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What a funny sight to see: Yesterday was a very interesting day because the weather warmed up to like +4 and you know what happens when all this deep, deep snow gets warm! Not just slush but what is on the bottom turns to ice, the middle still snow and the top layer slush which hides the ice under it. I took one step out of the car when we got to church (John was dropping us before parking), my hands were full with my purse and a large bag of supplies. Zip! A scream, swinging arms and feet into the air! The purse and bag dropped but I was able to catch the top of the car door which was still open, and hold on for dear life as I struggled to find a way to keep my feet on the ground. I was holding on so tight to the door with the one hand that I have a blister on my finger and two deep bruises in my palm!!! Poor John, he wouldn’t reach me and yelled for the boys to grab me as I still was not able to get my feet to “stay” on the ground, and looked like a drop out from the Olympic skate team! JS was having problems himself and was sliding on the ice and trying not to fall either and Kendon couldn’t move quickly either due to the ice. JS finally was able to step back into a snowy patch and jot back towards me to grab my one arm which was still swinging like a windmill to try and gain some balance. Kendon reached over to the other side and they both lifted me up and got me over to the snow. John called out, “Would you boys please, CARRY your Mom into the church!” We all laughed. hehehehe. I don’t know why it is but I slip and slide more than anyone else. I look like Bambi on his first ay out on the frozen lake. No bleeding though and no broken bones so for us we all count it as a success story. LOL!!!!!! Vetalic our neighbor there was shoveling snow near by so he was trying REAL hard not to laugh as we walked by but I could see him smirking to himself. Hehehehe. I know it looked funny!!!!!

Church service was excellent. Ezekiel 16 and 17. I can’t believe I have never heard a study on this great book before. Have you ever done something that was right, for the right reason, even if it appeared bad to others (like giving a hard spanking to a spoiled and rebellious child) and then had to endure as YOUR reputation and motives and character are called into question by others who simply jump to the conclusion that you are a mean and hateful person and the child is a peaceful sweet innocent little angel and undeserving of any spanking at all? Well, when you take the book of Ezekiel out of the Bible, that is what you see (what the world sees)- a big bad God afflicting poor sweet innocent man. What a HUGE missing link it is in the understanding of the Christian nation in these days!!!!! God was showing to Ezekiel WHY He was about to spank strongly his rebellious and spoiled rotten child. The key verse is 14:23, like a parent showing justification for spanking his child, God declares through the book Ezekiel his purpose and motives for spanking his child

Israel

. “..and ye shall know that I have NOT done WITHOUT CAUSE all that I have done...” Excellent book, just excellent! I am so thankful that God put it on John’s heart to teach the book of Ezekiel to our church here.

In my Sunday School class from time to time I have to be creative to keep some of the teens awake J but this Sunday the teens were so deep in thought through the lesson that you could almost hear their brain wheels turning! We were learning about crucifying our flesh (sin nature) in order to let the Spirit produce his fruit (all nine parts of it) in our life. I pray God will help each one, including me, understand and walk in that.

Natalia did an EXCELLENT job Sunday in her Sunday School lesson. She is really trying to reach young Ulah’s heart for the Lord. Zhenia is still bringing in more games as she finds them. Ulah is more alert than before but she is still of a very young and immature mind so she does not absorb information well and therefore we have slowed down the lessons for her and it is working.

Vita (newly saved) is doing very well, she and Tanya had a great lesson on Friday. Both ladies are giving testimony of telling their friends about what they are learning in the Bible and inviting their friends to come to church. Praise!

Sergei got a mini lesson on Saturday. He’s been acting distant so John talked with him and found that Sergei is having a lot of troubles in his school. If you refuse to pay your teacher bribes here in Ukraine the teacher will make your life miserable. So sad but a fact. We see and hear this with every child and parent. Our girls and John Steven say the few at the University which demand bribes from their students do not even try to conceal it, they just tell the students right out what it will cost them to get a good mark on the test. SHAMEFUL!!! It is a help to Sergei to be able to talk about this with his missionary-pastor though and get some encouragement. Its not always easy doing the right thing, isn’t that true? Now sergei is doing good though and when we showed up on Wednesday night we arrived to find Sergei out there finishing up shoveling all the snow out of the walk way. Wow! All on his own without anyone asking him to!!!! The boy is growing up. Praise.

