Category: Bruce Posts (Page 177 of 211)

We spent the week arranging the international wire transfer for the property purchase downtown. Amazing amount of details to overcome, but we think things are ready now. We sent a test amount and it was rejected, the Ukrainian side is very particular about how exactly the forms are filled out. Anyway, we are re-scheduled to sign on Thursday of next week, and the money should arrive early next week barring hold ups. Svetlana in Ukraine, and April in Texas have been working hard to help this all get organized, what a blessing they are!

Andrei Murzin is coming down this weekend with his family and staying with us. Andrei will share at church, he is a respected teacher and a great friend in Christ.

Temps are hovering around freezing, or a bit below, not bad at all. The pipes are holding up!

We attempted to get to our Russian lessons in Kiev tonight, but the traffic was unbearable and we got trapped downtown. I completely forgot how helpless you are when you get stuck in Kiev, we literally were in the car for 4 1/2hrs today, and all we did was go to the bank and eat dinner. The Indian food was almost worth the trip, almost!

Thanks for checking in, please pray for next week property transactions, we need it!

Bruce & Deb

Everyone get their fill of turkey? We had a lovely meal (swap in chicken) with Deb’s parents in their new house. It was neat to walk down the hill to the grandparent’s house and sit around a big dinner table with family!

Tonight we met with the students again at the Cafe night downtown. About 40 total came out, 15 of them much younger students, the group is widening in scope. We have decided to host an outreach on Dec 19 for the town, a “Christmas Dessert Theater”, we’ll see how that translates into Ukrainian! We are including any students that signed up (most of them signed up tonight!) in a Christmas play which we’ll invite the new Mayor and other city government officials to, as well as neighbors and family.

Pray for Dec 19, it is going to take a lot of practice, planning and we need God to bring it all together, especially His presence on that night to sow seeds and convict hearts. What an amazing opportunity to present truth so naturally, Jesus coming to earth, full of purpose and God’s mission on display!

This week I had a great first meeting with the new Mayor. He was very friendly and wants to continue the Sister City relationship, as well as to met with his new department heads about working together for youth programs (not sure exactly what he meant, but I’ll show up and see!). We conveyed our heart and plans for the cafe, and he was positive about it. It’s nice to know we’re not being secretive about things, I want everyone to understand our purpose.

Speaking of property, we are scheduled to sign this Friday, Dec 3rd if all funds are processed this week. Please pray for the funds to go through, it would be great as well to have some extra $ come in, things are really tight, but God will work it out. We are very excited to see this chapter close, and move to renovations, one step closer to fulfilling a long time vision of many of us for this town.

Thanks for checking in, we are all healthy, and enjoying the brisk snowy weather… this week supposed to drop to 20’s and will test my pipes in the house.. I put a bottle of vodka in the system to help with the anti-freezing efforts if and when the power goes out.. which it will! Brent found the empty vodka bottle (a gift from pulling a neighbor out of the snow last year) and was like, “dad look! someone has been drinking on our porch!”.. ha, I was glad he found it, that would have spread some rumors:)

Bruce & Deb

Pray for meeting this Friday 8:30am here, I have a scheduled time with the new mayor at his office. Then, at 11am meeting with the owners of the Cafe property we are planning to purchase. The two meetings are separate, but they are related because we really need to have favor with God and men I believe for this effort to have a lasting impact. God give us wisdom and favor as we communicate our hearts clearly.