[Noah stole my drink, Clark is pretending to be the Karate Kid]

This weekend Ukraine will celebrate “Victory Day” across the nation.  Special events in Kiev will commemorate their victory 60 years ago against the forces of Nazi Germany.

We are also celebrating, on a much, much smaller scale.. the completion of our house.. the basement is complete!!  Yesterday I spent the afternoon gathering remaining materials to finish out the guest bedroom and bathroom…  Alyosha has been working hard for the past two months tiling, putting up sheet rock, painting, plumbing.  Here’s a few pictures for you, as you can see the garage is now a guest bedroom, and the bathroom and kitchenette area is really cool.  Not only can we host guests, we can let them have some privacy as well.  The kitchen is also used on Wednesday nights for HomeGroup, and food/tea/coffee is shuttled through the little drive through window which was a natural hole in the foundation walls that we decided to creatively use.. it is Clark’s favorite place to hide as well.

We’re excited to be able to host friends, family, and guests passing through our hotel-less community.  Starting at just $59.99 per night, you even get a free continental breakfast.. locally continental that is, a piece of cheese, bread, and a strong black coffee, but you have to make that yourself.   There’s no pool, but we do have plenty of exercising opportunities (if you like to pull weeds).  The Crowe hotel will also stock wild animals for your entertainment, 6 roam around daily.  You will want to catch one of the many feeding times on the upper level, at Deb’s Cafe, which is open 24hrs a day.  We are a green hotel, earth friendly, and appreciate you joining us by taking :30 second showers, we’re not quite sure how our well is going to hold up with increased traffic.. our neighbors are already low or out.. and it’s only spring!

Actually, this weekend our new friends Simeon and Asha are moving in with us!  Our first guests, they win should win something.  They are staying with us for 4-5 weeks while their place of rent is being completed.  They moved here 2 months ago, newly married (a year i think?), he’s from Scotland, she’s from Poland, and they desire to work with children.  How cool is that?  On our one year anniversary next week, we will be hosting a family in need.. the memory of being without a place of our own in a strange new land is fresh in our memory.  Thank you God for all that you’ve done this past year.. and continue to do for us!

[ Broderic helping this week as we compile all extra materials ]

Couple updates-

– Church Unity – the pastors from the area churches have agreed to meet ONCE PER MONTH, on a SUNDAY MORNING for worship and build unity.  This is amazing!  25% of our gatherings now will be with all the believers from this town.  That’s 100-120 believers gathering with one voice.  We have rented (for the year) the City’s new but unfinished civic building, which seats several hundred, and host our first meeting there together on May 24th.  Dan and I are leading the logistics on this, and really appreciate you praying for these monthly meetings.  This is the start of some exciting things in Rzhyschiv.

– July 2-9 the official dates for the group of Texans coming over to our town.  We met with the Mayor and his staff this week, and they are excited about it.  We are going to join with them for a day of festival/cultural stuff (which will already be going on.. we think… they keep changing their dates).. and we are hosting a Business Seminar on July 7th at a local resort for business owners and directors (managers).  We have had a very warm reception to the concept of educating/training within the local economy and this is a great way to build bridges relationally, and naturally.  We have also been in contact with some Kiev contacts that work with the Ukrainian and US government on economic development/training, and have expressed interest in joining us, perhaps sharing/speaking at this event.

– HomeGroup has been going well.  It’s nice to study and talk with our friends on eternal topics.  I feel edified after each meeting, we chew through a lot of scripture and everyone is participating.  We ar starting to move our focus toward evangelism and this May 20th we’ll be meeting at Jacobs for an evangelistic time, sharing the gospel and we’re inviting our friends/co=workers to it.  Please pray for this would you?

– Men: we need more men! Pray for this coming May 30th, we’re going to host a Paintball event here in RZ for the purpose of gathering men together to share about God.  There are only a small handful of Ukrainian men serving God in this town.  Most of the guys here are missionaries actually.   They like paintball, but it’s out of price range for 90% of them, even though it’s 40% less than in America to do it.  We are going to sponsor the event, and cover about 70% of the cost, making it truly affordable for guests we invite.  I think we’ll get a big crowd, we are printing invitations and plan to break in the middle and have a MAN talk about God.   I’m going to undergo some serious xbox 360 training before the event.

Miss our friends, family and church in Longview – remember to pray and lift up this town and all that God is calling us to do together.

Bruce & Deb

[Spring cleaning- ladies in full force sweeping the streets]

 [If you look really really closely you can see our house:)]

Our first full spring in Ukraine… and we are wondering where the rain went?  Amazing it’s almost May.. we moved over here last May 15. We’ve begun reflecting and wondering where the time has gone.  Simultaneously amazed at what has been accomplished, both in completion of our house, language progression, social network (aka friends), relationships in the town, opportunities to promote our great God.. and youth group that congregates around our trampoline daily.  Another thing that feels great is having a better grasp on visa/passport/registration regulations and procedures.  Registering a business here in Ukraine has already proven to be a very good decision, we were able to keep our ‘stuff’ in the country without import tariffs using the company, attained 3yr business visas, registered with OVIR.  This year we also completed the purchase of our house, registering it fully in our names.. we’re still working on the land part:).  Anyway, when I start to get overwhelmed, I step back and gain encouragement from all these things… most of the time we feel like we are still swimming in mud, but we’re seeing results and learning everyday how to better navigate through the mess of bureaucracy.

