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!

Mobile Users use this below –

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

Thank you !!
Bruce & Deb

A happy 11th birthday to Brent! All week I thought he was turning 12 so I’m delighted to get that year back. We’re very proud of him. He’s had the most challenging of the three entering Ukrainian public school this year. His attitude has been sensational in light of the language barrier and challenges with his math. We celebrated tonight, my Mom is in town and treating us to daily meals, cleaning and watching Abbey.

This morning we had our monthly men’s breakfast at the Cafe. We then headed to the boys school where we played with some of the kids staying there. We’re trying to not call them orphans, because they legally aren’t. However if they do have a living parent, they have been stripped of their legal rights and are in a government program. There are a few kids there that might as well be orphans, the parents make little effort to visit, and are in no shape to provide care. The challenge for these particular kids is that they are only permitted to stay at this local ‘orphanage’ for 1yr, and then if their family situation doesn’t meet the requirements, they will be shipped off to a full orphanage where their hopes of a healthy life greatly diminish.

Us after Russian Classes - thankful for our teacher!!

I’m proud of my daughter Bronwyn who has been a big sister to a few of the younger girls. Their eyes light up when they see her, and give her hugs. They’ve been making beads and crafts. We’ve been playing road hockey, these little Ukrainians make for some good hockey players. My boys play as well so we have a full out game. We furnished some of the kids in need with shoes, and the remaining we donated the rest of the money supplied from last month for those still lacking. We really like the director and her assistant and the relationship there is key to the liberty to love these kids and invest into them.

Pricing out the options in Kiev for dishes

Tomorrow we get to Skype our church family at Crossroads. It’s a monthly blessing to see old (cough) faces and enjoy a few minutes with them over the big screens. This Skype we’ll be doing from the Cafe! We’re going to show folks around and have a few friends that we’re serving with there too. We’ve raised about $3,200 so far on the Tables & Chairs and this week met with the local guy who is going to help us get those in place. Our goal is $4,000 so we’re very thankful to be so close! The next thing to raise is kitchen supplies, cutlery, dishes, cups.. we need $2,000 for this, then we’ll have everything in place to open except for some documents which we’re told should be 1-2 months. We still could open before the end of the year, that’s our goal at this point.

It’s starting to get chilly!  We’re trying to winterize ahead of time this year.  Tucker here is cleaning windows, you can see our new exterior insulation/rendered.. we finished one wall on our house this fall.. the cold side.  Hope it helps!

Thanks for checking in!

Bruce & Deborah