Category: Bruce Posts (Page 198 of 211)

Time for another bullet list of ‘what’s happening’ in our world:

– Trampoline full of kids daily, and not just ours! 
– July 2-9 are the dates for the Texan group coming over, I’m getting ready to present info to the City on this special week.
– Deb is feeling better, thank you for praying!
– The city has asked us to participate and help host the annual “Family Day” in May.  Pray for that please.
– While we received 3yr business visas, we now need to get registered.. thought we had 180 days, but the bank said we need it now to receive money… so rushing to get this done this week.   After that, then Ukrainian plates for the truck…
– Home Groups are going well, next Wed we meet at Jacobs for worship/coffee and hope to invite some people (needs to grow!).
– No land yet for the Family Center.  We have inquired on a few places, waiting and praying.  God’s timing is perfect.. if we’ll give ourselves to prayer… pray with us please.
– Cypress/Work is going well, we had a rough start to the year, but so did Google!  Thankful for work as we hear stories and family that is having a hard time. 
– This summer we have July group, Cassie leaves mid July, Deb’s parents in August, my parents (and aunt/uncle/cousin) coming Sept.
– Thinking about starting a monthly or quarterly business luncheon.  Maybe kick this off with our July group.  Maybe include some other towns.
– Preliminary investigation of orphanages in region.  We have contact with director, want to figure out more about how they are funded, the needs, and praying about digging into adoption procedures for the future (maybe for us, but probably more as a ministry).
– Enjoying the WONDERFUL long summer days (after short dark winter) and weather.  We’re very thankful.
– Kids are healthy, growing like weeds.  Noah is slow to speak but I think very gifted, he loves music, plays the keyboard and sings (and shouts), and can really play soccer quite well.  He can even catch a ball when i throw it, without any practice.  
– Russian lessons are coming along.. trying to be consistent with it.  Svetlana is a great teacher.
– Ministerial group should be meeting again this week.. hoping to share a meal together.. with our wives.
– Planted 10 rows of corn, 1/2 debs organic and the other treated (my) corn.  They don’t grow sweet corn here, so we’re hoping it grows.  Maybe we’ll send Deb down to the market to sell it with the babushka’s.

Thanks for your support, encouraging words and prayer.  We miss you all!

Bruce, Deb and Kids.

Here’s a picture from this past Sunday.  Believers from several local congregations gathered in a technical college auditorium.  It was the first meeting of it’s kind that we know of.  It was packed, I counted around 110 in total, plus a dog.  Our church family had the most young families/kids, and we all sat in the back.  It was a long meeting, 3.5 hrs… without a break, so things got a little hairy toward the end, even for the dog. 

I’m still digesting the experience, and pondering.  What is unity?  What does it look like?  What is the purpose of unity as it relates to God’s heart for mankind (those that need salvation!).  Probably for us younger folks, it wasn’t a huge deal on the outside to sit in a room with 100 other believers, mostly older babushka’s (grandmothers) and older couples.  But as I watched the faces of the older generation, head covered in the traditional scarf (and it was baking in there!), I thought, “Don’t underestimate this.”  Many congregations are filled with older folks, their time is passing and they’ve run their race.   For them to rub shoulders with the next generation, young men and women, famlies serving Christ, it must build their faith and strengthen their resolve to finish well.  Christ is not finished in this town, though He may be coming back soon, He wants to do so much more.

I’ve been thinking about Nehemiah.  Reading again the account of the re-building of the walls in Jerusalem.  The progress has struck me as so simple, but staggeringly difficult without God.  It would have been one thing for Nehemiah to get some folks together, especially those of financial prominence.   Strike a deal for a business loan, hire some contractors, and make it a beneficial event for those around.  Could have printed (no kinko’s then, but they had their ways!) some fancy promotional material, met with those that were in opposition and got them on board, putting them in charge of something or naming part of the wall after them.  

Step 1-  Nehemiah hears the report of the city and the mockery God’s people have become.

Step 2- Nehemiah is burdened by God. He prays and fasts for days concerning this situation.  He repents for HIS sin (representing Israel) and reminds God that by repenting and turning back to Him that He will restore Israel.

Step 3- Nehemiah uses his position as cup-bearer to the King, the King inquires what is bothering him?  The fact that the King would even care is amazing, it says Nehemiah didn’t manipulate or ‘try’ to be noticed.

Step 4-  Nehemiah holds his breath, and just goes for it.. “King, here’s the deal….” and lays it out.

Step 5- God.  The King gives him permission to go and rebuild the wall. 

Step 6- Crazy.  Nehemiah asks for materials to build with as well, and stamps/permission (he’s thought this thing out).

Step 7- God.  He receives everything that he asks for.  This is a foreign occupied land now, empowering Nehemiah to help resurrect Israel.

Step 8- Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem, checks things out for a few days, takes a deep breath and then tells everyone what the deal is.

Step 9- Opposition, should we expect anything less?  God likes to show Himself through victoriously providing and making statements.

