Vadim is a gifted, and funny young man from Belarus who is helping lead.

This past spring some of the Minsk team that visited asked if we’d be interested in hosting a summer team.  Kid’s camps (basically VBS style) are are still very popular in the FSU (Former Soviet Union).

Thank you to those that helped financially support this camp – we were able to provide shade for the kids, and we need it!

This is the first week long camp we’ve help coordinate.  We have a team of +20 young people serving as leaders, mixed in from various churches and backgrounds – all with a heart to love kids and invest precious seeds of God’s love.   Our family has helped sponsor most major purchases, with the help of some close friends who have joined us investing in this (thank you!).

It is unfortunately incredibly hot out of the gate.  33 today (91F) and very little shade in our downtown venue.  Tomorrow looks to be possibly cloudy and chance of rain, that would be wonderful!   We had 45 kids today, and tomorrow looks to add to that number.  We did very little advertising outside of a few posters and social media.  The inflatable bouncy slide (thank you Hope for Orphans for lending!) is a huge advertisement in itself.

https://youtu.be/rx5_nlqdyiI

Morning worship at our house – we have had such amazing times together with various teams over the past 2yrs.  Times of refreshing, vision, and everything else that comes when His presence is the focus of gathering.

Bronwyn being goofy with her close friend Marie- whom she’s known since we moved here 8yrs ago! Marie has been here the past month, but leaves tomorrow back for Australia.  We miss her humor and joy.  She was an excellent friend and role model for Bronwyn in the early years.

We’re unsure what the week holds for the evenings.  We have some ideas, but nothing hammered in stone.  I really want the group to pray, listen and take steps of faith.  Too often things are ‘progamized’ I think well ahead of time, and while plans are good – sometimes we need practice listening and obeying together.  We may show a movie at night (drive in style!), play flag football, who knows!  The main thing is that we maximize our availability for the Lord and connect with whoever He sends us while we have such a great venue in the center.   During prayer, I had the words, “basecamp” come to mind – so we are going to plan to be in the center each evening and available for God to use us in whichever way He leads.

Pray for us please this week!  We have guys sleeping in the tent watching over our stuff as security.  During the night at 3am several drunk fellows came and began hassling the young guys, including Tucker.  It turned out OK, but we believe there is increased spiritual activity around us – we know the enemy would love to destroy and discourage.   Please go the Lord for us right now and ask Him to fight, and push back the darkness over this culture, and the families that have no hope.  Many precious kids this week are hearing and repeating with their mouths the love of God over them – pray it sinks deep and faith takes root!

She was quite proud of her art. We are more like grandparents now and just laugh with her.

In other news, Claire has become quite the talker these past few weeks.  She rambles quite extensively, making very little sense but if you engage her pretty eyes, and pretend you understand, she sparkles with excitement.  Deb and I love this little girl.  She is definitely developing at a slower pace than normal, and shows many signs of dwarfism.  We are currently sending off measurements and various check-up info to a doctor friend for more direction on next steps.  She is healthy, smart, but quite short and dis proportioned.

Yesterday we sadly said goodbye to one of our most loyal student workers, Nazar.  Nazar, who lived with Simeon and Asia, is off to Lviv for IT College.  A wonderful opportunity provided by some US sponsors.  Nazar has been such a blessing, and we’ll miss him.  He’s an orphaned young man who has proven that if you provide security, love and ‘home’ at an early age, you can beat the statistics.

We hosted a concert on the Patio this past weekend.  It was so cool to see so many neighbors packed and listening to various homegrown talents – the Minsk team were able to perform a couple songs, as well we Bronwyn who continues to grow her creative skills with some songwriting.

Thanks for checking in!  Remember to pray and battle where it counts!

Bruce & Deborah

Today we hosted +30 widows at the Cafe for an ice cream party.  These special ladies (and one man) are part of our feeding program which involves leaders from the local churches here who sponsor, visit, pray with, and take them each a food package monthly.  It was the first time we brought them all together.

We had several folks sing, some elderly believers share their faith, and provide them with a special gift at the end.  Here’s some photos!

