thing I noticed was my wallet.  It was in the same place I left it at night, but completely empty.  We don’t use banks here, and almost always have a lot of cash on hand between Cafe and personal needs daily.  I had just returned from the bank for costly vehicle fixes, and had an unordinary amount of US and HRV on hand, over $700!  It pains me to write that, it’s a lot of money to us, and for the Ukrainian friends more than 2 months wage.   Thankfully all my credit cards, and drivers license were not taken.

Then we noticed our older macbook (a hand me down from our texas business) was missing the power adapter.  This is very strange because the batter doesn’t work in it, and requires the adapter.  Tucker had been using it the night before.  The thief we think had returned for the macbook air power supply, grabbed the wrong cord.

We then noticed today my Canon t3i is gone, it was also in the kitchen area.  The bad and adapter was left, and extra lens.  I loved that camera.  Now I feel Deb’s pain.

For those of you that have had things pinched, you know how this works.  You immediately begin assuming more things were taken, but you have no idea how to actually look for those things – out of sight, out of mind.  It’s not until through the course of every day life you begin to realize the extent of the crime – sometimes it’s not for months.  I have bought so many gas cans.

What really hurts, is the betrayal of your fellow man.  The fact that someone came into your personal property, right into your home where your children lay asleep – and snooped about – something fierce wells up inside that is uncommon.  I’m discouraged by the loss of property, but that’s nothing new here for us – we’ve had 4-5 bikes, phones, scooters, toys, all kinds of small and large things taken in our 7yrs. I was doing the math yesterday and between some bad property deals and items from our property, we’ve lost about $2k per year.   I know other missionaries in other countries where that is chump change compared to their losses.  Only once have we, that we know of, had an intruder – and the previous time it was only a small 12yr old kid.   This could be a kid as well, or a few teenagers, we don’t know – but I feel like someone has crossed a serious line, and I am doing all I can to seek justice and wising up to our home security neglect.

This time I have included the police, and worked through their channels.  A few years ago I wouldn’t have done this, and didn’t when things went missing.   The government is trying to change, there is an improved civic pride (albeit slowly improving), and I figured if anything, we’d get to know better the different police and investigators.  One of them is interested in English nights.  They came to our house, reviewed and took fingerprints (probably most of my kids, but we do have a few solid spots they touched).  I also went to some of our previous ‘contacts’ within the Rz Jr. KGB, some reformed bad teens that have stolen from us in the past, but have become allies.  Their names are protected, they are undercover and work for rewards!

The more I investigate myself, the more information I’m finding out about crime in our town and others close by.  The inspectors who came last night, were on their 5th crime scene of the day!  They said crime has increased at least double from the same time as last year.  I wrote about this last year, as a real concern as people legitimately go hungry, struggle to survive – I don’t give excuse to what these guys do, but many people are desperate, and that desperations is increasing – it will increase here in Ukraine until the economy gets some legs, the warring with Russia is resolved to a greater degree – I think this winter is going to be the most difficult winter for a majority of ‘regular’ Ukrainians in a long, long time.  I think this is part of the political plan, to bring a nation to it’s knees, to concessions that have been long established – when people turn on each other, when the strong are forced to rule the week for their own protection – insurrection, riots, instability.

Anyway, enough pondering.  Deb returns tomorrow, we are so excited to see them all back.  We will be dumping our two oldest on an island for a week with 100 other believers as the annual Camp 120 resumes.  We’re hoping to be able to do something fun with the rest of the crew.  After a couple weeks minus Deb, I’m ready to take her on our own island, some deserted remote place – as long as it has AC.

Bruce

Random little ‘fair’ shows up in center – $1 for 10 minutes.

The count is on.  Deb returns in t-minus 4 days!  I’ve had some fun on facebook posting some random (and oft’ exaggerated) observations over the past week.  It has been a tiring week, but rewarding as well.  Nothing quite like being without your soul mate and logistics partner for more than a few days to awaken the gratitude towards your spouse.

