Goal: $1,000

US Donation Link
Canadian Donation Link

It’s been on my to-do list since we opened Lighthouse Cafe, to get a proper store front sign.  As a ministry, all of our available funds go to keeping the actual cafe operational, legal and our staff paid.  So, not been able to.

To date, we’ve been using banners, and after a while, they look weathered and rather terrible.  One guy recently gave us 4/5 stars on Google maps commenting, “wonderful cafe, it’s a shame the owner don’t have a better sign.” 

We’ve invested so much inside the Cafe, it is a  shame the exterior doesn’t do a better job of drawing folks in.  We’ve been busy in other areas the past year that I haven’t given it much thought. Ukraine doesn’t place a huge amount of importance on exterior things, especially in rural communities that still look like they did 50yrs ago!  However, we’ve become a little tourist town over the past few years, and the outside revenue represents an opportunity for our Cafe to become more sustainable.  We have more competition as well, with 3 other Cafes (2 are non-alcoholic, they’re copying us!) and two more restaurants.

Drawing of the sign, our plans are to complete the facade of the building sometime as well which will make it look even nicer – covering the ugly old bricks.

The economy is still in terrible shape, we could really use your help.

I’ve contacted a sign company in Kiev, and a lit, fiberglass sign with turnkey installation is going to cost right at $1,000.  They will actually come from Kiev (90 minutes away).

It will light up at night, which will be super cool as we are in a great location across from the bus station.

Help us light up for Christ and more customers?  Please don’t think you need to give a large gift, every dollar is one we don’t have! 🙂

Donation Instructions:

*US residents who would like to support specific projects (vs just our family), please use our MIR Charity donation form for tax deductible receipting –  click here!

**Canadian residents, use our Canadian charitable option and choose “Bruce & Deborah Crowe”-  click here!

**we’ll notify on social media once goal is reached – any additional funds received for sign we will put towards the facade which we would love to cover/insulate for next winter.  

For those that don’t what we do, short little promo of life inside the Cafe 🙂

This past Sunday, our family decided to try and experiment.  We disconnected.  From morning till night, not a click, game, or phone to hand, for anyone.  At the end of the day, we gathered to debrief and discuss the experience.  The results surprised me.

“The day seemed to last forever.”

Although our older kids have recently left the nest, we still have 5 here with us on most days, ages 3-16. Our kids love gaming, and as a former avid gamer their dad has a soft spot for finishing levels.  What’s different today however is that they are playing other real live players and often friends online.  When I say, “time for bed” or “go cut the grass”, I’m now met with an apologetic on how that would be rude and will hurt their rating if they don’t finish.

Whether it’s video games, apps, netflix cartoons for the kids, or my wife and I scrolling on our iPhones, our entire family is continually connected and it’s exhausting.  As parents, we’ve never been big on timing controls, or even content filters. Our philosophy has been to equip our kids to govern their time and eyes, because once you leave this house, the world is pretty much unfiltered.  However, unlike keeping innocent eyes from porn, the issue of addiction to our gadgets seems more complicated.

We need our phones, or do we?  We can’t function without our apps, calendars, reminders, and instagram connections, or can we?  What are we losing out on through our constant connection?

‘Research shows people now touch, swipe or tap their phone on average 2,617 times a day.’ – source

Our disconnected day was incredible.  We called it our ‘soul rest’ day, and we committed not only to laying down all forms of technology (even the kitchen, Deb was excited about that), but also doing only those things which caused reflection, consideration, and awareness.  Essentially using the principles of sabbath rest, allowing our soul to breath.  The result was reconnecting with the neighbors, a whole lot of laughter and a day, in the words of Bryan Adams that ‘seemed to last forever,’ in a really enjoyable way.

I expected whining, some mid-day rebellion, but instead found my family hunkered down together in the living room at the end of day reflecting and being a family.  It was convicting, eye opening, and we’ll be practicing this again next Sunday.

If you are interested in some challenging articles related to the social engineering taking place on platforms like Facebook, and the purposeful re-wiring of our brains – check these out, you might be more enthused to try your own experiment after reading!

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/04/has-dopamine-got-us-hooked-on-tech-facebook-apps-addiction

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/is-facebook-for-old-people-over-55s-flock-in-as-the-young-leave

We really enjoy our Wednesday nights with the Club 180 Youth.  Over the past few years the group has ebbed and flowed, some of the core remains while others go off to Kiev and university, some return home to their villages and towns to find work.  Currently, we have a solid young core of guys, some quite new but adding depth to our meetings with good conversations and seem to really be attracted to this little community.

