Heading to Texas this Thursday for a week of business meetings & planning. It will be great to see our family at Crossroads as well, it’s the week of their annual Prayer Advance. Deb will be staying behind, she’ll be hanging out with her mom as Neil is also traveling that week in Western Ukraine.

Bruce

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – Psalm 103:2

Thank you for praying with us this year, and staying in touch as we journeyed through 2010!  Here are some highlights we remember, and thank God for:

Visits:

– Irish Team, new friends!
– Yuri & Family from Latvia
– Andy & Drew Farrell
– Matt Almeter
– Bo, Beth & Brady
– Tracy & Dana
– My parents

*Rory from Scotland, this is Simeon’s contact, but we really enjoyed getting to know him, so he gets on the list!  Wonderful heart and experience with kids camps around the world.

Arrivals in RZ:

– Deb’s parents, Neil & Noline Rhodes
– Shane & Jemimah
– Sergei, Tanya & family
– Sergei, Lesya & family

Church Projects, Outreaches & Special Events:

– Cafe Property Purchased
– Sunday Night Cafe Outreaches to Students (3 months)
– Summer Kids Camp
– Ladies Outreach Evenings
– Deacons established in church structure.
– Van purchased (thank you Crossroads!)
– Special Needs Outreach
– Pirini’s Hangii, we miss you guys!
– All Church Meetings earlier this year
– Sponsorship of several orphan events (zoo/water park/travel help)
– Christmas Outreach
– Ephesians Class Study (8 weeks)
– New Mayor and Officials elected
– 2 Months in Canada and Texas (extended by deb)
– Finished one house project, started another (90% done)
– Watched my first World Cup Final, powered by generator on fumes.

Business:

– Was a challenging year for Cypress Interactive as a whole, but praising God for answered prayer the past few months.  New direction, momentum, some new faces as well to an already amazing group of guys that love the Lord.

Spiritual Growth:

– Kolya, young man who has devoted his life to Christ & was baptized, what a joy!
– encouraged by several Ukrainian believers that have grown this year in their hunger for the Word, and God’s reality in their lives.
– Personally a difficult year filled with new challenges for growth as a husband, father and leader in the church.  Praising God for greater hunger for God’s Word, contextual study and apologetics.
– Deb and I have experienced renewed love and communication in our marriage, thank you for prayer as we have sensed more than ever, the spiritual nature of the battle being here.
– Kids are doing well, particularly our oldest two (Broderic and Bronwyn) as they keep growing in their understanding of God.

2011 Prayer Focus:

– more people in RZ to believe upon Jesus Christ for their salvation.
– discipleship material and structure for new believers needing foundation.
– students to be impacted by our love for God, and for them!
– finances and wisdom to complete and setup operation of the cafe.
– spirit led outreach in our town that invests in long term relationship building.
– wise use of willing churches to come and support different projects.
– continued development of leadership in the church.
– purity and holiness among all the believers.
– missionaries, pray for our marriages, accountability to deepen, & unity maintained.
– please pray we will learn more Russian this year!

Thank you God for what you are doing in our lives, your patience and willingness to work through your imperfect creation.  It is a privilege to be called a child of God, and to live for your glory on the earth, and wherever you guide us.  We look to 2011 with a sense of excitement, as the seeds continue to be planted in this community, through the faithfulness of your church, that some would begin to bear fruit – the kind that lasts forever!

God strengthen your faith as you number your days on this earth, look to Him alone, the author and finisher of your faith:)

Bruce & Deb

“The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” – Count Zinzindorf

The past week has been so relaxing and enjoyable I’ve tried to stay off the computer as much as possible.  I need to update everyone on the outreach, and thank everyone that participated in prayer and financial support.  It was a frantic final few days with everyone pulling together for the evening.   We made the costumes from scratch, ladies from church spent many evenings sewing away!  We made the desserts, decorations (well, we bought some decorations and assembled them), stage props, Neil even painted huge backdrops of Jerusalem, the manager scenes etc.

In the end, we had over 100 guest show up, literally a perfect amount of people squeezed in to the old cold (but not too cold!) building.  We had heaters purchased (in exchange for rental of the building next year) that worked well enough for folks not to be uncomfortably cold.  We replaced light bulbs on stage that were probably out for a decade it looked like, the biggest bulbs I’ve ever seen, and they worked!   The electricity held up and we had a wonderful evening.  I believe God was pleased with our efforts, we’re reaching out, building relationships and sharing about our faith in God.  The Christmas ‘message’ is really the message of the gospel, God’s rescue plan for lost sinners like us.  Neil shared at the end of the message and emphasized a personal relationship with this God who has become flesh.  We had Micah from Kharg and my neighbor Vica play some Christmas music, and everyone served the crowd with coffee and desserts.

The students are back home on break, but church was still nice and full this past Sunday.  We are going to have some space challenges soon, if we continue to meet up at Dan’s.  We will be starting home groups in Jan, and I will be leading a new believers type class, using the book of John.  Pray that we continue to see God drawing young people, and that we have listening hearts to how best to ‘keep it real.’  I have a concern that what has worked in the past (eg. cafe nights) gets driven into the ground.  We need to be agile in our obedience, unconventional if necessary, and avoid becoming a predictable religious group doing ‘things’.  We desire to see Jesus Christ revolutionize hearts, not for a church program, but for His Kingdom.  Lord keep us from becoming impressed with ourselves, or satisfied with seemingly small victories.

This week we are trying to get heat working in the Cafe building.  The kotyols (we have two old Ukrainian hot water heaters) aren’t working, one is actually dead and needs serious repair or replacement.  We also found some of the water wasn’t fully drained out of the house pipes, and some radiators burst.  We do have electricity working, just not heat making it a huge freezer, you can last about 10 minutes inside before your face loses feeling:)

Wrapping up end of year business with Cypress & EDsuite.  God has been so gracious the past few months, lining up some really great work, and building more unity among the guys.  We have a series of changes coming up in the company in order to prepare and handle potential growth we are anticipating.  The acquisition of another company this fall was a big undertaking, and is already starting to produce fruit we were hoping for.  I’m praying about possibly going back in Jan to work with the guys on some strategy and planning.  I don’t want to go personally, but it may be necessary.  Pray for me in this if you would, I want to trust God but I also realize sometimes trusting Him means pressing and working hard.

Deb and I are enjoying one another, refreshed in our marriage over the past few weeks.  We are spending more time in prayer together, and believe God is strengthening our marriage.  I have mentioned before how the previous year was probably the most difficult for us, all the challenges we were facing took their toll on our marriage.  God has revealed areas of hardness in both of us, and by His Spirit opened our eyes to areas we each have been lacking in focus.  Many of our friends and church in Texas have prayed for us, and our family. I want to thank you seriously, we have felt the support and believe your prayers have had an absolute effect in keeping this most important building block strong.  Praise God for that too!

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting some construction trip dates, you can pray about coming!  You can also pray about helping support financially the cafe building construction, we are going to need the body of Christ see this through together!

Thanks,

Bruce & Deb