Luda said in church that she is struggling because her work is taking away all her normal Bible and prayer time and she can really see it’s affect on my thoughts and actions. She asked the church to pray for her and for God to help her do better with her time. Luda is still such a blessing in all things. When she came for evangelism on Saturday we all sang together as we walked from complex to complex to encourage her and strengthen the inner man. She really seemed to enjoy that and so did I.

Natasha P. is doing great. She really goes out of her way to encourage Vita and Vita really responds well to it. Natasha has been giving a lot of testimony of how God is burdening her heart deeper for the salvation of her friends and how God is providing her with opportunities to witness to them. Then last week her friend Tamara agreed to have a Bible lesson at Natasha’s. Natasha gave the sweetest testimony of how Tamara did okay through the lesson but was VERY uncomfortable about studying the BIBLE. When Natasha asked her when they could have the next lesson Tamara answered with “oh, I don’t know, I am so busy...” and so Natasha didn’t miss a beat, she said, “well okay then, I’ll just prepare and either Thursday or Friday.” Tamara came over on Friday but wasn’t receptive to having a lesson but wanted to watch a soap-opera on TV instead. Natasha said she went to the kitchen to make them tea and just prayed and prayed because she didn’t want to force the lesson issue but didn’t want to wait the time watching a stupid TV show. She said she came back with the tea and they began to talk and Tamara told her all about some problems she is having and Natasha gave her counsel from what God has taught Natasha in that area and she said from that God was able to open the door and Tamara willingly began their lesson and turned the TV off. She said that Tamara didn’t look quite as uncomfortable this time and did very well in the lesson. She is asking everyone to pray for Tamara that she might hunger and thirst to know God through His Word. Praise!

Natalia Batkin gave testimony that some of her workers were discussing the 40 day fast right now that the Orthodox Church for Passover. So Natasha said she could keep silent no more and spoke up about it and began teaching them what the Bible says and why she will not be keeping these 40 days of fasting. They were asking her how she, a post office worker, could know so much about what the Bible said. She said they were shocked at what I knew and at what the Bible said. She said God kept the work place empty of customers the entire time she spoke. She said they all listened but she said they were looking to me as their boss speaking and she is asking prayer for them that she can talk to them person to person and not as boss to employee. She invited them to come of our Passover Seder and learn for their own selves what God says in the Bible about Passover and they agreed.

John is enjoying giving Bible lessons to Vita, Tanya, and Sergei as well as preparing for Wednesdays and Sunday sermons. John really needs God’s wisdom right now in addressing some issues with one soul in the church in particular. Please pray for John that he see clearly in order to recover this soul out of the snare of the devil.

John Steven is doing okay in school. Second semester starts today, Feb. 22. He has gained a lot of confidence in his language ability and is much more willing to translate for me when I need some help.

Kendon is plugging away in school. He is really enjoying Bible and History the most. He often stops me and says, “Listen to this.” And then basically gives me an entire oral report of what he is learning. J He also then cross references it with a situation he has gone through or something that he just studied out himself for a sermon of his.

My attorney for my back injury is supposed to be talking to a doctor in Phoenix today to see if we can use him for my surgery. So far we are hitting a dead wall because no one wants to see a patient who is still in litigation. I have no idea how others get their medical needs treated from car accidents but we are marching on until God closes the door or opens it wide. We only want Hs will and direction.

That is all for now. It’s +1 today and getting colder they say so all this slush will be 100% ice tonight. I need to buy me some ice skates J.

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Last Sunday we had our Secret Sister unveiling party. We constructed two gingerbread houses and decorated them as a group. That went over VERY well. The plan was to then use those houses as the centerpieces for our New Years services on Thursday. I spent two days making and baking the gingerbread with the girls. Then gathering pretty candies (that was a challenge as it is very limited here) and then by a miracle I was able to scratch together enough powered sugar to make the icing which is used for mortar as well as for decorating. The ladies had never heard of this before and thought it very strange at first, but very fun by the end.

Thursday evening we had services from 8 p.m. to about 1 a.m. We didn’t invite anyone from out of town so it was just the core group but what a great and precious time all had as we prayed in the new year together. Usually the weather is bitterly cold and awful for New Years but this year we had deep snow and then all afternoon RAIN. It stopped raining by ten p.m. and then snowed and snowed. The neighbors all around the church were all exceptionally friendly this year. I pray that means we are finally gaining their hearts.

