Kids Of The War
You helped us give a joyful Christmas to little Diana, Veronika, Denis and Alexander. Nikolaev was their hometown. Due to daily shelling, this family found shelter in Pastor Nill’s village. They found an abandoned house and called it home. These children were spotted roaming the dirt roads of the village from morning till night. Their dad struggles with drug addiction. Their mom is pregnant with sibling #5. Ira, pastor Nill’s wife, found out that the children had been at home for a whole week on their own. No food. No clean clothes. No supervision.
Pastor Nill’s family took them in for daily meals, scrubbed their walls, and windows, brought furniture, treated their skin sores and brought them to Sunday School.
Pastor Nill and his family of 16 (he adopted 14 kids) blessed these little ones and several other refugee families in their village by rolling up their sleeves and sharing Jesus with their lips and with their feet.
It reminds me of my father’s approach to ministry “When you give a Bible tract to someone, make sure you wrap a cookie in it.” It takes more effort to get our hands dirty as we share the Gospel.
Golden Arches in Ukraine
Pastor Nill and his family worked hard to provide a Christmas service to the people he serves in his community. He also treated the little ones with the Golden Arches Happy Meal. What a better way to get to a kid’s heart than with a cheeseburger.
Greetings From Russia
While Christmas lights were glowing on every corner in Bucharest, complete darkness was the only option for our friends in Ukraine. People are not allowed to drive at night, nor have lights on in certain cities for fear not to be targeted.
A few months ago, a missile hit right across the street from the church we support in Herson (30 minutes away from Lena who we work with). That didn’t stop these believers from meeting for prayer every Sunday even as their background music was loud booms from missiles hitting constantly the city.
Christmas weekend Russian army sent their holiday greetings through a mass attack. This time, on Christmas morning they managed to hit the church of Herson. We praise Jesus that it was too early in the day, and no one was in the church just yet.
The Russians targeted as well a funeral of a soldier. Hence, the mourners lost their lives too. As Lena was having a fundraiser Christmas market to help with their needs, a missile flew over their location. They can’t announce anymore locations and dates in advance due to high risk of being attacked.
A Christmas Carol
Our neighbours have two little boys. Christmas eve we took the guitar, our kids and went carolling in our neighbourhood to get to know our community where we live.
Because we live in an area of lots of construction zone, we got to share some hot meals with a Moldovan worker, and a Chinese worker. We gave to one a daily-verse calendar, and the other one, the book More Than A Carpenter in Chinese.
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 1 Cor. 3:6-7 NIV
We don’t have to be a missionary to be active in our mission field. Gospel opportunities are surrounding us on a daily basis in our neighborhood, at the store, hospital, work place, school, church, or home. Are we willing to take a risk?
Family Photo
John is our Nepalese son, and Arati is our Nepalese daughter. It’s true we may be close in age, but they both call Bill and I, mom and dad. And they mean it.
The Nepalese community in Romania is around 10,000 people. About 4 years ago, John came to us and asked if they could meet after our English service to pray, since lots of them are not fluent in English.
At first they met to pray. A few Sundays later they added a few songs to their time together. A few months after that, we had a whole Nepalese service. Christmas day this year, they had around 120 people.
This past year, John went and planted other churches in 7 other cities across Romania. This spring he will be traveling to Cyprus and Portugal too.
John works full time in a factory, and ministers to the Nepalese community after work hours and weekends. He sleeps 3-4 hours because the needs are great.
PRAY for John:Our prayer is that we can find him and another leader an apartment, so they don’t have to live in a hostel. We pray that God will allow him to bring his wife and son from Nepal. Pray for us to be able to support him with his travels, and eventually to give him full freedom to be in the ministry.
Winter in Ukraine
Winter started early in Ukraine and Moldova this year. This is making things difficult on the frontlines in Ukraine. Please pray:For God to preserve the soldiers’ livesFor God to give us a mild winterFor God to provide for the families to survive as the the opportunities to make money are very limitedFor the refugees near Bucharest as they don’t have jobs till March (between us and the Anglican church we provide them with food on a weekly basis, but they have lots more needs, including medical)For several of the refugees in Bucharest who are dealing with cancer. It’s scary to be in a foreign country, no resources, no family… with most terrifying disease. For God to bring us people who speak Russian, and can help us to minister better to the spiritual needs of the refugees we help.
Lena: “Lord, make me worthy of our heroes who give up their life for our country.”Lena is continuing her training as a chaplain. She already has that role among the soldiers. She has the audience who trust her. She works full time in the department of military supplies. Pray for her strength as she can’t sleep due to constant shelling, works all day, then volunteers on the frontlines. We were able to pay for a surgery she had in December. Then we helped trough her to get more tires for a military truck, and support other soldiers in the field. She has a debt of $10,000 that keeps her from being able to be full time in the ministry. Pray for Jesus to provide so she could have freedom to be full time in ministry. After the war, her prayer is to start a Christian Rehab Center for the families traumatised and wounded by the war.
On A Personal Note
For New Year’s we had my mom’s sister from Kishinau stay with us for a week. After a very intense ministry season through the fall and winter, praise Jesus that we were able to slow it down after Christmas. Very grateful.
In our rest time, we have restarted a bit our hospital ministry. Right before Christmas Bill had some more heart investigations. Please pray for God’s wisdom for the doctors. They did a 48hr EKG and they noticed he has ventricular tachycardia. He will still have further investigations to see if he is a candidate for a Defibrilator Implant.
In the mean time, we know that these are opportunities to connect with doctors that otherwise we would not meet. May Jesus help us plant more seeds.
My parents continue to tirelessly minister in the Moldovan community. They have their monthly meetings with 40 pastors to support, encourage, and keep accountable.
My mom’s calling is visiting the elderly and families with great needs. They make food packages and go visit people in the village. Some are believers, some are not.
A ministry from the States gives her $50 a month to make packages. We will be trying to add to this amount because it’s not enough since the prices are higher than Ukraine.
Christmas is another great evangelistic opportunity where they invite others to join the Christmas program. My mom had the Kids Christmas Choir again. She is very gifted in putting this program together.
Grateful that my parents are great ministry partners. I had great example to learn how to do ministry. I treasure this unique opportunity to work alongside them.
Donations have started to come in for our new church location. Please spread the news to your local church and families. We are limited with parking and space in our current location due to growth. Great problem to have.
The Nepalese church has been very excited about this new opportunity. Every Sunday they have been setting aside from their little bit to help us provide a more suited space for our growing international community.
Would you consider to be part of it? Let’s partner together in this new opportunity!
1,000 people giving €100= €100,0001,000 people giving €400 = €400,000500 people/ churches giving €1,000 = €500,00050 churches giving €10,000 = €500,000