Category: Bruce Posts (Page 145 of 211)

What a busy week and weekend! We hosted a student retreat (paintball!) west of Kiev in a small town called Bucha. 13 students from our 14th Technicum, most of which were brand new faces, at least to me. I’ve made a quick video of the weekend if you have 5 minutes. The main purpose of the weekend was evangelistic – please pray for these students! We are meeting tonight at the Cafe for any of them that want to take the ‘next step’ with God, I have no idea if any will come, but I believe God is working on many of their hearts and I’m praying for at least one!

Clear as mud.

Speaking of students, last night Shane and Jemimah were pleased to find that over 60 students attended only the second weekly ‘youth group’ at the other school in town. This was the one that we were praying to get into, and met with one of the directors a few weeks ago. The larger auditorium has now been granted, the room that I’ve personally been praying and envisioning there for a few years being packed with students hungry for purpose and direction in their life.

Whenever there are numbers and potentially lives changed for Christ, there’s bound to be some controversy and opposition both in seen and unseen world. Please pray for wisdom, patience, endurance, favor, and the Spirit of God to super-cede the humble human efforts. We need God to move in these schools beyond numbers, with lives changed, sin forgiven and walking in the power of God.

“…and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Paul’s prayer to the Ephesian church, on my heart.   God doesn’t want people to simply give mental ascent to a series of truths.  He wants a knowledge of His love that surpasses human intellect.  To experience the love of God personally is to be forever changed

I think it's funny Nike promoting both Tebow and Football where neither would be recognized.

Ok, I promised myself I wouldn’t start preaching and end up with a novel here. God is definitely stirring a hunger for an AWAKENING in this generation. I’ve been listening again to older sermons, reading things that inspire radical change for Christ in our day.

That will be for another day however, here’s a few quick updates in bullet format!

• We are picking up the $ for the tables/chairs and kitchen equipment today at the bank!!  Thank you all that have given, pictures coming soon as we plan to purchase things in the next two weeks.
• Kids are all doing well at school.  Noah started kindergarten this week and is liking it so far but sad he hasn’t been able to play outside yet (weather).
• Deb has her 2nd Wives Meeting scheduled this weekend, please pray that some unbelievers will choose to come out – we really want to connect more with the community outside of the church.
• Russian is going really well again, 4hrs of lessons yesterday in Kiev with Bron and Rodge.  Deb unfortunately couldn’t come, we really would love a solution that would include her and us not having to drive to Kiev often.  Pressing into the language though and feel God’s pleasure in it.   The drive to share God’s truth with people is a motivating factor this time, whereas before I personally was pretty consumed with Texas work all the time, problems, projects etc..
• Work in Texas is going really well again.  While we’re not blowing the doors off financially speaking, we’re back on our feet after a really rough summer, and the team assembled is really a blessing from God.
• Little Abbey is our family sweetie pie, what a joy.

Stay strong, remembering your strength is in the Lord!

Bruce & Deb Crowe
Missionaries | Rzhyshchiv, Ukraine

Been taking in some classic sermons. If you have 7 minutes, you’ll be encouraged (or convicted, or both!) by this challenge from Leonard Ravenhill.

Today we went to Kiev to take Brent to the American Medical Center to prove to the doctor in charge of permitting him to play sports, that he is fit to be permitted! I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but rarely do things here. After no less than 10 trips to the doctors for tests, evaluations, and general insanity, 2 of our kids have been accepted into the school legally as healthy. Brent however wasn’t given the green light, they wanted him to have heart tests for some reason. So he had a full cardiogram, general check up and deemed fit as a horse.. not that this means we’re clear.. we have to go back Friday to show them the results and hope and against hope they’ll be in a good mood and give him a release. Meanwhile the doctor wants to see our oldest two, who aren’t even in public school! She’s taken it upon herself to be our guardian of Ukrainian health – how far down the rabbit hole doth we wander?

Praying and believing God for a route to take with Russian studies. September was a wonderful month of progress and getting ‘back in the saddle’ with Irina coming down from Kiev twice weekly. She can’t come down anymore but has offered a couple SEND language school slots for us in Kiev. The challenge is we have kids in school here that need to be picked up every day, and the logistics of running a family of 7 with Mom and Dad out of pocket in Kiev twice per week would cause a meltdown on the home front. We are extremely desirous of more serious and sustained study, would you pray for a teacher, a situation, a blessing, an open door, anything that would enable us to progress in our studies.. we long to communicate more clearly and freely with those we live with but we need a pretty special situation to present itself for that to happen (and it not take another 4yrs!).

Bruce & Deb

We are privileged to be a part of the body of Christ at Crossroads Church in Longview, Texas. They’ve been incredibly supporting over the years, both to the vision God put in our hearts for the former Soviet Union, and in all the practical things that help that vision come to life.

This past Sunday during their service we Skyped in from the Cafe. They took an offering towards the Dishes, Utensils, Cookware and other kitchen type things we need. They raised $2,100! Earlier that week, we had investigated the costs in Kiev and figured we needed $2,000.. how cool is that?

In addition to now having the funds to furnish out the kitchen, someone is going to donate toward the dishwasher, the last major appliance we needed to buy.

Here’s a message on Ephesians from Bo Bolding, our pastor at Crossroads just after our Skype for anyone that needs encouragement.  We are part of a glorious universal plan called the Church!

We’re still a bit short on the tables and chairs but I’ve been researching options in Kiev and going to visit a few places next week to try and get things started. It seemed only a month ago that we were stuck, and things weren’t going to be ready for opening before the end of the year. With the flurry of giving and support we’re now energized and encouraged to open this place for the soon coming cold months.

Still some more document needs outstanding before we can officially open to the public and sell things, but we are getting closer to functioning as a real pizza cafe!!

As a side note, remember I talked about the request to hoist up a banner on the Cafe for Klitchko’s political party? Sergei informed me the other day it was probably a good thing we decided not to. The mayor was going around this past week ordering the signs down.. there are no more signs in our town for the opposition party.  Now that’s a fair election!

Thanks to the Mom as well who left this morning. She cooked like a maniac, cleaned like a superhero, and loved on us all like only a Mom can. We love you, please come back! 🙂

Sincerely,
Bruce

We have raised together a total of $3,200 towards the tables, chairs and benches needed for the Lighthouse Cafe & Ministry Center. Thank you to all that have given!

We will be ordering next week in hopes to have seating in place in October so if you’d like to help us chip away at the remaining, please click below!

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Remember all donations are tax deduct-able, and no amount is too small. Give with joy and without compulsion:)

Thank you !!
Bruce & Deb