Rafael (from Cuba living in our town) and Natasha have been a big part of our Widows program – Rafael is our official driver 🙂

Cafe was packed perfectly, not a seat to spare!

The gift was a package consisting of some special soaps, a craft the interns had made (a wooden cross necklace) and a large letter New Testament in Ukrainian.  At the end I was able to share about the gift of Christ – and we turned to Matt 28 and Jesus last words to the disciples “and I will be with you until the end of the age”.

I teased the ladies to not peak inside the packages until it was time – they were all smiles.

It was a special time!  I overheard several conversations relating to ‘who we all were’, that we weren’t “Orthodox” but that “there is only one God”.. Da, Da, one lady affirmed.  They have been raised since childhood to be extremely wary of anyone speaking spiritual truths, especially from the Bible if they aren’t a Priest.

One widower among the crew – lucky fella!

I didn’t preach per say, but with my most special gift sitting on my lap (Claire), talked with them about the nature of a gift, what makes it so special – that it’s a piece of someone’s heart to you, and it’s free!  It was interactive and I believe many, including our entire team were encouraged by the time together.  Our staff and interns served excellently as well, such perfect opportunity to practically disciple young people to serve as well.

During the singing the ladies wouldn’t eat their Ice Cream and Brownie because it would be rude!

Many asked when the next meeting would be – it was a lot of work, but we need to pray about continuing with some regularity.  The fact that it’s a cafe, and that we are simply extending God’s love and affirming it, seems to be a perfect vehicle to help them fully trust in Christ together.  There were several “amens” and sincere thanks as we drove them all home – which took 90 minutes each time to collect and return them just from our small town!

Tomorrow we receive friends from Minsk, a family with 3 older kids (11-15) that have become dear friends over the past year and administrate the Bible School there.   Then, Thursday we receive a team of 7-8 from Minsk to join our Rz team of volunteers and leaders from local churches to host a Kids VBS type camp in the center of town August 1-5.  We are expecting up to 100 kids, and have been graciously given a huge blow up slide for 3 days from Zhenya’s team, and have a pretty cool schedule each morning including singing, games, crafts and food!

Thank you Vova from Pentecostal church, you did an incredible job designing the poster!

We’ll be posting an update hopefully next week – We are thankful for the Mayor of Rz, the interim Mayor (our old one was voted away unexpectedly last month), has visited our Cafe and we were able to get permission for the use of the center stage for the Kids Camp – and also able to show her our Studio and other ministries we are engaged in locally.

This Friday we are joining with Khargalyk church family as they host a 24hr Worship Marathon.  Bronwyn will be leading a portion, and several from our staff/interns going to some/all of it.  I don’t think I can do 24hrs, that’s some serious commitment that requires no other commitments.  It speaks however to the hunger and passion that is growing, these are Ukrainians that are leading it, their idea, and this is what it’s all about – indigenous faith taking root, God is the God of impossibles, we can and should look to Him to change our hearts, our cities and even the nations!  We are excited to try something new, we will be streaming Lord willing from Periscope App, and linking to our Awaken page!  Not only this, our friends in Texas, Dave and Dana Huber are going to open their home Friday evening for worship as well, and we’ll simultaneously be worshipping JEsus together and posting our streams on the same page!

24 Worship Event, led by our very own Lighthouse Studio staff Dima and their church in Khargalyk.

So, if you are in Ukraine, from 6pm Friday to 6pm Saturday, you can watch online and join in!  Tell your friends!  If you want to open your home, or even your youth group for Worship, you can stream to the Awaken page too!  For Americans, the 24hr period starts 10am CST Friday, and ends Saturday 10am CST.

Skatepark is stalling a bit, we have a problem with our asphalt pad being too high, and causing some concern that our fence wall needs to act more like a retaining STRONG wall to keep the pad from shifting or cracking.. we think we’re back on track, but it’s cost us another $500 unfortunately that we didn’t want to spend.  The playground equipment is coming along in Vova’s garage, but soon need to transport it to our property and start working on the surface of the yard.. I’d love grass, but I’ve had very little luck here with grass.. It might have to be a combination of small stones, and grass area.. we’ll see!  The park that is being built on the fly, it’s the only way here in Ukraine so we smile and go with it!