Step 10- 150 or so people join in, randomly God draws folks to give of their time and energy to make it happen.  Goldsmiths, guys next door, from all sorts of backgrounds grab their tools and rally to the cause.  Here’s a visual expression of unity, united for a cause.  Unity for it’s own sake is contradictory.   It’s always for a goal.  Jesus and the Father were one, and look what that accomplished!  I don’t care if I ever sit around a fire and sing ‘Kumbya my Lord’ again with another Christian, but rather that I’d see them to my right and left, and together laboring for God’s work, whatever that looks like… yeah, that’s exciting. 

Step 11- More opposition.  Testing and Trial.  Lies spread, traps set, conspiring. 

Step 12- Victory, wall is built in 52 days, take that. 

When we consider the tools, the lack of email, co-ordination training, promotion… 52 days is amazing.  We can hardly plan a short term trip which consists mostly of feeding ourselves and the occasional organized event in less than 3 months as Americans.   Nehemiah is the man.  God, through this guy, is challenging me to trust Him for more.  That that ‘more’ requires sacrifice (fasting/prayer), pressing into God more for His burden.  That ‘more’ will attract opposition, but our battle is not against flesh and blood.  The ‘more’ means more testing, possible slander and persecution, but in the end God wins and that’s all that matters. 

Anyway, a bit of my heart.  I hope you are encouraged as I am by Nehemiah, to look to the task before you.  Here in our little town of Rz, we are few in number, but we aren’t.  We are working within a cultural context that will refuse to budge, but it can.  We will most certainly encounter opposition, but that’s ok.  Maybe we’re exactly in the right place for God to show Himself again in a special way.    I see our gathering this Sunday as a sign that God is at work, with imperfect people, His speciality.  Are we willing to pay the price for God to do ‘more’?  Most of us aren’t even past step 1, we could care less about the world around us if we are perfectly honest.  We’re self preservationists, especially when the world/economy shakes and rattles.   I’ve been miserable today, burdened to see God do something that I can’t.  Partly my own apathy making me miserable, and I’m glad that it does.  But, I think it’s more than that.  I’m looking at step 2 with caution, because I know my weakness and unwillingness to sacrifice through prayer & fasting (particularly fasting…hey, I like food).   What if we did all seek Him?  We don’t need our pastor to organize this for us.  We don’t need a flyer or program with babysitting lined up for us to prioritize it.  I’m pretty sure He simply wants to use those that avail themselves… and continue to do so:

⁴ When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. ⁵ Then I said:
       “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and obey his commands, ⁶ let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.   –Neh 1:4-7

 On a lighter side, I thought this was interesting.  This is in the school, strategically placed by a sink/water.  FIRE FIRE!  I got the shovel!

 Can you find Deb in this picture… she’s picking up our milk at the market… you’ll have to click the pic to enlarge it. 

Well, we made it back!  We left last weekend for Krakow, Poland in order to visit a foreign Ukrainian Embassy (you have to physically leave the country to get new visas), and Krakow was only $120 round trip  (for both of us!), and a quick 1.5hr flight.  We didn’t expect too much in way of a vacation, only being gone 3 days, one being a day for standing in line for visas, and the other two.. well, it’s Poland, not exactly Disney World.  Hey… we were completely blown away!  Krakow is most definitely one of the nicest, coolest, places on earth to visit people.  It’s a secret hotspot of Europe, at least for Americans I think.  Krakow is about 1000 yrs old, it has a ton of cultural and architectural history all bunched up into the most scenic “Old Town” city center I’ve visited. This is also the place where Schindler’s List happened (his factory is there) and the movie was filmed.  Often I would imagine the view in black and white and it sent shivers.. the tales of horror and pain this part of the world, this city actually faced.  The Jewish quarter to the town is still there, filled with Synagogues, and historical landmarks, restaurants… Once home to some 30k Jewish residents, now occupies less than 500.

There is much more to Krakow than it’s most recent, and devastating past.  It’s home to a huge Castle (here, check out some better pics) , and Roman Catholic churches that engross entire city blocks, simply astounding to look at.  Anyway, Deb and I had a blast, and look forward to visiting again.. next time we need visas!   Thanking God also that we were able to use our newly formed business here in Ukraine to get 3 yr visas… and they said our kids didn’t need visas, so that saved us about $800.

We returned only to face another deadline.. 3 days left before my temporary registration runs out on all of our house goods we brought over… including kids toys, our furniture etc… we have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and get renewal approval to keep our stuff in the country.  I won’t go into the details, but it’s important to point out if you ever decided to move to one of these countries… it’s not easy.  Svetlana has been working non-stop on our paperwork for our family, registering this, getting stamps for that… she is a blessing from God.  Anyway, through the business, we again were able to extend our stuff another year without a hassle (just standing in front of doors all day, waiting for them to grant you entrance)… and we didn’t even have to pay anything, that was going to be $500-1000.  Next stop, Belarus tomorrow, we have to exit / re-enter the country again with our truck in order to get another 60 days permit to drive here… that will give us enough time to, Lord willing, get Ukrainian plates and a 1 yr permit… then… I think…. we’ll be good for another year… repeat steps 1-100 next April.

