Sorry for the absence....

Wow, what a busy and fruitful time we've had this week. Each day has started early and the ministry has gone late into the night. It's now a beautiful and cold Saturday morning in L'viv, and I'm going to try to recap the week. I apologize in advance as this may seem like a long rambling....

Tuesday-
As I wrote earlier, Monday's outreach at one of the local Universities resulted in us being invited to come back again. On Tuesday a number of classes were combined in a larger room and we had about 75 students present. We used music and the English language as a way to spend time with these students, which allowed us to talk to them about our faith and to invite them to the evening English Club meetings at the Church. 

To our pleasant surprise, many of them attended at various times throughout the week. One young lady named Olga came multiple nights, and as she left on Friday night she said, "See you at Church on Sunday"! I don't think she's a believer yet, but her interactions with the American & Ukrainian believers has definitely drawn her to the Lord. We'll be excited to see her on Sunday morning.
Tuesday's outreach at the University was much harder than Monday's because only a small percentage of the group spoke enough English to participate. It made it hard for us to keep their attention, and I think we all felt a bit frazzled. Josh Pratt, Mike's son, is the worship leader at New Horizons, and is becoming a well known musician in the area. We changed gears and had Josh and Taylor do some music; all at once things changed for the better! The students were clapping, singing, and there was a sense of unity between Americans and Ukrainians. Music is very powerful...

Tuesday evening's English Outreach was a struggle as well. A number of people came that were either a direct plant from Satan, or simply there to distract us. By the end of the night our team and the leaders at New Horizons were a bit frazzled again. We discussed what happened, we prayed, and we modified things for the next evening. By God's grace, we've not seen any of those people again.

Wednesday we did an outreach at the Children's Center that's run by a lady named Yulia who attends New Horizons. We sang songs, did crafts, read stories, and took the Children to a playground.

This is Yulia with some of her students

One of the little girls was obviously sick with a respiratory infection and she was nice enough to share it with me! Please pray for me to be healed....

When we arrived last week the weather was so beautiful. Over the last few days it's been getting colder & colder, and Thursday was so miserably COLD, WINDY, & RAINY that our evangelism outreach at another local University had to be cancelled. :(

However, that created other opportunities for all of us.... 

The team spent the morning resting, walking around the city, and having devotions. In the afternoon they did a little shopping for souvenirs. 

I used the morning to prepare a message on the subject of "Faithfulness" for this Sunday's service. I'll be teaching on using our "Time, talent, & treasures" to further the work of the Kingdom.
Pastor Mike prepared his message from Revelation for the Saturday night "Koinonia" service, and Keli & Michelle planned the food for a special party we had after last night's English class.

Friday we braved the wind, rain and snow to do an evangelistic outreach on the streets outside of Ivan Frankov University. We handed out @ 1500 Bibles with invitations to New Horizons. We also set up a prayer tent and offered to pray with and minister to people. Later in the afternoon I had the opportunity to meet with 4 young men in Pastor Mike's leadership to do a simple little leadership training activity. It was really an encouragement to me, and it led to some impromptu one on one time with 3 of them later in the evening.

Rick, Trish, & Pastor Mike leading our English Outreach activities

Yulia leading a small group evangelism study at an English Outreach

Some of our English students...

Taylor and Josh doing music at an English Outreach

The war in the East has caused many refugees to flee to the West. There are a number of families and individuals at New Horizons that are refugees. This is Igor and Liliya. They are from a Calvary Chapel that no longer exists because of the war. Igor sent Liliya and the children to L'viv & he remained with the pastor until he had to flee. They are hoping to go to Poland or Canada and start a new life.

This is Lida. Her parents put her and a sibling on a train to flee the war. She ended up in L'viv and the sibling in another city. She's hoping to be reunited with her family

Today our team will be back on the streets handing out bibles, sharing our faith, and inviting people to New Horizons to hear God's Word. As you pray, ask the Lord to open people's hearts; since we're not Catholic or Orthodox we're viewed as a cult like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons.

In short, the team has done a great job reaching our goals here in L'viv!
- Through last weekend's conference and all the time we've spent with the Believers here, the Saints have been encouraged to continue "Running with endurance the race set before them"
- The gospel has been clearly proclaimed, and we've had the opportunity to help a number of people clarify their faith.
What do I mean by "Clarify"? We've met quite a few young people who know about God and His love, about Jesus and His sacrifice, but don't understand the gospel message. We've had the opportunity to clarify the gospel, and to see a few people make a profession of faith! Praise God

Tonight Ashley, Keli, and I will do some special music at Koinonia. Tomorrow morning Taylor will participate in leading worship, and I'll teach. We'll spend the afternoon preparing to travel home, then attend a coffee house concert that Josh is doing. Monday we head home, and we're all looking forward to being back with our AWESOME church family.

Keep praying, and let's not forget that there is much to do....
PR