Friday we celebrated a family holiday (We separated our gift giving from Christmas. Now we give our gifts on New Years Day in order to keep the focus on Christ at Christmas and not on material gifts. We’ve been doing this for years and for us it works well as

Ukraine

celebrates Christmas Jan. 7th).

Saturday the youth and I went to each church members home (that was home) and Christmas caroled. What a great time!!! We (youth group) had made homemade ornaments and decorated them to give out as a give from the heart to each family as well. This is our second year to make the ornaments and I think it will become a yearly tradition of fun giving.

Sunday morning (today) Noelle was invited to teach the 10 a.m. Sunday School class. She did great! We practiced our skits during my Sunday School class hour and then we had a great morning service. Tonight we had a special service. The youth performed a play, wearing costumes that it has taken me all week to make and sew together, about the animals in the manager the night Christ was born. I received the skit from missionaries down in Odessa, the Spillman family. The end of the service was a short musical. Ulah, our youngest in Sunday School, was accompanied by her FATHER who came for the very first time as well as with her mother. Zhenia was also able to get a friend of hers to come for the services, Lera, who has come before but is still rejecting the truth that she is a sinner in need of a Savior.

Vita and Sergei and Tanya are all still continuing with their Bible lessons (the Chronologic lessons) keeping John busy. He and Sasha are also putting in new lights into the church because the old ones are just not working up to speed. A strong storm came thru this week and the winds were so strong it ripped off some of our roofing on the church building.

We had an ice storm yesterday. Beautiful, but because our family car does not have any shelter the ice storm froze the rain deep down in all the edges of the car and this morning it took more than 45 minutes to get just the two front doors open. The seats do not fold forward so only two people could get in. Even the electronic locking system was all froze up on it so we had to call a taxi to get the rest of us to church. So much for “lock de-icer”. Glad that doesn’t happen every day J.

Right now we had a good stack of snow and ice on the ground but clear skies tonight which means that the temperature is doing to nose dive and they are expecting it to be -17 c tomorrow. It’s already -12c out my kitchen window. Brrrrrr. Hope you are enjoying warmer weather.

The girls fly out on Thursday, Lord willing. Please keep them in your prayers. It is a long taxing route to get them back to school and they are expected to jump in with two feet from the very day they get back. No time to recover from jet lag, so please pray for them. Thanks.

I hope you are already enjoying this new year, 2010, and finding goals worthy of his glory for this coming year. He is worthy!

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Greetings in the name of Jesus!

I have a few prayer requests. I would appreciate your fervent prayers.

First prayer concern: This cold storm (-22 yesterday without wind chill, +48 in the house), killed both of our car batteries. We bought a new battery today and had a new alternator put in. Something else is wrong and the mechanic is at a loss. The car drains the battery (even the brand new one) even with the new alternator in. ??? No idea what to do. We need wisdom.

Second concern: Because the car is now down we are not able to make the long drive to Kiev to meet the girls at the airport. The girls are leaving for Chicago at this moment to catch their first of three flights to reach Kiev. We are trying to make arrangements for the girls to catch a bus once they reach Kiev. Please pray with us that we can get tickets for the girls as this is now LAST MINUTE and the buses often run full this time of year.

Third concern: The girls have three connecting flights and have a minimum layover time in order to make those connections. They are flying, Chicago to New York, then New York to London, then London to Kiev. And then the bus.

Fourth concern: It is currently -15 and super windy and they are predicting a snow storm this afternoon and all through out the evening, then snow tomorrow continuing. The roads are very icy and slick, cars are all over the road due to the slick conditions. Please pray for the girls as they ride, Lord willing, on a bus home. We have seen countless buses here laying in the ditches along that long highway due to the strong winds that blow, slick conditions, and these crazy kamikaze drivers.

If all goes well, the girls will leave now (Dec. 17) and arrive safe at home in the wee hours of Dec. 19.

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

Well, due to all the news out right now about Ukraine and this flu epidemic, we cancelled evangelism for tomorrow and all other outdoor plans except that John will still be meeting with Vita at the church (and hopefully Sergei) for a Bible lesson. Ukraine is under a type of Marshal Law (girls, that means no traveling unnecessarily) for one more week.

