News from Kiev

Today was an awesome day.  My church of 7 years has been passed on to the Ukrainians and now it is Ukrainian run instead of American run.  It has come a long way in 13-14 years.  At first it was mostly women who attended.  Now there are a lot of mature men there.  Since the service will be in Ukrainian, I will probably change churches.  Even though I will be leaving many friends, I feel that it will better for me to be where I can understand the sermon.  At the time, when all the changes were occurring at my church, I was invited to a prayer group that is being started for missionaries to get together and pray for the work of each other and Kiev.  From there, I got to know the pastor, who is organizing the prayer group, and his wife.  This year they have started an international church within walking distance of me.  They are reaching out to internationals, which is a huge population here.  Many are refugees from their countries and now that they are Christians, they can’t return to their country or they will be killed.

I went to the church for the first time today.  There is quite a mix there.  The church is made up of English speaking Ukrainians as well as those from other countries. Several people are from closed countries. The pastor’s philosophy is come and stay a while.  Since he wants to reach many internationals, who have great needs (such as food and fellowship), he and his wife open their home afterwards for the members to have fellowship, then meet and talk further about the sermon, then have an inductive Bible study and those interested in eating…to have lunch.  If people want to hang around afterwards, they are more than welcome.  It was a great time of fellowship.

I met two men today who are now Christians and if they return to their country, they will be killed.  Their lives are very hard here.  One man’s parents have both died since he has been here.  He doesn’t know if they were killed or died from natural causes.  It was also very interesting to hear the other man’s story.  They are both very strong Christians and quite the evangelists. Please pray for them.  God knows who they are.  Their lives would be is grave danger if I gave their names.  One would like to become a citizen of Ukraine but that would be a total act of God because Ukrainians tend to be closed to other countries becoming citizens here. But with God all things are possible.