This Sunday Deb and I took the team from Ireland to Kiev for a visit.  The guys enjoyed a break from the work project and seeing historic Kiev.  It had been a while (a year?) since doing the ‘tourist’ thing, the weather was perfect.  We took them to the war museum and to the center.

The city has counter offered with us a few times on the property downtown.  We’re very close to a final price and will pray about it tonight before our our agreement or another counter offer.  The land is what we want, and we are probably paying 30% more than what it is worth (all things considered), but after living here for 2 years, this is actually very reasonable, inflation has been outrageous in the real estate market, and only now seeing prices come down to earth.  Because the economy is suffering so badly in Ukraine, local governments are desperate for extra $, budgets for every department are struggling to pay for salaries, or do much of anything they usually do.  This gives us some decent bargaining power, and also helping the city at the same time.  I don’t discount however the main help in this, God has softened hearts, given us favor and we are enjoying God prepare the way for His work here. Maybe some exciting news coming soon!  Keep praying for this please!

When we get the property, we will then begin laying out a plan for the land and building.  It is going to take a lot of work, and a lot of prayer.  It’s also going to take a lot of money!  God is going to use all sorts of people, teams, churches.  I’m especially excited to see more of my home church family in Texas, I know their hearts are behind this, and have been patiently waiting, praying, and encouraging us while our family has been established, and positioning for more long term usefulness.  Instead of just sending short term teams, which they could, we’ve planned and prayed toward more of a long term community impact approach.  This takes relationship building, strategy, RZ church involvement, leadership, oversight, all the things that will ensure a viable long term ministry and ‘light’ in this community for years to come.  My heart is excited to see God raise people up to both serve and work in the business/ministry.  As I drive/walk downtown at night, there are hundreds of young people scattered throughout the dozen bars, many more stashed in dorms with very little to do.  We are going to be engaging where people are, where Jesus would hang out.

We recognize that we are being used as catalysts, pulling in God’s people and pieces for His glory, but it’s all about Him, and He has a plan.  What a privilege to serve God in this place, at this time with our friends and fellow laborers here.

Fuel the work with prayer, join us!

Bruce & Deb

Ireland group arrived this week, they’ve been working down at Neil’s house.  It’s such a blessing to get to know other brothers in Christ, from all over the world.  The work of grace reaches into every culture, every experience, what a God!  They are working hard down there, and making great progress on the house.  Deb and I are having fun practicing our Irish this week, she is finding it particularly difficult to understand them but I think they sound just fine:)  Great guys, good hearts and serving unto the Lord (and Neil).

I thought this “trucktor” downtown Kiev exemplified the resourcefulness and financial struggles of Ukraine.  Farmers will enjoy the picture I think:)

Please pray for the property downtown situation.  I can’t go into too many details online, but I can say that God has intervened into a potentially messy situation.  We are now in the position of working directly with the city again, and we have some verbal agreements at this point that look promising.  Next week the group is meeting again to review the property, price, and privitization of the land (so it will become under our power and not a public piece anymore).  Pray for God to work, showing Himself through this.  He already has been at work, I’m convinced of it, we’ve had some positive results from not wanting to be involved in corruption or ‘under the table’ stuff that is so normative here.  I’m excited to tell you more news on this, but I need to wait a week or two to ensure that things are in fact moving forward.  At this point please pray that if it is the spot for us, God will do the work, unify hearts and the community can be ‘with us’ from the start, and not against us.  I look back over the last few months, different meetings, and doors God has opened, and not ONE of them have been a waste, they have been essential for our witness to be established, our hearts conveyed, relationships built in key places, and for some of the fruit we are starting to see as things come down to the wire.  God is great, rejoice with us and pray with us!

Better go and help Deb cook another meal for this Irish Army, and they eat like one! 🙂

Bruce & Deb

(can you guess who this masked man is?)

Our two year anniversary passed us by last week.  It was Bronwyn that reminded us.  Amazing to look back now, even after such a short time and realize how much has happened in our lives, how helpless we were and faithful God has been to our family.  Some people might think we had a clear road map directing us to uproot our family and plant ourselves here in a rural Ukrainian village.. but I can assure you, it was a leap of faith.  Have you ever looked back at some decisions you made and thought, “what was I thinking!?” but in a good way? It is evidence of God’s grace in our lives when we can’t imagine making the same decision again, in light of what we know now!  We have plenty of challenges still before us, burdens on our hearts with obstacles in the way.  The goal now is to look for the next opportunity, the next step of faith that will keep us from growing comfortable and complacent.  I can’t believe I typed that, comfortable in Ukraine.. it is possible though, especially if you stick to your garden and stay off the roads!

