“Spring is Here!” (March 2013 Update)
March 1st is officially the first day of Spring in Ukraine. Even the president made a first of spring
speech. But it still seems like it will be a while before spring really arrives. We still have snow on the ground and some sidewalks
still have an inch or so of ice. Our temperatures still go below freezing … but it is “spring” here! Березень is the name for March in Ukrainian. It means “birch” and reminds everyone that the sap in the trees is returning and the buds for the leaves will soon be coming. So, even though spring is no really here yet, it is certainly not far away.
It is a reminder that the grace of God overflows in our lives through Jesus: “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16).
In the past two weeks, I’ve been involved in teaching ESL Classes at the national university (Taras Shevchenko) with Campus Crusade. We had over 300 students show up for interviews and we were only able to take 200 stud
ents in our classes. We had 7 different classes with 28-30 students each. Ryan Miller and I had an upper-intermediate group. We meet for 3 hours every night for 10 days. Each night included an English Bible study. The disc
ussions were great and much groundwork was laid for spiritual impact in these student’s lives. We will follow-up with a weekly class to continue to reach out to the students.
In our church ministries, we had a great “Refresh Weekend” teaching about our spiritual lives and our quiet times with God. The weekend was both instructive and refreshing for us all. On Wednesday nights, I continue to teach a small group Bible Study on the right bank and we love working with this wonderful group of college and career people!
I am continuing to prepare for my upcoming classes. I’ll be helping teach some parts of the Church Planting class on Prayer in March (Be praying for Jim Albright who will be coming to Kiev to teach the majority of this course). Then in April, I will be teaching Pneumatology and then Eschatology. Finally in May, I will be helping teach Research and Critical Thinking 1 and then at the end of May and early June, I will be teaching Research and Critical Thinking 2.
I’ve been enjoying my Russian studies. I am amazed at how much I can understand now. My bigge
st difficulty is speaking. I can say a lot but my case endings are all wrong and so what I say often sounds strange (or even totally impossible to understand) to Ukrainians. But I am speaking as often as I can and fortunately most people are very kind and patient with me. But I still make some very big mistakes. At our English club, one discussion icebreaker was: Which would you rather be: Blind or Deaf. In Russian, I said I would rather be гл
упым (foolish) than слепым (blind). I meant глухим (deaf). There is only one letter sound different, but it is a big difference. Needless to say, the students loved it!
Thanks for being our partners in ministry! I hope that your life is filled with the joy of the Lord and that you are refreshed daily by His presence!
By His Grace,
Jim and Katya