I was thinking today if something happened to Deb, I would immediately begin hunting for a wife.  I’d have to keep my motivations a tad conspicuous out of the gate with the poor new prospect.  This mental taxation is quite interesting to go through solo.  I’d need a spouse fairly quickly to absorb at least a portion of the zillion questions and ridiculous issues that arise as a stay at home dad.  I have a new respect for my wife’s patience – all you mom’s out there that ‘don’t work’, these kids are making you like Jesus – rejoice.

This week we had our 3rd English night.  It was mostly geared toward young people as we played The Incredibles and highlighted keywords to look for (with prizes).  We had about 15 or so.  My new friend Alex came again with his girlfriends daughter and we spent the entire time over coffee getting to know one another – he spoke and practiced his english, I dusting off my Russian which hasn’t been used too much lately.   It seems like God is surrounding me with more english speaking Ukranians, and in some pretty neat circumstances.   I’ve met several new locals that were raised in our town but work during the week in Kiev – school teachers, business owners, even a web project manager – so many unique stories and bridges being built – I’m very encouraged by this.   If they are at the Cafe, I’m able to take them upstairs and share a bit more of our work and testimony – it’s always interesting gauging their reactions, you can tell pretty quickly if they think we are from mars or if God is already at work in their own hearts at some level.

I’m planning to connect again with Alex this next week and visit his club – as well as take him a little road trip to visit some friends I think he will really enjoy.   Alex is a very sharp guy, he reads Richard Dawkins and considers himself an agnostic.  He might be the first Ukrainian I’ve talked with that was a Dawkins fan.  We briefly touched on philosophy and religion, and he admits this is a topic he would enjoy engaging in.  He’s a degreed nuclear engineer, with a very interesting background – pray for him, and for our conversations to produce fruit.  It’s a been a while since I’ve entered the intellectual waters of debate – and I believe the Lord has connected us, using the vehicle of mutual language learning.

Poetry Night

This morning I had a neat time over coffee with Natasha – she’s a very creative, artsy/rebel (think Ukrainian Cindy Lauper for those over 35) type that hosted the poetry night a few weeks ago that was a big success.  I immediately felt drawn to pray for her, and asked Sveta to organize a time to chat more (needed translation help).

Without disclosing too much online, as many of our new friends now read our blog, I would ask that you also pray for Natasha – she is hosting a town-wide ‘creative’ event on July 25th and The Lighthouse is going to support her with some prizes/help.  They are going to possibly use our cafe for parts of the all day event which will include crafts, photography/treasure hunt, and concerts into the evening.  We’ve agreed to put together a band and perform at the event.   Anyway, Natasha is an edgy, fringe type personality that reminds me of the kind of people that the traditional church might shy away from and she would never want any part of anyway.   I was able to share with her the love of God over her life, something that today might seem miles away from a reality to her – but we know and believe is here today.  She is an influencer with many social networks, and some really neat gifts – let’s pray for her!

We are also progressing on some things for this fall, which I will share more about later – but appreciate you to be in prayer about with/for us!

Things you can pray for :

– Finances.  The Cafe only has 2 or 3 regular supporters monthly.   We are doing really well considering all things here in Ukraine – but continue to function at a loss each month that takes a large bite into our personal support (which we truly need to keep fed).  We either need some more personal support monthly, or some specifically donated support for the Cafe – in the area of $500/mo to help us stay in the black.  It was $700/mo at the start of the year, so we’re thankful it’s heading in the right direction!   We’re grateful to the YWAM team who left us a generous donation that will help for the next few months, but heading into this fall we appreciate prayer and consideration as we keep biting off more ministry opportunities, hiring more staff, and growing by faith.   We are sponsoring and planning events and retreats this fall, things that we currently don’t have funding for – if you can’t give, you can pray for our faith and for more supporters.