It’s neat to see Dima and his wife Lena investing increasingly into their lives as well.  Being Ukrainian themselves, they are able to dig deeper, having the youth over to their house (Deb’s parents house next door) and now planning some events like camping.  We’re about to demo part of the old cafe garage out back and make it a clubhouse of sorts, on a shoestring budget of course.  It’s next to the skatepark and we’re wanting to get outside more, not just expect everyone to come up to the studio and 2nd floor where it’s going to get increasingly hot here shortly.

We’ve got 2-3 boys that we hope to arm with a $100 budget, and let them attempt to build a wall, door, and some shelves.. then we’ll look to put some skateboards, basketballs, find an old couch (or make one!), add music = youth hangout man-cave style.  I’ll take some pictures, it ain’t gonna be pretty!  I pray it will help us connect with more hearts though, casting nets!  Pray for us.

YFM crew headed home this after 3 months of serving in Ukraine.

This week was weird.  Three full days in a time zone that was 8hr ahead, then back to regular scheduled programming.  It wasn’t like going to the US, because we never really felt like we left the culture, but it does something to your body for sure – wiring gets messed up, hungry and awake at strange times.

Still looking for LIT Kiev location with some friends.  It’s supposed to be June 22-24 but finding pricing is much higher for rental of places in summer months. We’ll have Steiger hosting one day/evening with a festival type style and David Pierce coming to share during it.  The other evening is also still up in the air as we see what Collins is able to put together from his contacts and past couple months in Kiev.  I’d like to see a ‘collective’ band start to emerge that unites various churches, but it’s not showing itself yet.  We may have to bring in some help from Belarus – I think it’s important to keep the evenings international at some level.  More worship evenings are becoming more common place around Kiev – from different churches jumping in and hosting various evenings, to partner ministries, and now even Bethel is coming in September to the 12k seat sports arena downtown Kiev.  This is a huge thing for post-maiden Ukraine, which is continuing to lead the way embracing the Gospel and Christianity in new ways.  I’m trying to get some group tickets to take a few van loads and also aid those Ukrainians that can’t afford to go, as the tickets are ‘city’ priced at $8 or so per person, which is well out of reach for most villagers.

I dug up this old t-shirt we designed 6-7 yrs ago, it says, ‘on mission’ in Ukrainian.  What’s interesting is that we’re studying ‘communities of practice’, or ‘missional communities’ in my seminary course.

Being in a cohort of fellow leaders around the globe is really cool.  We get to interact, learn about how others are applying biblical principles and experience in each of our contexts.  It’s neat to be around not only thinkers, but missional hearted folks living it, struggling with the same things, and desiring to see the church grow in number and maturity.

Missional communities, we aren’t just united by meetings folks!  We are united by Jesus, in our pursuit to be lifelong learners of Him, and effectual disciple makers.  I’m looking forward to being challenged in this area, as I’ve been sitting idle in the area of ‘what is church, really?’ for what seems like eternity. I’m enjoying the community we’re finding and building in pursuit of Jesus and mission. Loving faith steps of first generation believers.  Must see more of this!  I still have many questions, and I don’t suspect this season will answer them all, but I’m hungry to know we’re planting the right seeds which will blossom into a more fully-orbed community, healthy with depth of called and gifted leaders, families, and everything else that strengthens the body of Christ for generations

Bruce & Deb

We’ve known Elsa for a few years, from Vladivostok. She joined us this past fall at YFM in Minsk.

Deb and I just returned last night after 24hrs of travel, 3 flights, and a whole lot of sitting!  I was thankful they let me in Ukraine as I had forgotten my residence permit at home.  Ended up being detained for about 20 minutes in a room with several customs officers.  They were nice guys, doing their job, but finally gave in and let me in – it was that, or find me a bed because I wasn’t going anywhere 🙂

Typical Russian bus in Vladivostok. $.50 per ride 🙂

Being literally on the sea of Japan is about as far East as Russia gets.  The Asian influence is everywhere, from the faces to the restaurant selections.  We grabbed some food one night at Burger King (Ukraine doesn’t have BK so it’s a bit of treat), and it hit me… we were in an American fast food joint, run by Russians, surrounded by Chinese 🙂

The YWAM conference is held annually, in different Russian cities each year.  Usually, it’s Moscow, St. Pete and other larger Cities closer to, well, civilization.  But this year, Vladivostok was up, and about 30 missionaries made the trek from Russia as well as China and a few other places.  Russia, over the past few years, has really cracked down on all western religious activity.  This, along with some other changing dynamics inside YWAM itself with their DTS (discipleship training school) has been in noticeable decline.  Their bases around various parts of the former Soviet Union were once bustling with national and international students and staff missionaries, they are now in hunker down survival mode, if existing anymore at all.