The flu here has taken 239 lives so far. It has hit super hard in the WEST. We are in the far EAST. Kiev is in the NORTH and the flu is just now hitting there. On the map they show Kharkov as peeking out right now and so hopefully by next week it will be past us. Time will tell. Since most Ukrainians do NOT have good hand washing practices I can see why it is spreading so hard here. They only wash their hands before eating and often do not use hot water nor soap so this is a good breeding ground for the flu. We are being wise and using all the precautions that one can take. Trying to heed God’s Word: Prov. 22:3 and Prov. 27:12 which both say, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.”

Ukraine

, is a small country, it is the size of Texas so when you read these numbers do not think of them as in comparison with the huge land of America but think of them in terms of a report from Texas alone. That will help put it in proper perspective.

The above numbers are from the latest update from the Ukraine Ministry of Health. The number of deaths increased 26 to 239, so 50 new deaths have been reported in the past 2 days. Although the virus continues to spread (only 5 of the 27 reporting areas have not topped the epidemic threshold) many of the deaths are still being reported from the hard hit areas in western Ukraine(see map). However, the biggest jump in cases was 6.096 in Kiev to 89,339.

On October 30, president Viktor Yushchenko quarantined nine regions, ordered mobile military hospitals established throughout the country, and was expected to declare martial law. Reports from western Ukraine said a "severe outbreak of UNIDENTIFIED Influenza, (is) suspected by doctors to be a form of viral pneumonia."

In other words, Yushchenko declared martial law. He also ordered a crackdown on political protests, the arrest of public health officials opposed to mass Swine Flu vaccinations and quarantines, arrests of anyone not complying, and a ban on all infection medicines except Swine Flu vaccines.By November 6, Deputy Health Minister, Zinovy Mytnyk, said "633,877 people (were) suffering from flu and acute respiratory infections," and "95" had died.

No need to worry about us. We are all doing well. Just keep us in your prayers (the whole church here), and we trust in the Lord to watch over us and keep us in His care.

Kendon is 95% better. Just a runny nose and sore throat now. No fever at all. PRAISE.

Some of the news media in Europe are really having a hay day with what is happening here and they are making us some REALLY wild stories. I do not see anything in the Western Media about Ukraine though which is a good sign.

I will let you know if things change. Until then, please keep our family, the missionaries all throughout Ukraine, and the believers here in your prayers.

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Thank you for your prayers. John started a new group Bible Study today for unsaved or untaught Christians who do not have the full foundation of the faith yet. Sergei came and Vita.

I know you have been praying for Vita (the unsaved mom who is bringing her little girl to Sunday School). She started her first Bible Lesson today. She is excited about it, says ever since she started coming to our church she has felt such a peace in her life, but today during the Bible lesson she realized that things that are different are not the same and that “Baptist” are different from “Orthodox” (like Catholic). That disturbed her some to think that she is “changing her faith”, which is a HUGE taboo here to do. Luda asked her, “What have the Orthodox priest taught you in the Bible?” Vita answered, “Well, nothing.” Luda replied, “Exactly. So you aren’t changing for you had nothing to start with.” (not a direct quote but it was along those lines) With that in mind Vita seemed to relax. John and I are praying really hard over her. It is such a landslide of persecution when someone turns away from the national faith here. She will need much prayer to see her through. Please be praying with us over her especially over the next few lessons. She is scheduled to have a lesson every Saturday for the next 51 weeks.

Keep praying for Vlada. We have just received her new contact information and we will be trying to get her into church but this is against her mother’s will at this time. PRAYER is needed to persuade her Mom to let her come. Thanks.

John and I just wanted to let all our Faith Baptist Family know that we are blessed beyond measure to be part of your family. We love you all and we thank the Lord for you and for your labor there in N.C. for His son’s name sake. I think of you and lift up a prayer for you all each time I find myself using one of those special items which you so lovingly sent to us in your packages to us. Things like: spices, clothing, utensils, and etc. Just all those every day things that you provided us with. We can never thank you enough for all you have done for us.