On a difficult note, we have some dear friends that just found out the wife has a later stage cancer.  In all of our rejoicing for what God is doing, we pause and remember how fragile life is – and have begun bearing this in prayer.  Our theology seems to come out rather quickly in times of urgency – does God heal?  Does he answer prayer?  Are we scared to step out and trust Him sometimes for fear of our theology being rocked?  Do we play it safe when we simply ascribe to “Whatever happens is God’s will?” – I believe God still does miracles, we are witnessing this with one of our interns specifically as God awakens a heart, breathes life and old things become new.  It’s the greatest miracle on this side of eternity, if he can resurrect the dead in spirit, surely He can restore a young mothers health.  Please join with us in believing for ‘above and beyond’ type results, that He would heal and restore.

In family news – Brent is in Canada for 3 more weeks with Broderic, who is about to start this fall an intense apologetic course in Ottawa, Canada.  I built my first chicken coupe, Deb and short hair (and I love it!) and our pizza is still selling strongly – we have gone from $700 per month losses, to $200-300 losses since getting gas at the Cafe – that’s a huge answer to prayer and allows us to tackle more projects locally.

Speaking of projects – the Kids camp is being sponsored by Lighthouse, which means our family as we’re still not profitable as a business…  we haven’t as of yet asked for any help.  The total budget for the week, which includes feeding the kids (70-100) and staff of 20, is around $800.  This also includes renting a tent for the week  ($400).    If you have it on your heart to contribute something towards this, it would be gratefully received:)  You can support our efforts on this site by clicking on the Donate link above or here.

Thanks for checking in, sorry this is once again so long – we need to post shorter updates, but it seems to take weeks to sit down and write.  We need the spirit of God, we need prayers sent this way, it’s a battle, we are not without an enemy that seeks to destroy even the littlest seeds sown for the Kingdom.   I pray victory and the grace of God to win in your life and struggles this day as well.  Be encouraged, you are loved by the King!

Bruce & Deb

Our crew finishing bible study and getting ready to eat!  Brent the cameraman.

As the summer heat wave begins (again) in Ukraine, it marks the start of something cool for our ministry.  When we began last fall to meet with students and share weekly about the love of God, we had no idea if any would come.   They did!  We then wondered if any would continue through the course of the year.  They did! We then started to believe God for summer Interns – students that made up the core of our youth, that would be willing to study more intensely (daily) the truths of the Gospel, and serve together with us at Lighthouse Ukraine.

Well, we are so thankful for 3 young ladies that have been more like daughters to Deb and I this year.  They came to Minsk with us a few months ago and God continues to work in their lives.  This morning was our first morning, the days sort of look like this (remember we are also learning on the fly over here);

1. Breakfast 8:30
2. Worship & Prayer 9:00am
3. Study (Gospel of John) 10-11am
4. Devotional (We have many guests we are excited to use for this coming in next few weeks)
5. Lunch (prepared by interns)
6. Afternoon preparation for Kids project in August, and Widows Outreach Event

They also will be reading some devotionals working shifts in the afternoons/evenings to earn some spending money.

I was hoping for some of our area boys that came all year to Club 180, but all of them returned home for the summer to work and live quite far away.  We are super thankful for the parents of the girls, whom we’ve had the pleasure of meeting, who gave permission

Please pray for Natasha, Sveta, and Olya.  They are living during the week at ‘the big house’, Deb’s parents house down the road from us – it’s a perfect spot for groups and friends coming in and out this summer.

Bronwyn and Deb will both be involved, but we are super thankful to God for sending us Natasha from Minsk for the next 2 months.  She is here specifically to love the girls, and invest into their spiritual lives.  She is the ‘dorm mom’ down at the house, and helping us to organize a team coming in August from Minsk to work with kids in our area.  More details coming soon!

It’s a double blessing for our family because we not only enjoy more partnering with our friends (school and church) in Minsk, but Russian is being heard daily now by our ears too!

