It Won’t Be Long! … (April 2017 Update)
For some reason, a number of Andre Crouch songs have been floating around in my head this month. My favorite is “Jesus is the Answer”. I love the words and the melody. “Jesus is the answer for the world today. Above Him there’s no other, ‘cause Jesus is the way. That song expresses why we are doing this work and this ministry. There is no other answer for the people of the world today! Another song has also captured my mind – “It Won’t Be Long.” In the process of building a house and even doing ministry in Ukraine, it is a good reminder of where our focus needs to be: “It won’t be long, till we’ll be leaving here….”
Teaching in Kiev …
In March I taught a class on the Theology and Practice of Prayer at Kiev Theological Seminary. I had 24 students from church planting, chaplaincy and youth ministry departments. We had a wonderful time full of insight questions (and maybe a few insightful answers) about both the theology and practices of prayer. Each day, we looked at different attributes of God and discussed how this attribute affected the way we pray. Also, every day, we had some practicum on prayer, including praying the Scriptures daily (from Don Whitney’s book, Praying the Bible). The students were involved in a prayer walk and also in spending in a day of prayer. This is one of my favorite classes to teach because it involves both theology and practical helps about prayer. Pray that these students’ lives and ministries will continue to be impacted by these lessons on prayer!
In May, I will be teaching two major classes back to back. This will be especially tiring. I will be teaching Research and Critical Thinking 1 followed by Critical Thinking 2. I’m working on getting both classes ready this month.
English Clubs …
Once again, we had nearly 500 students come for English Clubs at Shevchenko National University. Unfortunately, we only have room to teach about 200 students. Every night (after their classes), we spent 3 hours working on English for 2 weeks! We focus on English in the 1st hour. We have a Bible passage that we read and discuss in the 2nd hour and then we do something more light and fun in English for the third hour.
We had a great class with lots of interesting questions during the Bible time. I’ll never forget one question when I asked what they thought about heaven. Almost the students in my group said they did not believe there was such a place. Two said they believed in heaven, not as a real place, but as a psychological concept to help people with their grief when someone dies! Be praying as the Campus Ministry workers follow-up with these students and have Bible Studies and personal conversations with each of them. I will be meeting with some of the students next week too. Pray for these students that they will see that Jesus is the answer for the world today!
Housing Update …
We are almost ready to move into our house. We had to wait one more week so the cleaning crew can give the house a thorough cleaning post-construction. But otherwise, we are ready to move. In fact, last Saturday, a number of friends moved most of our non-daily stuff into the house. So we really only need to move our beds and some clothes.
Still, we have lots of work to do. Over the summer, we will be working on the porch and the drive-way and then we will have to install insulation before the fall begins. I know this sounds strange – but we opted to do the insulation last because we would not need it until next winter. We will put insulation on the outside and then a façade over it. That will be our biggest project over the summer.
In addition to working on the house, I have been building furniture. So far, I have built a couple of benches, an entertainment center, a couple of window seats and two beds and I have been restoring some older furniture. We are trying to get everything ready for moving as cheaply as possible. We will need to buy a few things, but we are hoping to build most of what we need.
We are excited. This last year has been an amazing experience. We have seen God’s timing for finances again and again. Every month, we wondered how we could continue building and then we would receive another gift that allowed us to keep going. We did put all our appliances and some major building supplies on credit cards but we have paid for everything else out of what we had monthly. This weekend, we should move in. We’ll get some pictures done after the mess is cleaned up. We still are amazed that we will be moving in soon!
Also this month, we will need to get started on the garden. We’ve been working on our trees this month but soon we have to get vegetables planted. We are excited about this too because we will save a lot of money growing our own vegetables.
All in all, we have been extremely busy trying to get everything ready for the move. We are not completely finished but we are ready – we think we will move in this weekend. It won’t be long …!
Family …
We finally have some warm weather and the girls love being outside. They are both growing up so fast! Their language skills continue to amaze us. Even Nadia is now “translating.” We can say a word in one language and she will respond in Russian (or sometimes Ukrainian). She still says “thank you” only in Ukrainian!
Kristina’s ability to speak in both languages is so much fun to watch! Last week at church, she asked her Sunday School teacher something in English. The teacher just looked at her, so she repeated the same thing in Russian! The teacher understood completely. One of our workers asked her (in Ukrainian) if she only spoke English. She answered him in Russian. This week, she was telling Katya (in Russian) that Papa needed to put oil (mасло) on the wheels of one of her toy cars because it doesn’t go fast any more. I came into the room and she said (in English), “Papa, you need to put butter (mасло) on the wheels of my car so it will go faster.” In Russian, butter and oil are the same word (mасло). So we had to explain that English has two different words, butter and oil.
It is also fun to see the girls really playing together now. A few months ago, they were competing about almost everything. Now they are playing together and walking holding hands and even helping each other out. They are quickly becoming best friends.
Katya and I are mostly tired! It has been a lot of work getting the house and furniture built. We are working on things every day and all our free time is consumed with getting the house ready. So we are ready for a break. Hopefully we will begin to have some rest time next month!
Finally, we are really looking forward to June. Sean and Meredith and Haven will be coming to visit us here in Ukraine! Meredith is pregnant and so they decided that now would be a good time before their second child arrives. It will be much more difficult after that. So they will be with us for a few weeks in June! We are looking forward to their visit! It won’t be long …!
Pray for Ukraine …
Don’t forget to pray for Ukraine! We never know when this conflict will end. In the last month, I have talked with students and church members who were forced to leave their homes and move to Kiev because of the continuing attacks in the east. It is really a sad situation. Also, we have chaplains serving on the front that are ministering to the soldiers there. The attacks continue every day and 3-4 soldiers are killed each week. Please be praying for the gospel to go forth in this difficult time!
Be praying for our finances too. We are doing really well but we have a couple of supporters who had to cut back or stop giving due to job and family situations. So it would be really helpful to add 2-3 new families to our regular support team. Pray with us about this need.
Thanks so much for your prayers and support for us! It has really been an amazing year – busy but amazing! We are looking forward to what this coming year will bring. And we are looking forward to the coming of Jesus – It won’t be long…!
By His Grace,
Jim and Katya
Kristina and Nadia
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