Created for a Mission

I just want you to know that this is a test.  I hope it works so that I can make more of these video and post them for you.  If this works correctly you will be able to see more details able our time in Ukraine this past summer.

My 2008 Ukraine Journey

Since my return from Ukraine I have had time to rest, to reflect and to be refreshed.  It has taken me until now to feel totally back to my new normal.  For those of you who have been on a missions journey, you know that you are changed forever, so once you return home you have to adjust.  Each trip teaches you something new.  During this trip I learned what it means to fully rely on God.  I thought I knew before but He taught me a new level of dependency.  I learned how to persevere through sickness.   For 2 ½ of the 5 weeks we were in Ukraine I was ill.  I could barely keep any food down.  I am grateful to God that He kept me and each day He gave me with strength to complete my assignment.  I am thankful to say that I am healed.  One of my first tasks to do once I returned home was to go to the doctors and the second task was to rest.   Over the past few weeks I also visited my brother and sister in VA and NC.

I am now ready to press for the next few months and perform the ministry of MPD (Missionary Partner Discovery).  Please pray with me that God will open the doors for me to minister to churches and individuals.  And that out of the ministry God will raise up some prayer partners and partners to support me financially.  Praise God I am currently at 80%.  It is all God’s doing and I know that He is faithful to complete that which He has begun.    Here are those pictures I promised.

Talking with campers during camp games.

Group picture from our Interpreters’ Camp.

Tania, Pastor Covington and Natasha relaxing one evening by the river.

Me giving a teaching on “Who Do Men Say that I Am?”  The word on the PowerPoint is Jesus in Ukrainian.     

Edik sending the message of HIV/AIDS awareness through our fashion show with a message. 

Natasha during our final session of our Youth Ministry.

Tania conducting a brief teaching on discovering spiritual gifts with Inna interpreting.

Young women discussing how they will take a stand for Christ and other issues they are passionate about.

  The drama section of our Adventure Camp depicting the crucifixion on Jesus and how some accept Him and some reject Him. 

Two guys from the all boys orphanage where we ministered.

One of the classrooms during the Adventure Camp.

Evangelism in Vitosks.

Pastor Covington preaching during a Sunday Service.

Natasha, one of our interpreters from years past, and her little girl Tanya.

A great family who adopted three orphans in addition to raising their natural born children. 

We began our journey home at 6:15am on Monday August 4^th.  We departed from Celets pretty much on time.  We drove to Rivne without many delays.  Pastor Peter dropped us off at the Hotel Rus.  We were all anticipating being home the next day.  We walked around downtown, got something to eat and then got some rest to be prepared for our journey home.  We packed our luggage in a midsize sedan and made the 40 minute trip to the airport.  At the time of our check-in we were told that there was a mechanical problem with the plane and we could have a delay of 5 minutes or 2 hours.  So we made our way through security and then passport control.  We glance at the monitors before sitting down.  The flight was still on time.  We were schedule to leave Kyiv at 10:50am.  At the schedule departure time, they told us the flight would be delayed, the part had to be flown in from London and it would arrive at 3:00pm.  We would leave at 5:00pm.  An hour after the announcement the airlines provided us with sandwiches and water.   After this our flight disappeared from the monitors.  During our wait we met many fellow travelers, some who had been in Ukraine for one week, some for a month and some for 2 years.  It was a great time to share the love of Christ and to have some good conversations with people we would probably never have talked with otherwise.    Our flight finally departed at about 7:00pm Ukraine time.  We arrived in New York at 10:30pm EST.  We were shuttled to a nearby hotel to spend the night.  We awoke bright and early to be at the airport by 6:30am.  Our flight to DC departed from JFK at 8:30am this morning, August 6^th.  We arrived in DC at about 10:30am.  I am grateful to God that the team is home safely and that He allowed us to take the long road home.  It was quite a journey.