How are you all doing out there?  I’ve been thinking of our brothers & sisters in Texas, we miss you guys.  It’s pretty easy to get so familiar with close fellowship and start taking these things for granted.  Don’t!  Hard to replace history.  Dear friends seem to be forged through life experiences which take time.  We are slowly getting to know more people here, even in Kiev where most of the missionary community seems to reside.  Without knowing the language well enough for ‘deep’ friendship among the Ukrainians, we rely on mostly westerners for closer fellowship.  It’s frustrating, but it’s reality.  Language is such a powerful thing, even through the best interpreter something is lost that you get with direct communication.  I’m hoping Google comes out with some sort of voice encoder that we put on like a miniature harmonica, like something out of star trek, and you simply punch in the language you want to come out the other side.  “Oh, you’re from Germany, one second, Wie geht es Ihnen?”.  Until then, I’m praying about some more intensive options for language this fall.  They will require some lifestyle/scheduling changes, but I’m discontent with my language level, and have a growing desire to push myself.  I appreciate prayer toward this, for God’s guidance and a listening heart to prioritize the thing God wants in my life and day. 

We only had 3 Ukrainians show up to our Passion follow up, with some of our leaders.  We drove around the schools and invited but couldn’t find any of them.  It’s disappointing to not see more of a turn out after the evening, but I’m encouraged with the heart of a few young men that did come, definitely leadership quality.  This past weekend the ladies hosted an outreach, “Garden Tea Party’, they had a good turnout of local ladies.

Pray for our potential property situation.  As it turns out (surprise!) the property we were offered is actually a complicated issue.  We’ve uncovered more than we wanted to know, and decided to stop the purchase for the time being as we investigate more.  Essentially corruption is at every turn here, it’s becoming apparent that if you engage with money, there are going to be problems.  I’ve decided that the unspoken motto in Ukraine business and politics is, “He who most creatively cheats, wins.”  The many gray areas on the law here are exploited with greed, too often I’m afraid on the backs of the innocent.  The average Ukrainian wants a civil, justice based government, but the bullies, the crafty, the schemers, the cheaters rule the courts, the legal system, the land.  I’m thankful for God’s guidance, diligent workers like Svetlana and friends like Alex the lawyer to give advice along the way.  Pray for wisdom please, we don’t want to be mixed up in something that would color us this way.  I keep thinking of Jesus own words to the disciples..

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ” Matt 10:16

Sincerely,

Bruce & Deb

Decompressing.  Unpacking a pretty special evening two nights ago in Kiev.  Passion returned to Kiev for a night of energetic worship, attracting close to 7,000 young college age kids from around the region.  There were groups represented from Belarus, Moldova, and Russia as well.   Our group packed into 5 vehicles (60) and ventured to the big city.  Three hours of Christ-centered lyrics, a simple but powerful message by Louie Giglio.

Tonight we invited the group to hang out at my place, passed out invitations, going to drive to one of the local colleges and see if anyone wants a ride (I don’t think any of them have vehicles plus they don’t know where I live).  Nobody could show up, 20 could show up.  One thing I do know however is that seeds were scattered, and we have been praying for their hearts to respond.  An entire generation walks around this town oblivious to God that created them, has designed purpose for their lives, and loves them more passionately than we can imagine.  We caught a glimpse of that at Passion, and I pray it continues to mature in our hearts as a church – we are not here for our own pleasure, but for the glory of our Great God!

We are very close to signing on property downtown.  The seller has agreed to a price, we like the location and property… and a few signatures/stamps remain that could be cleared up within a week!  Tomorrow we will know more as we meet and comb through the documents, but thank you for praying and believing God with us.  More than ever we are convinced that God is directing this, He is providing the laborers to run it, the funds to build it, the teams to partner with us during construction and the community perfectly situated with all these young people to invest into for Jesus Christ.  Lighthouse Cafe, a multipurpose ministry center to promote passionate obedience to the God who deserves our all.  I have a hard time concentrating on this one, because my heart wants to start looking at more communities and build 50 of them.  I’m convinced the ‘church’ needs to get out of their buildings, re-invent their witness to be something relevant, in the marketplace, in the community… we need an evangelistic edge, unsettled with routine and incubation.  We need to be uncomfortable, regularly ‘out there’ doing stuff that requires faith and God to do the heavy lifting.

As I type this, I hear the banging of a basketball outside my office door, and children squealing with delight on the trampoline.  Every day, for about two weeks, we’ve had an incredible amount of kids playing at our house.  Our 6 kids aside, we’ve had 10-15 in/out during the day playing all over the place.  There’s a lack of public playground here, actually I only know of one outside of the police station which is only for toddlers.  It’s our third summer here, but it feels like the first summer where we could enjoy the kids and not feel overwhelmed with other things.  Deb and I find it amusing and a joy to have them encircling our house 12hrs per day.   If you ever move to a foreign country, take a trampoline, seriously, it will be your most successful ministry outreach without fail.  We’ve even had parents coming and wandering around trying to find their kids.  We now know more of our neighbors as a result.. they can’t get their kids to come home!

Next week we have the Ireland group coming, it should be a wild week of cooking and building.  Neils house is coming along quickly now, sheet rock/mud/tape and garage being built.  I think they will be in it by June at this pace.. if he doesn’t run out of money first ha… actually that’s not funny.

Thanks for checking in –

Bruce & Deb