We had an excellent evening out on evangelism tonight. There were eleven of us present. We re-scouted a new neighborhood which we were at last week. One of the boys on the road recognized me and asked me more questions about when and where to meet to come to church. Another boy was really excited about coming to our church, though his friend was not supportive. Many contacts were made. We are changing our evangelism routine a little in that we are now revisiting our areas instead of moving on to other areas. We had good results so far. In the past you didn’t have to revisit an area to get a visitor but due to the dominate presence of the JW’s and the Mormons, we are having to change some of our methods. No matter what we say or do, on our first visit out they assume us to be JW’s and won’t believe any different. I was reading one day in the Bible that people “will not follow the voice of a stranger”, and so we are stepping up our evangelism for this Sunday School by making many visits over and over to the same places where we were not accepted in order to become familiar to them so that they might no longer consider us to be “strangers” (or JW’s) and maybe then we will be able to reach more for Christ. We also had two adults tell us that they will consider coming to church as well.

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I pray that with singleness of heart, those redeemed by the blood of Jesus will lift their prayers in thankfulness to God for all He has done in giving us a land of freedom. May we guard it against all evil and sin.

I hope you guys have a safe and blessed 4^th of July. It was good to celebrate as a whole family. We invited the church to join us and they did. We found a new place, very close to our house, on the river bank. We camped out under the biggest weeping willow tree that I have ever seen. It was great. Kendon brought his blow up boat which he’s been holding on to for two years now to use again. The boys had a blast swimming in what they reported as “the dirtiest river they’ve ever been in!” Take into account though that it is the ONLY river they have ever been in J. Everyone took turns on the ATV (we ride in pairs), strolling through the forest, target practicing with John Steven’s help, BBQ, and singing all four American hymns that our books have. Then we taught them how to roast marshmallows on the fire (Sasha who is not a sweet-tooth LOVED roasted marshmallows!!!). At the very end we had fireworks.

I thank the Lord for giving us a free country and keeping us free to this day that we might serve the Lord with our whole hearts.

James 5:16b-18 “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as w are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”

John, Luda and Natasha along with Claudia the customs official who is helping are back at work today beginning the next step needed for our container of Bibles. Everything in that container is bought and paid for by the generosity of Saints who have all chipped in a helped pay for all the supplies and materials needed to get Bibles into every part of the world. The Lord has used the widow’s mite to see these Bible’s reach Ukraine, so this container really is important.

We really believe in prayer and so we are asking you to specifically pray today that God would again open up the doors. The church group has been working for four hours on this as they are getting stone walled so far. It’s the ol’ games of power at play. “Fill out this document. (30 minutes later). No, you’ve filled out the wrong form. The form you need is not available at this time come back later” (It is $25 a day for each day that passes.)

We have seen God work miracle after miracle not by the power of bribes or money but simply by the moving of God’s hand guided by your prayers. Please do not feel that your prayers are not needed. They indeed are!!!!!

Thank you for joining with us to get this container through. We will have MANY prayer needs over the coming weeks until the container if finally “freed” from customs control. If you could make a space in your busy schedule each morning, noon or night to pray with us over this it would be a huge help.

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John Steven is graduating this Saturday, Lord willing, if the weather does not postpone it. They are calling for storms. We really wish you could be here with us. You will be missed!

We were not able to do graduation announcements ahead of time like normal so we will be just letting everyone know by email of his graduation. We are having major computer problems. First my computer crashed and now that John has it up and running, his crashed. We keep our security wall updated constantly and on max protection but there are so many virus’ here that these problems are not avoidable forever.

John Steven is absolutely terrified of giving his graduation speech and I think he will be glad to have it over with even though it will only be a very small handful here to attend. Most of our missionary friends are home in the States on furlough. He does not enjoy the spotlight when it comes to public speaking. Please pray for him that he will find the courage to speak from his heart and give the Lord the credit He is do for making a Christian education possible. One day soon, children might not have the right to enjoy a Christian education.

Thank you for your prayers over the years for our children and for the needs they have had on the mission field. Getting their school books here was such a nightmare in those first years. They received their books six months late the first year (shipper lost the books!!!!) and then they had to double time all the effort to finish off that year and get back on schedule for the next year. They spent two years doing school from the back seat of a car (challenging!!), and have enjoyed the blessing of extra classes to give them proper speech so that they can truly be bilingual here on the mission field. It has been an exciting twelve years to say the least for John Steven!

My camera currently will not down load onto the computer (we are still working on some areas that are not working yet on my computer), but the girls have their camera and so I will take lots of pictures of the graduation and email them to you. I know you will be here in spirit!

If you would like to send a card, it would be best to mail it to John Steven O’Brien, A/R 11423, Kharkov, Ukraine, 61171.