It was cool though to see pockets of emerging community in Vladivostok, even a fellow Canadian from Edmonton, 20yr old young guy as green as they come!  I was able to meet as well some extremely well traveled missionaries from Armenia/Georgia area who know many of the same folks we know in Belarus and around the Russian world.  One guy shared some really valuable insights on the struggles inside political religious systems that I really appreciated, things make a little more sense now – particularly why the established church has become so rigid and seemingly antagonistic to the emerging generation.

Groups were given tasks to create a business plan then present to the entire group.

Many of the traditional missionaries inside the FSU have been forced to either leave, or change their mission – some, including a really neat contact I made this trip, have moved to business fully.

This one gentleman, who’s name shall remain protected, has lived for 19yrs in Russia, now in Moscow, once leader of YWAM Russia.  He’s about my age, and God is using him in some neat ways.  He’s fluent in Russian, and wrote a book on ‘how to deal with westerners in business’, along those lines.  The Russians love him, and it, his book has gained popularity in political and business circles and on social media has a growing following.

He’s considering hosting some seminars around this idea of western training, as the differences are so significant, and the opportunities for building bridges and connections for the Gospel’s influence are real.  We’re in discussion about working together, something to pray about as we also consider establishing this base in Kiev and impacting culture and business.  This fits interestingly this graduate course I’m taking, and wouldn’t surprise me if somehow our trajectory weaves into this sphere of government/business – I love working with youth, but they are typically poor and we need to find some economic engines to help pay the bills – we don’t have the luxury of weekly offerings.

One night, worship was hosted in a popular night club.. these FSU youth are loving to gather outside church buildings and finding the most worldly places they can find 🙂

Before I went, I was thinking and stressing a little about how we will ultimately sustain our project in Kiev.  It’s one thing to start, it’s another to sustain especially in this terrible economy & among unemployed youth. The Lord took me to a verse, I’m pretty sure He was encouraging me to chill and trust:

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.” Isa 48:17

Profit isn’t just about money, but it’s not ‘not’ about money either. He provides, He directs, He can teach us how to be fishers of men, but also how to do business.  We’re not rushing into getting more property or space, but praying to see the hand of God provide – teach us Lord, lead us Jesus!

So the YWAM conference was a great time as well to spend with Deb.  We didn’t expect this, but we were able to have two, that’s right, two dates!  What was interesting was after the dinner together, we weren’t in a rush to get back to the kids – they were a million miles away, it felt like we were on vacation for a few brief hours, and it was amazing.

To make the date even better, I lost my phone by leaving it in the taxi. We took taxi’s everywhere, they have this Russian version of Uber that is super affordable and convenient over the old slow buses.  Just hours before we were to return to Ukraine, the person who took the phone (and spent the day pondering what to do with it), called the emergency phone/message I had placed on it through iPhone ‘findmyiphone’ service (isn’t technology incredible?).. the message we put on it said in Russian, “call for big reward!”.. They did, and we got it back, for $30 – what our friends suggested as big reward – everyone was happy – except Deb, who I know secretly wishes it would be stolen again.

I taught about ‘living an invest-able life’ and how our ideas are only as invest-able as we are (to people willing to take risks or give us money to start stuff).  We made it really interactive at the end they built their own business plans in teams, and competed by presenting them in less than 3 minutes to the group.  It was very direct, challenging the youth especially to go to bed, live in the real world and position themselves to be invested into. I

I’m learning, in my own course as well, that I need to do a better job listening (before setting objectives or teaching), and for adults, learning is a lot different than for children.  I always wondered why I didn’t like sitting in church listening to lecture format after +10yrs in church – now it’s makes sense, most adults don’t learn this way, it’s not an opinion, it’s proven theory in the area of adult education.  We need buy in, we need stuff that helps and is applicable immediately, we need our experience to be taken into consideration and assessed before just given information, no matter how good the information is.  The entire academic western model of ‘sage on the stage’ limits us in learning, does more to affirm the teacher than truly educate or disciple adults.  We need, as leaders to be ‘guides on the side’.  More later.

Maybe I should start putting my papers on my blog as links, not sure how many pastor friends I’d have left. 🙂  I’ve already been writing quite a bit, and thinking more than a little.

Thankful for Adrienne and the YFM girls for watching the kids, everyone that was here when we left, was here when we returned!  The Minsk girls are leaving tomorrow, they’ve been all over Ukraine on mission, from Kiev serving at events, to Rz building relationships with our youth and working as baristas, to Western Ukraine working on missional farm, Northern Ukraine orphanage camp -I pray they look back and see the work of grace in their hearts as well.  We’re happy for a break, it’s been 6 months of responsibility beyond just our family and normal ministry world.

Bruce & Deb