Great start, great people.

Hi Friends,
So sorry for the delayed start on the blog. The Good news is that now we have wifi, the bad news is that we have a lot to catch up on.

The journey here was faultless. The flight to Lviv was quick and almost painless (apart from the 4:10am start). Sunday was a day full of making many, many wonderful friends. It was a huge privelege to meet so many young people in church, great young people. This church has an amazing future ahead of it. Having spent time with Pastors Vicrtor and Ivan when they were in the Uk last week, it was slightly odd (but good fun) to bring the church greetings from their own pastor whilst meeting them for the first time. 

Pastor Polikarp held the fort brilliantly with a supurb preach Sunday, a helpful, encouraing and practical message from James about how we come into a greater understanding of God through our tough and hard experiences in life (if we respond to these in faith). 

This region is very beautiful, and reminds me somewhat of the Snowdon area, with forests, hills, castles and many historic buildings, and a religious heritage which means there are many outwardly  beautiful churches on every street.

 
 The question remains however if this is symbolic of a dead religion which is a monument to the past or whether there is a real and vital relationship in the hearts of people. The truth i suspect is that many thousands of people in this region, treat God as something of a good luck charm, a picture to place in the front of your bus driver. A romantic view of a distant fairytale God like this (who only lives in a Gold plated tower church which resembles something from Disneyland)

does people no good. How can such a God help us, what does he know of our struggles and what does he care for our situation ?

In this context then you can imagine what an amazing Joy it was for us to meet people like Volodymyr and his wife Erha who have an amazing ministry to Young people. Many of these young people have come to know Jesus Christ in a relational and living way. They have come to see the reality of the one who came into our mess and sufferring to give us certain hope and a future. You only need to meet some of our amazing translators (Dana, Elijah and Jayne ) and see their smile to know what a difference Joy in Jesus Christ looks like...

Jonathan gave his story Sunday, and then I preached about the love, forgiveness, victory and certainty we find in Christ.

Today we have been working hard, lifting all the plasterboard materials into the second floor (through the fire exit door on that floor, which has no staircase (fire exit) yet). We were thaknkful for no accidents and that even the cat who surveyed from below ended up unharmed. We started the day studying Ephesians together and the awesome comsic (mind bending) truth that God has a glorious and eternal life purpose for each of us in Jesus Christ. We've been so grateful to God for his obvious provision and help today - and we are happy to report 2 rooms are nearly finished with Plasterboard already. 

 

Tomorrow we have a day trying to encourage the church here - and the many offsprings of what God is at work doing here, (amongst pastors, church planters, youth workers, orphangages, youth transition houses and many more avenues). We value your prayers so much and assure you God is anwering in amazing ways.

 Not only have we already accomplished much more than we expected, but have been blown away with the joy, love, closeness and dependence on God that we have enjoyed. We are delighted by absolutely everything we discover here. it strikes us that where true relationship with Christ is found, so is joy, laughter, hope, smiles, true friendship and a lot of love. God is good. He is at work in places we're yet to discover, and therefore we have great expectancy not only for our time here but our future relationship and what God will do with our partnership togerther.

The way this team, project and co-operation has come together is nothing short of remarkable, but this is just the beginning, we can expect our awe of what God is doing and does to grow. Thank you for being with us - now we have internet we will update more and more photos and news. 
Appreciated 
Blogski

We're set... get ready... pray !

Over centuries many have sung the words... " All I have needed your hand has provided" . This is because whatever the season, whatever the decade, century or country we live in ... God is utterly, consistently, undeviatingly, persistently faithful. Not only this, but he knows what we need before we utter it, and knows the big issues of our lives even though we are yet to begin to understand them ourselves. 

4 months ago started praying in earnest. (for 4 things) 

1) for a team to go out on our Autumn trip

2) For enough funds to complete the upper floor of "Grace transition house" (Kremenets, North West Ukraine) so that 8 girls could move in when we leave. 

3) For the possibility to encourage Pastors and Church planters doing good things in that Region of the world.

4) If there were other needs around, things that we could do, that God would show us. 

1) THE TEAM

The team are an amazing bunch of uniquely talented and compassionate people. On a trip like this you need people who "get it", that we are not going for ourselves but to serve others and encourage in whatever way we can. Thank God for the team of 8 who will be flying out. Pray for Alun L, Alun J, Ken, Zach, Jon, Mo, Dennis, and Paul. Pray that they will grow in their faith and be a great team of encouragement to others in whatever situations and roles they find themselves in. Also thank God for the army of folks who have helped us prepare. In the photo below you see Tina (also known as "Mrs Ken" in some parts of the world) packing some cases of goodies and gifts. 

I wish we'd had a wide angled sense so you could see how crammed the floor was. It was an amazing evening when we realised we had many more things to take than we could fit in twice as many cases than we started with. God is good ! We'll be revisiting this issue soon to explain how we get it all to the right place in the future. 

2) THE MATERIALS, GIFTS and building

To finish the upper floor we set a realistic budget of £7000. I say "realistic", because we knew that's how much we needed...but when the bank account was nearly empty after our last trip, we had absolutely no idea where any of that was coming from. It was a good time to pray in dependance on God. Here we are 4 months later and we not only have all that "phase 1"  money needed for materials, but God has rewarded our faith beyond what we could've imagined.  

• We have some wonderful gifts for our new friends who will be living in the house we hope to complete. Our Cases are full, but the bigger story is the kindness and fullness of generosity of the Uk church and all our friends in the UK. 
• We have more than enough to start planning next year and the Next Phase of our work to encourage those in Eurasia who are doing great things, and are all ready planning it (stay tuned during our trip to see what that looks like (photos included)) 
• Because of your generosity we have been able to send on some materials that some brilliant guys from the church are now fitting to the outside in readiness for the winter. This is a massive bonus for us, and means we can concentrate on the bits we are more used to doing (the inside). 
• Because God hears prayer, we also now have a brilliant welder on board. How cool is that for specific answered prayer ?... and now we will have a rock steady staircase. 

3) PASTORS CONFERENCES

During our trip we hope to encourage several groups of gospel workers as we share from the bible about "how to minister under pressure (2 Cor 1-6)", "How to grow as a pastor as the church grows", and "How to hand things on to the next generation". Please pray these times will be massively helpful and useful to our friends and church family in all that they are doing in exciting times of growth for the church.

4) "Getting about" (up to some good) !

WE will be visiting a number of different locations on our trip. Some of them where people are going through unimaginably tough situations, (stuff we hardly knew about 4 months ago). Thank you for those who have given towards these needs (warm coats and other things for the coming bitterness of winter for starters). You have helped us so much, especially to be an encouragement to others. Pray that God will keep us safe and productive as we travel long distances. Pray that we give people more than "stuff" and that they will come to know lasting joy, peace and certainty in Jesus Christ. 

Pray that we will complete the work, that all will go according to plan (God's plan) . 

Pray that preaching, teaching and training will be easily understood (through translation and a message of love from God just at the right time).

Pray that when it is all done - we give him the credit, honour and glory he is completely worthy of. It just wouldn't have happened if God wasn't awesomely faithful !

Yours "big time, blown away by God" 
Blogski