The girls made it back to Indiana from Arizona fine. They had a BLESSED time with their relatives and Shining Light Baptist Church while there. Noelle & Brittaini now have international drivers licenses. Yeah! Noelle is sick now though with a fever, sore throat and a bad headache. Please pray for her!!!! Her flight for Ukraine is tomorrow evening and she can not have a fever in order to fly. I would appreciate your prayers. I think she is just exhausted due to the school work load the last two weeks and now traveling up a storm.

Please pray for a safe trip home for the girls. They fly Chicago to New York to London to Kiev. Then a long drive home. They need the Lord to watch over the whole way.

HI! How are you?

We are doing good. Kendon’s hand is healing well after hurting it the other day. Praise!

The girls are at a Chicago Cubs baseball game today which they won the tickets for by bringing in a certain number of dollars for in that Volleyball Marathon they were in. I know that some of my friends helped them in that, so if you were one of those then they are at the baseball game because of YOU! Thank you. I hope they get pictures.

Tomorrow the girls are having a college wide field trip where they will be taken on buses to Indianapolis. What they will do there I do not know, but it’s Brittaini’s 21 Birthday and so I sure hope it is FUN for her. They will be gone from 6 a.m. to late.

The girls are in the final exams over the next two weeks. Please be praying for them.

John Steven and Kendon are also doing their finals and John Steven is getting prepared for graduation. Nothing fancy, he didn’t want a big party or anything. Not many people around to come. Not only are all our family & church folks far away but almost every missionary we know and are close to are also in the States at this time too. We will have a ceremony though and all our precious Ukrainian Saints will be attending. They are our second family J and I thank God for each one of them. They think of us as family too and treat us so well. We did order John Steven a class ring though, he is very excited about getting it. The girls will be bringing it over when they come as well as his cap and gown. I will be sure to send pictures.

John has started some new outreaches. Passing out tracks just doesn’t seem to work much like it used too due to the JW’s saturating the place with all their literature. So, though we will continue to pass out tracks, he joined a “car club” and since cars are rather new to the masses here he is like the old grandfather of the group. They have hundreds of questions that are common knowledge for most American men. Through that he is trying to make a lot of new contacts, he is learning a lot of Russian technical terms, getting great practice on his own Russian language use, and he is able to show them that Baptists are not what they read about in the papers (child sacrificing monsters). This week he had two of the men question him for quite a while about religious things. Pray that through his witness he is able to bring some of them to Christ.

The newest outreach is an English Club. It’s not really a club, but he advertizes for those who would like to come and practice English with a real American speaking person. He had three adults come. Two are a young couple who travel to America (Wisconsin) each summer to work in an amusement park there. They leave this Friday but said when they come back in September they would be VERY interested in coming to our church. They said they won’t be coming for the religious stuff but to hear English. That’s okay J, like Joseph said to his brothers, “what you meant for bad, God used for good” (paraphrased of course). The Word does not return void so maybe through that they will end up hearing the gospel and getting saved. The third person was a man and we are very hopeful that he will come to church as well. Time will tell.

I met a young woman across the road while on a walk with John the other day. She studied English in college and I invited her to come and visit me or go walking with me and she very happily agreed. It’s amazing how God uses our English language to open doors here. Pray that I can reflect Christ and share His Word with her. Her name was Anna.

Thank you for your prayers.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

Today we had our first ever SUNRISE service. Many of you might be morning glories and love the early hours but that is not the case here J! We all met at the church at 5:30 a.m. and then read the Bible passages outside in the yard while watching the sun come up. It was cold but no wind PRAISE the LORD!!!! As John and Sasha read the Bible sections you could see their breath in the air with every word. There was frost on all the grass and plants around us as well. It was WONDERFUL!

