God at Work! (May 2016 Update)
I often get a kick whenever I see the sign “Men at Work.” That’s because, inevitably, there will be one guy working and 5-6 others standing around watching (usually giving advice too!). I noticed the same here in Ukraine recently – one guy in a manhole and 5-6 others standing around watching him work! I guess it’s universal!
But God is always at work bringing about His perfect plans in His perfect timing – whether we see Him or not! This past month, we have been blessed to see many evidences of God at work in our lives and in the lives of many that we ministry to.
Evangelistic Bible Study …
Following our English Club outreach with university students at Shevchenko University (where we had 291 
students!), we began a series of evangelistic Bible studies with any students that might be interested in hearing more about Christianity. We had about 6 of these Bible studies and Katya and I hosted and taught one of them. We met every week from the middle of March until the last week of April in our home to read Bible passages and discuss them. We covered topics like “the Unknown God” (Acts 17), The Ten Commandments, Grace, Passover, the Cross and the resurrection. Our last study was this week and the students all expressed appreciation for the studies. One guy said it has been the highlight of his week. Another girl said that, when we began, she was very skeptical about Christianity but now understood that it was reasonable. During our study on the objections to the resurrection, she said she had come up with many of those reasons herself and was surprised to hear that she was not the first to have such objections to the resurrection. After the study she said that she could now see that all her objections were really not logical and fact based and she believed that the resurrection had to be a historical fact!
We then proceeded to talk about how people can believe the truth of the resurrection and still not be a Christian. Like a doctor who knows the dangers of smoking but smokes any way, many people know the truths about Christianity but never commit their lives to Jesus. From our group, we have at least 2 who said they want to meet with us and talk more about this commitment! Be praying for us and for God to open their hearts!
Teaching Ministries …
Near the end of March, I taught Research and Writing for Biblical Counseling for our Masters students in the Biblical Counseling program. Since then, I have been receiving papers to grade and I am amazed at the progress each student has made in writing and research! Also, they are doing an excellent job of biblically evaluating case studies and applying biblical principles to help the persons solve their problems. I’m still grading papers now but it is a real joy to see how God has usd this class to sharpen their thinking and improve their writing!
Right now, we are preparing to teach Research and Critical Thinking for the bachelor’s students in a couple of weeks. This course is foundational, not only teaching how to research and write but especially in teaching students how to think – which is much more important! J Be praying for us as we prepare to teach this group of first year seminary students.
In June, I will be part of a church and pastors conference in Cherkassy, Ukraine. I will be teaching 3 seminars on the practice of prayer in a modern culture. I plan to teach some things about the theology of prayer in general and help them to begin learning how to pray the scriptures. Be praying for me as I teach in this conference.
Progress on our House …
If you have been following our house progress, you know that we are building a house outside of Kiev that will save 
us a lot of money over the rent we are currently paying. We’ve been at the property working as much as possible and we are seeing lots of progress. Most of all, we are enjoying the warm weather and the fresh outdoors. Right now, many of our fruit trees are in full blossom and they look and smell beautiful! It won’t be long before we will be busy harvesting and storing fruit from these trees.
God has really blessed us with some amazing gifts this past month that will help us get the house into the dry, hopefully by the middle of the month. We received a couple of very large gifts and one loan. We think we now have enough funds to get the roof and windows in. But we are still looking for some additional loans to help us build as we go. We estimate that we will need another $25,000-$30,000 to finish the house. Most of this we will not need until this fall when we put in cabinets and fixtures. Over the summer, we will have some expenses but mostly labor!
If you want to give a gift to help (of any amount – to TRI designated 1700 Housing in the memo) that would help us even more since we would be able to be debt free much faster. But we hesitate to ask for gifts when we have been given so much!
While the roofers are working on the roof, our contractor is working on preparing to pour the slabs for the floors and preparing for putting down our second story floors. And we are working on lots of smaller details almost every day we have free. We know we have a long way to go but it is exciting to see such progress! Also, I enjoyed cutting grass yesterday for the first time in over 5 years! I have always enjoyed cutting grass and the last 5 years have probably been the only time in my life (at least since 7-8 years old) that I have not cut grass. So, needless to say, we are enjoying the property and looking forward to moving out of the noisy city into the country soon.
Family …
The girls continue to grow and develop. Nadia is standing for longer periods of time and she loves to walk with assistance. It won’t be long before she is walking on her own! She has also begun to try to speak. Her first word appears to be “Jane” the name of the Katya’s sister’s dog. Whenever she sees her, Nadia says, “Jane, Jane, Jane.” J Kristina’s Russian is amazing (and her English is pretty good too!). It is amazing to see how quickly she is learning the language without any lessons at all. I’ve been studying for years and she speaks with ease. A few days ago, Kristina was telling me about something that happened earlier in the week. She said, “Папа, Ты помнишь? я помню. тебе надо запомнить.” (Papa, Do you remember? I remember. You need to remember). It is embarrassing to me that she gets all her cases and conjugations correct – without any lessons. She just listens and speaks what she hears. Oh, to be young …. She also counts to ten in Russian. She can count to 5 in English.
Continue to pray for Ukraine…
Continue to pray for Ukraine. The corruption here is something that the country is trying to eliminate but it is difficult when they have depended on corruption as a way of life to survive in Soviet society for over 70 years. I am constantly amazed when I see the same people who complain about government corruption participate in small level corruption. When I point this out, they respond that it’s not corruption. It’s just how things work in Ukraine! So we have a long way to go to change mindsets if we are ever to really eliminate corruption here.
Also, pray for peace in the east of Ukraine. Russia continues to send more tanks and military equipment into Eastern Ukraine while claiming that they are not. Also, they are increasing attacks on the present “ceasefire” borders and now 1-2 Ukrainian soldiers are dying each week. We don’t know if they are preparing for a larger attack or not.
Also, please pray for ministries here in Ukraine. We are training leaders here as long as the door of opportunity is open. It is exciting to see the new churches they are starting as well as their impact in various ministries. Thanks for being our partners in the gospel here in Ukraine!
God is at work in Ukraine – in the lives of students, in the churches of Ukraine and in the hearts of His people! And we are blessed by God’s working in our lives; especially by the amazing gifts and help we have received for our house. We are grateful for you and your partnership in this ministry. May the Lord bless you in your service to Him!
By His Grace,
Jim, Katya and Kristina and Nadia
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