Hey everyone, so we have been traveling the last few of days. Sorry about he silence on our channels but I want to give you a quick update about where we are now and what we are going to be doing. Right now I bring you greetings from the Southern Hemisphere. We are in Southern Chile with our daughter and son-in-law and their family here. We will be ministering here in Chile for the next two Sundays.
We will actually be in about 4 churches here, sharing about Ukraine and ministering in the churches here. Then we will go back to Ukraine from here on March 2nd. So just a little breather from the war and things going on in Ukraine. That being said, all our ministries in Ukraine are continuing to move forward at this time.
Blankets
I especially want to thank everyone who has donated to our blanket project. So far we have made our first order of blankets. The way that we do this, is these are all actually made in Ukraine and we are able to get the cost down quite a bit by doing everything in Ukraine, it’s a help to the economy of Ukraine, it gives people work there and it’s also helping keep them warm. We were able to do our first order which was about 200 blankets, already gave those out, almost exclusively, to internally displaced people in Odesa. We will be making several other orders because the donations continue to come in. If you have written to me, I have seen your email or your message.
I’m sorry that I have not responded, I just have a lot of messages to respond to at the moment. I will try to put something together and respond soon. We do have an account of everyone who has given towards the blanket project. As of today we have received a little over $20,000 for that project. We now in the process of purchasing about 700 more blankets that will be going to internally displaced people in Odesa. Also we will be sending half of that next order to Mykolaiv and it’s going to be given out through Grace Church there. Also we will a 3rd order for Eastern Ukraine, primarily Kharkiv and Dontesk regions. So please continue to pray for this project. One of our main goals in this is that not only would it give warmth to Ukrainians that are in need, but that it would be done through churches and believers in a way that can be used to show the love of Christ and that hope that we have. In all of this we are using churches and Christian organizations who are also very active in sharing the gospel, sharing the hope that they have in Jesus Christ.
The situation in Ukraine
Concerning the situation in Ukraine, just a week ago the situation was getting pretty bad with electricity. We had sometimes we had electricity only a few hours a day. However in the past few days it seems they fixed something currently the power on most of the time in Odesa. Concerning talk of a larger scale new invasion. There’s a lot of talk about that from many different sources. From our perspective it looks like Russia is already giving it all they have right now. We definitely do not see the signs that we saw last year before the invasion on February 24, 2022. Yes, Russia will probably do another massive missile attack. They do one about every two weeks so we expect there to be one around the 24th of February. We will be in Chile at that time. Pray for our family and our friends and our church there in Ukraine, especially as we approach the anniversary of the war, 24th of February. Most likely Russia will try to do something but I do not believe it will be anything near the scale of what happened a year ago.
Our church
I also want to ask for your prayers concerning our church, Odesa International Fellowship. Right now we have a lot of Ukrainians that are coming who know English. We have a few international students but we don’t have that many internationals in Odesa right now. We want to keep going with the ministry so that when internationals come back we will have that already be ready for them. We sent one of our internationals to the front lines of the war, he’s a volunteer fighter from Nigeria. Please pray for Joseph!
Draft notices
Christina’s brother got a draft notice. He is supposed to come to the recruiting center and find out if they’re going to take him or not. Many men in Ukraine right now are afraid that they are going to be drafted. Of course there are many that are willing to fight, that want to fight but even if they are willing there’s still fear. Please pray for the men, for the brothers that are serving in the churches, pray that God would give them peace, give them courage, and give them wisdom.
Kherson
A week ago Saturday, I was in Kherson which is right on the front lines. It’s on one side of the river and the other side of the river is Russian controlled. A very difficult situation there and we are doing what we can to help the churches there. They are doing a lot of ministry, they are very courageous to stay in those areas and minister in such difficult and dangerous times.
I visited with Pastor Oleg there. We brought them heavy duty plastic to cover windows and roofs that have been damaged by shelling. He also shared with me about the pastors that are on the other side of river in Russian controlled areas. Those areas are getting tougher and tougher. Russian authorities are taking more and more church buildings and it is a dangerous situation for the brothers there because they can be actually drafted to fight against their own people. We ask that you pray especially for those churches in the Russian controlled areas and also for those churches in Kherson.
Correspondence Bible studies
Then finally, I don want to mention that we are working on some gospel projects that are designed to go along side aid outreaches on the front lines and really all over Ukraine but especially in Southern Ukraine. We are writing bible lessons, we have already written 23 lessons. I am hoping this month to finish writing all these lessons. In total we will have about 50 lessons. These are going to be correspondence Bible studies. So please pray for us as we try to finish that and then we are going to be distributing to wherever aid is going out. These lessons offer people an opportunity, not just to hear a short gospel message, but to really get in and to study the Bible. It’s going to be correspondence so they will be sending these lessons back to us and we will be reviewing them communicating with them and we hope to see good spiritual fruit from that. We could also use your financial support as we get ready to print these as there are some costs involved so if you would like to help support the correspondence Bible studies, please let me know.
Signing off here in Chile. I will be posting a few little pictures and updates from Chile, from the churches here as we speak and as we minister here in Chile for the next 2 weeks. Thank you so much for your prayer and for your support and for your love.