I had stayed up late last night till midnight making 4 types of toppings for the pancake breakfast we had which followed the sunrise service. I was so afraid I would sleep through the alarm at 4 a.m. that I couldn’t get my brain to shut off and sleep. You know what I mean? So as I laid there in bed my mind kept going over the night of the Passover and all that took place until Jesus arose. So many questions filled my mind as I thought deeply about it. Questions like: on what day, I wonder, did Judas commit suicide and at what hour? What was he feeling inside as he saw Jesus on Calvary? What agony he must have felt as he realized the weight of what he had done! When did the disciples here that Jesus had been condemned during the night long mockery of a trial? What did they do, where did they go, what were they feeling when they heard? I thought on Peter’s words, how he would die for Christ. I feel the same way about protecting those that I love too, but that is when they are with you and you CAN. But how would I react once they were taken from me and I was not ABLE to rescue them? Would I panic as Peter did? Of course. Where did the disciples go the following morning? Where they thinking the guards were coming for them next? Where they afraid to be in their homes thinking they would endanger their families? May M. was first to the grave. She came “while it was yet dark”, that is BEFORE the sun even begins to come up so it must have been around 4 a.m. but then comes the question, “how far did she live from the grave?” Where was the grave in comparison to her house? How long did it take her? She must have carried a torch since it was yet dark. I have never pictured that before. Surely she walked to get there. It’s easy to stumble in the dark. Was she not afraid to be out and alone during the dark? We are.

So when we started our sunrise service, I was really enjoying it and paying very close attention as we read over each passage. I would LOVE to have a 3 day play by play reenactment of this time in the Bible. Wouldn’t it be great to get the church members into costumes and celebrate for 3 days doing plays and etc? Maybe next year!

After the sunrise service we warmed up inside the church house and made pancakes. Luda & Zhenia made a Russian version of pancakes & topping as well. Yum, yum. It was a lot of fun and the sweetest fellowship. Zhenia and I, Kendon and Sergei all decided to use each other’s shoulders as pillows at one point. J We are NOT morning birds. What a praise though that all those who struggle to get to church on time at the regular hours were EXCITED and on time for this early morning service!!!!!

Following the breakfast we had the morning service and then the Lord’s supper. Alla, our elderly member made it in time for the morning service. We were done with all and headed home before the regular Sunday School hour would have started.

The day was blessed so much. I thank you for your prayers. This is a memory marker for our little church. I believe we may make this a tradition in the years to come until the Lord returns since we had such a positive response.

These women were so excited to have their first ladies meeting. I was able to teach three times focusing on the three stages of a woman’s life (in Christ).

I was so sick still it wasn’t funny. I felt like dying on the train ride over and though John kept asking if I wanted to cancel, I just couldn’t. My flesh needed a warm bed and not to move but I just simply could not cancel out of this. My throat was raw and no voice at all and a fever that was burning my eyes. I couldn’t walk without going into coughing spells and then not being able to breath. I prayed and prayed and prayed and trusted the rest to His will.

My voice was given back to me on hour before the first meeting started. I drank cup after cup after cup of hot tea with honey in order to get it back. The women were so gracious towards me and gave me their full attention. We never did a “count” but I would say there were about 13 ladies present. Every lady who had gotten saved or baptized while John was there before, came.

Because it was their first meeting like this, they didn’t have anything at all prepared and the young pastor’s wife, Mia, who is precious as gold, kept telling us that she has never seen how anything like this goes before. Everything was a first for her as well as for her ladies and so it made it all the more important for me to make sure we did our best. Therefore, John and I scrambled and put some games together which turned out to be a HOME RUN with these ladies (you would think they’ve never played a game before!), John and Luda rushed over to a store to quickly supply everything needed for a fellowship which would follow the first meeting.

The first meeting went VERY well. I devoted most of my strength into preparing for it. I ran a fever the entire time as I taught, (they decided I should not stand but instead put me in a chair and then circled theirs around. Most thoughtful!) By the midpoint of the meeting I was drenched from head to toe in sweat from the fever, but God was so evidently blessing His Word in these ladies hearts that I couldn’t cut it short. You could see on their faces how much they were soaking up His Word. It seemed like the worse I felt physically, the more evident it was that the Holy Spirit was working in through His Word in their hearts. That kept me going.

Luda and John were also both starting to become under the weather by the end of the second meeting. There was a fellowship arranged for us that night but after just a short bit we had to call quits. I was simply done with a capitol D and not able to go on any more.

Sunday John taught Sunday School and then the morning service. I was feeling slightly better but drained of all energy. A long nap and then the last ladies meeting. I was amazed during the opening review games of how much they retained of the first two meetings – 100%. They rattled off the answers as fast a machine gun fire!!! I tell you, these women were HUNGRY to learn!!!!! They had come with eager hearts and had just soaked it all up! What a blessing!!!! I felt so badly that I wasn’t well and able to jump in with both feet and run with these ladies. I think maybe though that my illness was a way of God keeping the breaks on me so that I didn’t overload them J.