This past week was an awesome week. We arrived in Dubrovitsa on last Thursday and we had planning time on Friday with the interpreters and youth leaders. On Saturday we had training for the camp leaders and then we had our introductory youth session in the evening. On Sunday we worshipped with the church. Monday and Tuesday we met with the youth and had a powerful time of worship, learning a fellowship together.
On Wednesday, we traveled to Rivne early in the morning. We met with the senior pastor for the region and we decided to go to church services that evening. When we left the house it was drizzling a little bit. We got on the bus and about half way to the church, it began to rain. It was a torrential down pour. When we got off the bus, we looked in all directions to see where to cross the street. There was a river as far as the eyes could see. We proceeded to cross the street through the water. As we were checking to see if any cars were approaching, I large truck was approaching. We had to move back from the curb into some bushes. By this time, Natasha and I were laughing hysterically. The church turned out to be about three blocks away from the bus stop. The streets were all covered with water and it was still raining very hard. So we literally, hiked up our skirts and ran down the street, laughing all the way. As you can imagine, we don’t have any pictures. By the time we got to church, we were soaking wet. We wrung out our skirts and went inside for the service. We went up and gave our testimonies.
Pastor Covington arrived on Thursday safely. Thank you for praying for his travels. Thursday, Friday and Saturday Converge MidAtlantic held a translators camp. On Friday, we had a great opportunity to go to an outdoor service at the Motor Track as a part of the camp. One of the Baptist unions and the Pentecostal union joined together to bring Nick Vijuic to Ukraine. Nick is a 25 year old man who was born without arms or legs. He travels around the world preaching the gospel. It has been raining a lot and so everyone was praying that it didn’t rain. When we arrived to the stadium there were a few drops of rain and then the sun came out. God moved mightily through Nick’s testimony. Many souls came forward to accept Christ. I was very inspired by this gentleman. Please pray for the remainder of our stay here.

Picture of the Motor Track in Rivne during the service on Friday.

A typical Sunday in the life of the Baptist church in Dubrovitsia. There are four services in three locations. Two services are held in the church building, one is held in Zarichne, a village about 40 minutes away and the last one of the day is held in the village of Celets. It reminds me of being at home at First Baptist Church of Glenarden when I have served at church all day. It is great because the service in Zarichne is held outside. Today it rained and the service was cut short. The last service of the day was held at 7:00pm in the House of Culture in Celets. After going for two weeks straight, I could not hang today, so I did not attend to final service of the day.

I also wanted to catch you up on where we are and what we are doing. Last week was great, on Monday we were supposed to go to the Bee House, a family style setting for orphans who chose to live in the house. The house is really quite unique because one of the requirements is that the kids must attend church. We were not able to go because the power was knocked out by a storm, so we went to the church and spent the day planning. On Tuesday we went to an orphanage for special needs boys. We did not know before we arrived that we would be ministering to only boys and that they would be special needs, but praise God we had a great time together. After leaving the orphanage, we went to the Bee House where we spent a few hours just hanging out and talking to some of the residents who were home. When we arrived the power still was not on but some of the older teens were home. We did a small craft project with a couple of the young ladies. On Wednesday we visit two women. One has been cripple her entire life and is confined to a bed but she is spirit-filled. The other young lady is 28 and I think she has cerebral palsy. She reads a lot, watches educational movies and was very knowledgeable about a lot of things. It was great spending time with and praying with these women.

Please pray for us as we head to Rivne on Wednesday for the translators camp and return to Dubrovitsia for the children’s camp, the youth events and evangelism. Also, Pastor Covington will be traveling on Wednesday to join Natasha and me for the remainder of our time in ministry here. Please pray for his safe flight.   Thank you for praying for us!

I will post some pictures once I am able to post from my computer.