Back to work, I’m fairly behind on my Cypress business world.  Looking forward to catching up and starting preparations for our July Outreach trip.  We had 10 people express sincere interest in the trip.  We’ve anticipated a group 6-10 from the start, and it looks like the Lord is lining things up.  It will be a great trip I believe, as much for those that come as it will bless those in the town.  You can learn more about the trip on our Missions Network site, which is slowly coming together and will have up to date ministry opportunities and trips, we’ll be keeping this site for more family and personal updates.   Thank you for your prayers, we’re glad to be home and Deb is feeling much better by the way, we haven’t received the results from her last batch of tests… but the first tests didn’t show anything out of the ordinary..  the bright sunny and warmer days seem to be helping her, maybe just being indoors all winter plays a role in the lack of energy.. but we still think it’s more than that.

Kids are great, here’s a picture of our backyard garden, I found a tractor dude down the road and asked him to come and plow up our backyard.  He did a great job and only charged me $10.  It would have taken all of us a week, priceless!  Now we are going to plant some stuff and see if it grows, I grew up on a farm and have never grown anything by myself, so this will be interesting.

Oh one last thing, expect a post after this Sunday.  We are gathering together with all the believers in town (protestant believers anyway) for a time of worship.  The Pentecostals will be running the service, that should be interesting to watch the traditional baptists next to the hand waving and excitable folks.  All for His glory, and may our unity be a seed that produces some lasting fruit in the community moving forward.  I told Deb that we need to sit in the front row, and bring some flags ha.  We are anticipating 100 (at least i am) Christians gathering…  folks, I don’t think that has every happened in this town, or any town around here for quite some time (adults/grandparents/youth)…  I’ll get some pictures!

Brent looks on from the newly assembled trampoline in our backyard. 

We’re still learning.  This weekend we came home from church only to see a wall of fire raging toward our house.  It stretched across our entire yard, and had leapt the fence into the neighbors.   Spring is ‘in the air’ and everyone (except us) have been burning the weeds/grass from their gardens and yards… All around town you’ll see smoldering billows of puff and yards that look like they’ve been bombed.. charcoal crusty remains.  The aggressive wind had taken over someones little fire north of us, and it was a bit out of control!  I was glad that our house was made of concrete and brick… and that Broderic heroically, and quite successfully mashed the fire out with a big shovel along our property line.  Eventually some other guys came and helped regulate and direct the flames… they were probably in control of this the entire time, but it got our hearts racing and kids excited nonetheless. 

[Boah, Nobey, Doah, Noahnator, Noah is lovin’ the jump]

This weekend marked the end, I think, of winter, or at least snow.  We celebrated by opening windows, exiting as a family from our winter slumber, and unpacking the children’s most prized possession from Texas… the trampoline.  It’s amazing to think it’s been a year since the kids jumped on it.  We assembled it back together, and unleashed the fury of our kids pent up exuberance.  I’m starting to sound like Cassie, or maybe just tired of talking in ‘basic’ english in order to be understood by our Ukrainian friends who speak a bit of english.  The neighborhood kids have already been over to watch, they’ve never seen anything like it, and in tandem refused to try it… maybe later.. Do they have liability forms/waivers here?  I suspect, though not willing to investigate, that I’m not even allowed to have this kind of contraption without a permit.  So far, no broken bones, check back in a few months.

[Peter, the Ukrainian Baptist pastor, he led us in song.. Polka style baby]

We’ve continued to meet (now three times) with the local ministry leaders.  It’s been good, however this last time we saw the beginnings of certain personalities projecting (or trying to) their particular vision for ‘how’ things should move forward.  Pray for us would you?  We are meeting, as our first public ‘event’ in two weeks at one of the other church gatherings, for the first time, Lord willing, all the believers in this town will gather together for a time of prayer, worship and the word.  We’ll keep you posted and get some pictures, I’m pretty excited how this will build the faith of us all as we, young and old, baptist/pentecostal/independent unify around the God that we serve and emphasize the essentials.  God be glorified in this.

On April 5, next Sunday, at 4pm, Bridge 281 (coffee shop at Crossroads in Longview), ‘all interested’ meeting for the upcoming July 2-9 Outreach here in Rzshychiv, Ukraine.  Please contact Art Bradshaw if you can’t make it, but would still like to learn more about joining this trip.  His email is artandtracy@cablelynx.com .

This weekend Deb and I are off to Krakow, Poland for new visas.  We’re leaving the kids with Cassie and the Gollans, please pray for them (Cassie and the Gollans) that they survive until we get back… Oh, and also that we would get our visas and back into Ukraine safely would be helpful, always nervous leaving the kids, especially together.

Thanks for checking in-

Bruce & Deb