I can’t comment too much on this (because the Police STILL haven’t come after 3 days!), but we have caught on camera the person who tried to break-in to our house 3 nights ago.  Our security system worked great, alerted me out of my sleep and I actually ended up chasing him through the forest a while before I realized I was 40, or 41 can’t remember.  Anyway, so discouraging as we know who it is.   We’ve lost so much this past year – the emotional stress has outweighed the material losses.

Our studio completed its first week with Dima on staff.  He’s made so much progress, and is so clean!!  He’s already recording (his wife for practice) and I believe in the next few weeks we’ll be ready to host some others.  We’re both incredibly excited to see Ukrainians come and record, inspiring more original writing and also opening up a new avenue for connecting with students this fall.   We need more equipment if you want to contribute towards that – in the $2,000 range to really be set for charging for services and attempting to make it sustain.

The park is coming along nicely.  I should say the ‘land’ is coming along, the half house is down – took about 4 dump trucks to haul it off.  I’m really pleased with how the land has opened up – it’s going to be a really nice area for the pad and kids play area.  Negotiating hard with our Armenian friend and trying to stay on budget – he is daily offering ‘suggestions’ and it’s getting tiring – BUT I could not have made such progress without him and his country of native workers at his disposal.

Lastly, most of you have heard about, hopefully, the law signed by Putin this past week severely limited religious liberty in Russia.  It was already quite strict and difficult to get permits and ‘expand’ publicly the Kingdom of God in Russia – much like it is in Belarus.  However, the new laws turn back the clock.  A couple points in the new law:

• Illegal to invite anyone to religious events (non-orthodox).
• Illegal to read/study bible, worship or pray with others in your home.
• Illegal to be in country doing ANY religious activity as a foreigner without specific permission from government (which is unattainable if non-orthodox).
• Illegal to teach your children (I have read variations of this in several places) or ‘proselytize’ them towards anything non-orthodox.
• Will make it even easier for government to stifle public protests of any kind.

The US government responded yesterday with this:

http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/russia-uscirf-condemns-enactment-anti-terrorism-laws

Enjoyed some Kayaking yesterday with Tom and his kids – and Vlad with his son Matthew joined – it’s been a rough season for their family – was nice to see father & son happy.

The ‘motivation’ is anti-terrorism, or so it would seem.  However the claws of this law reach far into the nations integration of any western human right freedoms, including the expression of faith.  Bear in mind, the Orthodox church has never had a Luther type reformation.  The power structure is strong, used for political control – it’s not an evangelistic, love motivated religion.  It’s a relic of historical precepts, as a whole filled with corruption and deceit.  We know God has sons and daughters inside the system, and we pray for the Orthodox church to come alive with the freedom in the Gospel.  If it doesn’t, this leaves the work of the Kingdom exclusively to the under ground church – spies and neighbors reporting the slightest grievance to the new law will send countless to prison, many religious organizations fined, and almost certainly foreign missionaries branded law-breakers and expelled (possibly for life).

While ‘the church’ at large reacts with an emoji of sadness “praying for the church in Russia”, for Deb and I, this is the staging of some very real challenges for our family and the Kingdom of God at large.  It’s a battle, spiritually there are all kinds of forces and territories in play for the hearts of men.   What we see with our physical eyes with printed law is but a reverberation of the greater invisible reality.

We feel called to the Russian speaking population, in and outside of Russia.  We’re currently looking into some long term Belorussian visa permits for longer stays in Minsk on projects.  We will seek God’s wisdom, and grace to move ahead with various invitations to go and encourage/teach from friends inside the motherland.  It adds new intensity to prayer, and trusting God.  We know a growing number of friends and missionaries in Russia, and we realize in Ukraine we are enjoying an incredible measure of freedom.  It’s time to seize that freedom for seeking God and proclaiming him openly – as quickly as those freedoms came only a few short years ago, they can disappear in the night.   We need only to look to Russia.

For those of you in the west, enjoying the fruits of those who’ve marched ahead with boldness in the face of great personal risk and suffering – pray with us for God’s Kingdom to foil the attempts of men.  Salvation is a free gift to humanity, unrestrained by those afraid of it’s power.

Thank you for your support!

Bruce & Deborah