This week has been quite eventful!  We had our planning meeting on last Tuesday where we received our marching orders for the next two weeks from Pastor Michael.  After our meeting we started immediately and visited a family who had 14 children and they lost one last year to a tragic accident.  The next day, Wednesday, we spent the morning shopping for supplies and then visited with the women and a few men at Zaborol, a facility for mentally challenged individuals.    On Thursday we had a unique opportunity to spend the day at a youth festival that was being held for youth from all over the Rivne region.  The youth spent the week in tents, hearing the word of God, playing camp games, and fellowshipping together.  There were about 700 young people in attendance and it is estimated that 200 of them were unbelievers.  The day we attended the festival was the day for the evangelism program.  We spent the afternoon talking with different young people and then attended the service in the evening where all the youth were in attendance.  On Friday, we went to Novastav, a TB clinic where children of all ages come to receive treatment for 2 months because they tested positive on the TB test they received in school or they were exposed to TB at home.  Don’t worry they are not contagious it is preventative treatment.    We closed off our week of servce visiting a family with 7 children.  Four of the children are their natural children and three were adopted from an orphanage.  This family was amazing because even though they did not have a lot they opened up their home to three children who had even less.   While visiting this family in addition to exchanging testimonies and meeting some practical needs, we had the unique opportunity to try authentic Ukrainian “salo” and thus the title of this post.   Salo is a traditional Ukrainian food.  It is similar to fat back.  We were told by Uri, the father, that workers would take salo with them to work in the fields because it does not spoil and because it gives you energy.   Finally we attended Grace church on Sunday.  It is a large church here in Rivne and the Pastor Andrei is a young guy. 

Literally! We arrived pretty much on time on July 3rd. We were met at the airport by Pastor Peter and his daughter Inna. We drive through the heavy traffic in Kyiv and stop for lunch about 2 hours later. We arrived in Rivne (the major city in the region where we will be serving). We dropped our bags of at Inna’s flat, took what we needed and were off to Dubrovitsa for the weekend. We were told before we arrived that the main road between Rivne and Dubrovitsa was closed for repairs but no one talked about the options for the other roads. As we were leaving Rivne we learned that we would have to go through the woods and over a river. Okay, so I turned it around in the title, it just sounded better for a title the way I have it. Anyway, at some point we turned off the main road and rode on a dirt road through the woods for over 30 minutes. The road ended at a river where there were cars waiting the cross the river. In order to cross the river cars had to go two by two on a manually operated ferry. While we waited for our turn, we got out the car, went close to the river and watched as cars boarded the ferry on one side and drove off on the other side. Pedestrians and horse drawn carts where also allowed to cross. It was an exciting and new experience.   We are leaving for Rivne tomorrow.

Family and friends, the time is at hand for my 5 week journey to Ukraine.  This is the longest amount of time that I have spent outside the US since I was 7 years old.  I am ready.  My bags are lined up and ready to go.  Our flight departs at 1:00pm today.  Please pray for travelling mercies and for God to use Natasha and me in the powerful way. 

I got back from Minnesota yesterday.  It was truly a glorious and intense time.  In addition to the training, we got to play and bond with each other.  One of the fun things we did was attend a Twins baseball game.  We also stayed up to talk most nights.  On this past Thursday night I was commissioned by the Baptist General Conference along with 13 other missionaries.  All together there were four single women and five families. 

So, I am back in the DC area for a few days where I will be feverishly preparing for my five week adventure in Ukraine.  Natasha and I depart on Wednesday.  Please pray for our preparation before we go to Ukraine and for our ministry in Ukraine for the five weeks.  We will be serving in orphanages, a women’s sanitarium and with our sister church.  I am looking forward to seeing my Ukrainian family.   

We will arrive in Kyiv on Thursday morning (about 2:00am in the morning EST) and then drive to Rivne and on to Dubrovytsa.  Thus the title of the post - Two Countries (USA & Ukraine), Three Cities (St. Paul, Hyattsville, & Kyiv), & One Town (Dubrovytsa).

Life is such an adventure when you follow after God!

Over the past week I have gotten to know numerous missionaries from all over the world who are in the US from home assignment.  Folks are here from Brazil, Argentina, Japan and the Philippines.   We have laughed together, eaten together and just fellowshipped together.  Yesterday we went on a bus trip about an hour away where we had a picnic lunch at a park by a lake, visited Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little house in the Big Woods home (i.e., Little House on the Prairie), a cheese factory and ice cream store with some yummy ice cream, and an eagle sanctuary.  Our trip took us across into Wisconsin, so I hit another state on this trip.  How exciting!