Category: Bruce Posts (Page 89 of 211)

Well it’s done.  Or rather, has just begun.  Three challenging years later, the small tap of gas is legally turned on and our pizza oven is working away!

Yesterday we served up over 200 slices of free pizza for our town in celebration.  Here’s a short clip with some photos if you have 30 seconds.  Then today, our first ‘pizza on the menu’ day, we sold 10 pizzas!  From my numbers, if we sell 8 per day, we’ll cover all our expenses and be totally sustainable – so good first day, possibly our first profitable day ever 🙂

Alyosha flipping his dough already!

We had some fun tonight with the youth.   None of them had ever been in a kayak.  Last year we bought 2 used from a rental place in Kiev, and a 3-person ‘safe’ one that doesn’t ever sink.  They had a blast learning how to navigate around our local inlet.

Nastya (front), Sveta (middle) and Tanya, all three coming with us to Minsk next weekend!

We were proud of Sveta who can’t swim (middle) but braved the Dnepr River anyway.  Of course one of the boys, Dennis, got a little excited and fell in.

Quick update on our Kickstarter Skatepark Campaign for the building of a kids skatepark on our property- we’re at $2,100!  Only two weeks left and still $5,500 to raise so still quite a hill to climb, but encouraging to see folks share their heart to invest in youth – I only know a couple of the ‘backers’ so that’s neat too!

Remember if you can, to share this link around for us, its’ where folks can read/watch more about the project and back the project!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lighthouse/kids-skatepark-ukraine

Updated Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Things are now focused on our Minsk trip next weekend.  We will be taking 6 youth with us, plus Collins and our family – and then after the weekend the team will travel back and our family will stay for another 1-2 weeks.

We’ll be helping to host a week of prayer and worship – as well as speaking at a few church/evenings.  Please pray for me (Bruce) that God would inspire me to share His heart and His presence would bring Life.   Also pray for our youth, and our travel safety and logistics.  This is the first time many have ever left their borders.  We received two generous gifts for helping the student costs, totaling $700, and then yesterday another $200 which will cover all the costs for the students – thank you!!!

Gotta have a kid pic! Love these three – growing up so fast.

We’re excited to share that we have some visitors coming this summer – some for a short visit, others staying for up to a year!  We’ll share more soon 🙂  Our prayer is that God would bring in His Kingdom, and grow the vision and heart of God in this area through continued serving and Kingdom focused ministry.

Bronwyn took this, I was looking at the kids coming up the Cafe stairs – it’s a true joy to see so many enjoying the Lighthouse.

We need laborers for this, and we ask you keep praying with us for God to add those that share the same Kingdom focus – through the Cafe, Widows ministry, soon the Studio and summer Internship we are seeing the dream of God sown in our hearts slowly come to life.  None of the activity has eternal weight unless the Spirit of God moves and brings life – we cry out ultimately for this reality.  So many families we are meeting – even tonight another one that spoke english fluently (from Kiev visiting the Cafe) – so many opportunities.

We serve an amazing, living, and loving God.  We thank you too for your support!

“It is not darkness you are going to, for God is Light. It is not lonely, for Christ is with you. It is not unknown country, for Christ is there.” Charles Kinsley

Bruce & Deborah

Collins getting ready for our first crash course on studio recording software.

Today we begin officially training on the software “Pro Logic X” for studio recording.  We still have some things to iron out before we begin actually producing some music, but we’re rejoicing in the progress.

The vision for the studio is simple:

We want to train.

We will, by the grace of God, invest in a handful of musically gifted folks that love producing, recording and mixing music.   In a culture that is still teaching en mass antiquated life skills (Eg. how to make borsch), folks that know how to record technically will own an employable life skill.  In Ukraine, the ‘cup of cold water’ I believe for this generation is investing in their employable future.

By investing in someone’s future, for the sake of simply caring and believing in an individual – the doors of the heart fling open and the grace of God impacts the whole of the person.   They know they are cared for, they let down their walls of reservation and ask the deeper questions.   This is where Jesus shows up and answers those questions.

We want to create.

90% of the Christian music heard around Ukraine, Russia and Belarus I’ve found to be from the west.  They simply transliterate the songs, which often loses most if not all the original meaning of the song – and voila, a ‘sort of’ Chris Tomlin song.

We want to provide a vehicle for producing original, indigenous music for the emerging Christian generations, by the believers here.  Their styles, their heart, their lyrics – the song of the Lord rise up from His people and us these two little rooms!

We want to employ.

Most things we do here cost money.  Some things, like the Widow ministry, will always be ministries that require outside financial support.  However, other things, like the Cafe (one day!) and the Studio, we will strive to make them sustainable on their own.

Our hope is that by producing quality music we will be able to attract talent from Kiev and other larger cities.  These bands and artists are used to paying for this, and with those potential funds we could employ a few folks part or full time.

That’s our studio vision in a nutshell.  We do this by faith, like everything else unless Jesus Christ is front and center it’s a lot of work and a waste of time!  Please pray for the studio efforts and for wisdom, finances to finish, and talent (like Collins) to come visit, continue training and helping it evolve into something special.

Everything we have to date has cost only $1,000 (mostly acoustic panels and software).  A good friend from Crossroads brought over and donated another $1-2k of equipment.   Studio’s can cost over $100k to do ‘right’ in the west – but with today’s technology and lower costs for production, we’re excited to see what will come!

Waited a long time for this moment – “We are the world” solo album (for the hearing impaired only).

Please read, watch and share!  Thanks everyone – Bruce & Deb

Link to Give and More Info : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1727696957/kids-skatepark-ukraine

#kidsparkukraine

I’m trying something new.  Later this week we will launch our first ever Kickstarter project.  Kickstarter is a crowd-funding platform that basically lets you attempt to raise funds for your idea or project in an ‘all or nothing’ format, with a time limit.

We’ve been thrilled with the activity and influence of the Lighthouse Cafe, and now we turn our attention to our undeveloped outdoor property that is honestly and eye sore.  Our town does have 2 other small kids play areas, donated by politicians attempting to gain votes.  This would make the third, however it will be connected to the Cafe with outdoor places to sit and drink coffee, eat pizza, and also have a skate area with a half-pipe.

We’d like to purchase something like this, probably not as large as they are SO expensive here – but a small area like this.

First things first, dreams need backers.  So be looking for an opportunity to help the Lighthouse extend its influence and shine outside it’s four walls!    The biggest challenge will be spreading the word – and for that we look to you, our loyal prayer and financial supporters – together we can spread this around and raise the project goal of $7,500 which we believe will build something very unique and special for the families in our town.

This past week we had 4 students raking and cleaning the area.  We want to order a couple loads of topsoil and plant some grass as a start…  It would be cool to raise a large amount with this Kickstarter campaign and do a project that takes only a few weeks instead of months – what a dream that would be!

Blessings,

Bruce & Deb