You can give online using our secure Paypal link (all major credit cards accepted): http://www.liftupyoureyes.com/?page_id=877 – if you would like to give by check and like a tax receipt please contact us privately for instructions.

– Broderic.  He is heading into his final ‘season’ of homeschooling and feeling the pressure for the ‘next thing’.  For those of you that know Broderic, you can appreciate his kind, humble personality and I’m so thankful for his genuine love for God and pursuit.   He is the first of the Crowe kids to begin the adventure out into this world and both he and his parents are new at this.  Pray for God’s best to be revealed this year for him.

– Ministry team.  Entering into this year we believed God was putting pieces together towards the formation of a more specific ministry team (beyond just the Cafe staff which was our focus last fall/winter).  God has worked wonders in Sveta’s life and she continues to deepen in her love for Christ, and we have put more ministry/discipleship type opportunities before her.  We are also encouraged to see more believers from various churches hanging out, coming to different events, and desiring to be more active/mobile in their faith.  We are also praying with some others from outside of Ukraine who believe God may be sending them to serve with us in the near future.   All of this to say, our desire to see a discipleship ministry, or school that would impact local to the nations is evolving, and we are humbled and excited  – I would add nervous.   Please pray for faith and vision in our hearts to remain focused on the right things, wisdom and all those good things.  I’ve begun asking a couple respected pastors and churches that we feel God has put into our lives (beyond our sending church) to partner with us in prayer and for counsel/oversight. None of this happens without a spiritual battle, and at times I feel overwhelmed (abnormally so).  If we stay in our comfort zones, we rarely need others.  When we step out in faith, our limitations, weaknesses, and all other insecurities become both exploited (by the enemy) or discouraging personally.  We need your prayers, not just to stay ‘informed’, we NEED your prayers to advance Jesus Christ to the nations, and stay this course!   Pray for God to send us laborers to share this burden with us.

PS-we are invited again to Far East Russian in January to teach at a YWAM DTS.  We are busy getting permanent residence for Claire/Broderic and Bronwyn so we could potentially all travel.  If we went, we’d like to take some of our team, but this would be a huge step and even more costs.  It would be a huge dream come to true for us to lead a team to Russia, whether it’s this January or later – I feel this is God’s heart to mobilize and empower all believers, not just us westerners, to take Christ to the nations.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us..” Eph 3:20

Thanks for checking in, and I pray God’s grace amazes you in a fresh way today!

Bruce & Deborah

One of the sweeter things about living here – our neighbor down the street is a beekeeper.

With the team leaving last week, we’ve enjoyed some much needed downtime and evenings together as a family.  We watched several movies, including Field of Dreams – it’s fun introducing movies to my kids that spark discussion or debate.   Isn’t it interesting how watching the same movie many years later can be a completely different experience?  I found so many Christian themes in that silly movie this time – from the antagonistic forces when you step out in faith, to the providential arrangements (behind the scenes) workings, to regret and reconciliation.   My kids, not unlike my first reaction 20yrs ago, found it plain weird.

Deb, Bronwyn and Claire left this morning for Colorado.  Deb’s sister is getting married next week and I’ll be holding down the fort for the next 12 days.

Abbey is a delight. Inquisitive, kind, but can also handle her own with the boys.

Last night we hosted our 2nd English Night.  We’re getting some neat families and couples come out, it’s really encouraging.   Last week we had about 15 come out, this week several new folks came out, probably around 20-25 total which is approaching our limit upstairs – especially when we break for a round of Dance Revolution on the big screen 🙂

One new visitor Alexei, whom I met for the first time last night, owns the local ‘nightclub’ over by our theater.  His english is fairly strong, but he wants to improve it – he brought his young daughter Bogdona with him who also is quite sharp.    Alex seems like a nice guy and I hope to connect with him for coffee soon.

