More from Ukraine...

Wednesday, May 15th we started out having coffee with a dear friend that I have known since she was a young girl, Natalya.  Her mom was my interpreter in Siberia back in 1994.  Natalya's mom was a dear friend and passed from cancer several years ago.  Natalya is a brilliant lady who is a professor of Psychology at the local University.  She loves the Lord passionately and serves Him with students, faculty, the needy and especially young single moms.  She is a great blessing to everyone!    After our time with Natalya we hurried to the other side of the City to have a second meeting over lunch with Jury and Anna whose wedding I was officiating the following Sunday the 19th!  It was a great meeting with a beautiful couple who wanted everything in the wedding to point to Christ!  About this time I started getting nervous about my part in the wedding and some of the differences between our cultures and the various expectations!   But God is the One who always brings peace...   A couple years ago I spoke at a conference for young people and this trip God just pouring out one expression after another of those in attendance that had their lives changed by His Holy Spirit- it was stunning!    One example was a young girl named Valeria who was at a critical juncture in her life and God lifted her up and gave her a vision to serve Him with handicapped young adults!  All we had to offer then was $200 for a little start up money.  She, and God were tenacious though and that year began serving one of the most underserved people in the Country.  She is full of the grace and fruit of the Spirit and now has an education center and loving volunteers who are teaching hygiene, social skills, academics and how to be self supporting with different commercial products they are creating together, including a mini granola factory of which we were beneficiaries!   After Jury and Anna, we went to visit Rehma's school.  She and Valera are two of our young leaders who started this English speaking school for young children which I spoke of in an earlier post..  They use this school like everything else they do to serve Christ, teach love and kindness and model for parents and other public school teachers!   We went from there to a Bible Study that brought kids together from several churches at the home of two more beautiful friends that we have serving together with for several years, Sergei and Dianna.   It was a wonderful night!  Kids don't have a lot of positive things to do so something like this is an exciting dress up night.  It started off a little awkward but after they all introduced themselves I tried to repeat all their names back to them and it went pretty well.  Once they were known and their names were out there, things really opened up!  I spoke for about an hour and they were still asking great questions at the end.  I kept giving them the option to go home but everyone stayed!  Stuff like this hunger for the Kingdom of God really moves my heart!  Dianna is also an amazing Baker and had prepared a whole table full of treats, cookies, cakes and special drinks that were even more than all these hungry young friends could put away!  Afterward Sue and I had a wonderful time of prayer with our hosts and did dishes for all those baking items and guests while Mom and dad finally got their kids into bed!  Some of the other leaders who had hung around kept getting upset with us for staying to do dishes...but with a smile.  The mother-in-law who lives with them kept saying I have never seen anything like this before, but this looks like what Jesus would do! And one final story for today! During the day we were busy preparing for our reunion with the young leaders and the other meetings God had prepared in advance for us to lead. (Which I shared about in the previous Post)   I received an emergency text from a dear missionary friend from Ukraine who is serving in Kenya.  She and two others were living out in a village without any food or funds.  They thought they might be able to find someplace that took credit cards but there is nothing like that in these villages. Some local natives with a large family took them in but our friends' only shelter was a cow stall and this dear family had only greens to eat and one mango they all shared.   When Olena wrote they felt like they had run out of all options. So, I wrote to our dear brother Enos in Nairobi hoping we could get some money to them and to help this kind family.  But the friends in Kisumu, the closest town, and where we support a school with our lunch program, had no money to give.  Finally an assistant principle and dear friend ,Sammy, was able to collect $7 and drove 30 km that night to help them.  Then the next morning we were able to get another $10 to Olena which bought food for breakfast and dinner for everyone that day and transportation to Kisumu where Olena was able to use her card.  These dollar amounts are so small and yet the situation seemed so desperate!  All the communication since has just been full of praise and thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord!!  Even when we feel like we are such small contributors to this blackhole of need God still does the 'fishes and loaves' miracle in our own day, for His glory!  

In the picture of me with my arm around a man - Zhenya owns the local hot dog restaruant and uses his profits to care for these handicapped and other projects for the poor - all he and his family want is to serve Jesus. 

Sasha (the guy in the white coat without a chef's hat) is a sermon in itself and I hope someday to be able to share it for him...amazing man! He is standing next to Max (man in the other white coat) in one of the photos.

In the pictures are also Valeria with some of the delicious Granola Shop products!