We have a team of 7 coming over July 2-9!  Excited about the group mix, Art Bradshaw a good friend and a teacher in Longview is leading the group.   The group will be meeting folks from our town, building relationships, hosting a business luncheon, a cultural evening.. and representing East Texas.  I’m excited about this type of trip, it’s great for our community here, it builds more bridges, help us foreigners continue to be an asset and gain more trust as we live among our Ukrainian neighbors.  I think the group will be very blessed as well to experience a taste of life here, literally.

Deb is doing great, she’s a wonderful wife and mom.  She hasn’t been blogging for a while, I’ve been encouraging her to start updating again.. there are so many things happening in her world that I miss reading about on her blog!

Today we met with the city leaders responsible for Child Services.  We have begun researching how Ukraine governs orphans, orphanages etc.  It’s quite fascinating, and complex.  There are over 20k legal orphans according to a state website, and 160-180 ‘orphanages’ which care for 40-400 orphans each.  A lot more information to gather, praying about eventually, as the Lord leads, helping in this area.   We’ve met some interesting contacts over the last few months that either manage orphanages, or work with children/youth in this capacity.  Next week we plan to visit some in the region and build some relationships with the directors, find out really what the needs are. 

[This picture is for my dad]

We met again last night for our monthly Jacob’s Cafe meeting, we had a time of singing and praying together with the church.  Pray for us, we are going to make next month’s an evangelistic outreach and invite people, share the gospel.  Next month we are also going to host a Men’s Event… Paintball in our woods.. this will also be an outreach focus, I’ve already talked to a couple guys in town that are excited about it.  We’re going to help sponsor the event so it will be affordable for everyone.  I wonder if Ukrainian paintballs hurt like American ones?  mmm. 

Thanks for checking in –

(PS, nothing is growing in our garden yet.. it’s been 2-3 weeks.. shouldn’t i see something yet?)

Bruce & Deb

Maybe we are dreaming.  We should probably be praying.  The field in our backyard has become our families first garden… You simply stick the seed the in ground and God does the rest right?  The way the Ukrainians work daily in their fields, the tender loving care they give each plant.. we starting to wonder:). 

Anyway, a quick post to show you how we spent our Saturday afternoon.  We wrapped it up with a campfire, and good ole American burgers… well, shaped like them anyway.  Once again, we had another crew of young kids over on the trampoline today, we’ve managed to meet at least 20 new kids this week.   It’s really cool, even if the odd toy goes missing with the added visitors!

Hope you all are doing well, and have a blessed weekend-

Bruce & Deb

Time for another bullet list of ‘what’s happening’ in our world:

– Trampoline full of kids daily, and not just ours! 
– July 2-9 are the dates for the Texan group coming over, I’m getting ready to present info to the City on this special week.
– Deb is feeling better, thank you for praying!
– The city has asked us to participate and help host the annual “Family Day” in May.  Pray for that please.
– While we received 3yr business visas, we now need to get registered.. thought we had 180 days, but the bank said we need it now to receive money… so rushing to get this done this week.   After that, then Ukrainian plates for the truck…
– Home Groups are going well, next Wed we meet at Jacobs for worship/coffee and hope to invite some people (needs to grow!).
– No land yet for the Family Center.  We have inquired on a few places, waiting and praying.  God’s timing is perfect.. if we’ll give ourselves to prayer… pray with us please.
– Cypress/Work is going well, we had a rough start to the year, but so did Google!  Thankful for work as we hear stories and family that is having a hard time. 
– This summer we have July group, Cassie leaves mid July, Deb’s parents in August, my parents (and aunt/uncle/cousin) coming Sept.
– Thinking about starting a monthly or quarterly business luncheon.  Maybe kick this off with our July group.  Maybe include some other towns.
– Preliminary investigation of orphanages in region.  We have contact with director, want to figure out more about how they are funded, the needs, and praying about digging into adoption procedures for the future (maybe for us, but probably more as a ministry).
– Enjoying the WONDERFUL long summer days (after short dark winter) and weather.  We’re very thankful.
– Kids are healthy, growing like weeds.  Noah is slow to speak but I think very gifted, he loves music, plays the keyboard and sings (and shouts), and can really play soccer quite well.  He can even catch a ball when i throw it, without any practice.  
– Russian lessons are coming along.. trying to be consistent with it.  Svetlana is a great teacher.
– Ministerial group should be meeting again this week.. hoping to share a meal together.. with our wives.
– Planted 10 rows of corn, 1/2 debs organic and the other treated (my) corn.  They don’t grow sweet corn here, so we’re hoping it grows.  Maybe we’ll send Deb down to the market to sell it with the babushka’s.

Thanks for your support, encouraging words and prayer.  We miss you all!

Bruce, Deb and Kids.