I’m about to head to the various computer shops in town in hopes of catching a thief.  Deb’s laptop went missing last week and we’re now fairly convinced some kids may have taken it.  About the same time it went missing, Deb found some kids on our deck (not allowed back there), and our school room door opened.  We’ve looked everywhere, but now think someone snitched it.  I’m pretty sure anyone trying to use it will need the help of a technical person.  Other than all but one of our kids bike, and the two scooters from last year, we’ve had a fairly quite year in the thievery department.   Pretty amazing considering the dozens of kids wandering in and around our house every day.

Finally convinced Alyosha to hang our new large banner – it was a very windy day making it more of a challenge that we’d thought.

Today the KBAC (pronounced KVAC) equipment arrived at the Cafe.   It should be installed by tomorrow.  It operates like a beer tap, connects to a Keg and cools on the fly.  KBAC is a wheat germ drink, that tastes similar to Beer, but is non-alcoholic and a favorite of most Ukrainians – especially in the summer.   I’m promising myself its the last ‘extra’ thing we do before Pizza – who would have thought we would have become a full fledged Dairy Queen and Starbucks and STILL not have gas.

Speaking of Gas, I’ve begun researching selling our Pizza Oven.   Even if we do get gas one day (week to week right now, a new guy from another town is dragging feet on approval), the actual costs to run the oven could be impossible to sustain.  We’re not sure until we try, but I think we need to look at electric ovens.  They are about $1000 for a good used one that can cook 4 small pizzas at a time.  I probably should have switched months ago, but we spent so much time and energy on this gas route I have been stubborn to see it finally work.   If we don’t have gas and pizza by August (students return), we will look to electric and pray God provides for that.

Visiting my friend who owns a photography shop, with a fabric business on the side – I want one of these cutters.

I’m already thinking about this fall and winter season.  I think many people are.  It’s going to be the first real test of the Ukrainian economy and social stability with new doubled gas prices and more ‘independence’ from Russia.  Russia is betting, I think, on Ukrainians to cave and for chaos mid winter when nobody can pay their bills, and homes are freezing.   Those home who haven’t switched to fully wood will be hit hard.  We are needing to get our Cafe switched to a wood burning furnace as well, and I would love to convert our house too.   These are the things domestically at least that occupy my mind recently.

My last thought of this blog, is that of the brevity of life.  I’ve always enjoyed, even as a young teen, to stroll through cemeteries (during the day!).  It’s a healthy wakeup call to my too often lazy mind and soul.  I’m reminded each time of the gift of life, the buried dreams and ambitions.  I haven’t strolled through the Ukrainian cemeteries too often, but this past week I did and was hit once again with the reality that not only did those who’ve passed have dreams and hopes, but God Himself did as well over their lives.   You could even say Christ came to make the dream of God possible – He desires none to perish but ALL to come into relationship with Him.

When Christ came, He died and rose from the grave.  I have to remind myself that or my strolls can become really depressing.  The reality of His resurrection should wake us up from slumber – that this life will fade, like the flowers of the field, but we’ll continue on living.  What I’m strolling around is just dust becoming dust.

Though we are eternal beings, the lives we live here truly matter.  Christ wants them to count for His glory, His fame, His Kingdom.  He wants them to shout to a broken world that there is a Healer.  It doesn’t matter if you are living in the US, Africa or Antarctica – your physical life matters, and your physical life will come to an end – perhaps even soon.  We know this, but we push this to the back of our minds – I don’t think we should.

Ecclesiates, in the 11th Chapter, the preacher says, “Rejoice young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of your manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.”

I think the point of the encouragement is to ‘go for it’, yet in your ‘going for it’ remember that we are not independent creatures – we are connected to our Creator, and He will bring our lives lived on earth into account.   That’s not a worrisome thought if we are embracing Jesus Christ as God and receive by faith the gift of salvation.

I want to live for that day more effectively.  Eventually someone will be walking past my tombstone, and it will be too late to ‘go for it’ – I have now, I have no guarantee of tomorrow, if it comes – it’s a gift.

Our local cemetery – the faces embossed on the tombstone bring home the reality of this gift called ‘life’.