The third meeting was “strong meat” for those who could make it through the first two “milk & toast” meetings. The group was smaller but I would say it was the core of the group (about eight ladies). I believe they took it well. I could see that some were struggling but none were resisting. Mia, the pastor’s wife was beaming with a grin, ear to ear. Afterwards she told John and I that she knows the ladies need to hear & know this stuff but because she had never been taught to take notes and study and save them, she has no idea where to find what she needs in her Bible. We encouraged her and all the ladies to start TODAY preparing for the time when they are “aged women” and God calls on them to “teach the younger”. We encouraged them to prepare for that by TAKING NOTES when they are in church and recording where things are and how they fit together. Mia said that she was very grateful for the third meeting because it was an area they need help in the most (submission to God’s will over personal preferences).

Well, now we are home. I am resting and recovering in bed as I type this, John is feeling better, but Luda (who suffers greatly from motion sickness) was doing awful when we parted this morning. So I would ask you to be praying for her please. She was a tremendous blessing and help during our trip. Please keep her in your prayers.

Oh, the boys survived just fine without us. Kendon is bouncing back well and I expect he will be back in school this week and doing fine. John Steven is all better.

Brittaini and Noelle are in Illinois on Spring Break. I heard they are doing well and enjoying being out of the dorm!

Thank you for your prayers. They are much needed. Though on the antibiotics for strep, Kendon has run a fever of 102 for five days. Last night he was hallucinating around 2:30 a.m. It must be a virus mixed with the strep causing the fever to continue. This evening he is doing much better and I am very happy about that!!!

I have a terrible sore throat and both my ears are hurting. Please pray for me. I am taking the antibiotics too but other than keeping the fever away it doesn’t seem to be stopping the rest of the symptoms. I am asking for prayers because I need to be on a train in less than 24 hours. I will be speaking Sat. and Sun to a precious little group of women who are very excited and looking forward to it. I would like to give them my best. Hard to do when you can’t hardly talk or when your ears are pounding. I know that God will bless the meeting, weather I am ill or well. I am confident of his blessings.

Please pray for the boys who will be home together for the weekend. We have never left our children even so much as for one night without an adult there “in case”, but this time Luda is coming with me to translate for me instead of staying with the kids. I am not worried. John Steven is 18 and Kendon is very responsible. I just don’t like giving the Devil ANY opportunities and there is safety in numbers. Your prayers are appreciated.

I talked to Noelle today. She told me that Brittaini is doing MUCH better now. Praise the Lord. Brittaini wrote and said the school is really bending over backwards to make sure she knows that if she needs to cut a class to rest, that they will make sure she isn’t docked for it. Precious!

Brittaini currently has been diagnosed with pneumonia in her right lung and bronchitis in both. She was taken to the ER late Saturday night and is currently on bed rest and strong medications. She said she is bored out of her mind there in her dorm room as she has been laying there for four days now since she first got sick. Walking or talking throws her into a coughing spell though and hurts her lungs a lot, so she still needs to be in bed resting. Would you please pray for her?

John Steven is sick with a flu of sorts. He has a high fever and severe body aches. Praise the Lord for those who supply us with Tylenol, Day & Nyquil, and for Ibuprophen!!! I expect John Steven to recover within a day or so, Lord willing. I would appreciate your prayers for him though.

Our services were very good yesterday. We have a couple in our church that just rededicated their LIVES to the Lord and yesterday we were seeing some very encouraging fruit in their lives. Praise the Lord.

At times it gets discouraging when the church group seems so few and you do not see the growth in number you desire. Then you visit missionaries in other parts (like the two we visited in Poland) and the Lord shows you their faithfulness there and yet after 16 years there in Poland they have only seen a total of six souls saved and only three attending church services. Wow, I told our church Sunday that God was giving me an open eye to the fact that we have SoOOOOO much to be thankful for here in Ukraine where God has worked in more hearts than I can count. The Lord is truly working in Ukraine. He deserves MUCH praise for what He has done here. Thank you for being a part of this ministry through your prayers, your LOVE, and your support. So glad that He allows us to be a small part of that!

John Steven and I made it back from Poland in one piece. Thank you for your prayers. We have our visas!

Brittaini just wrote me and let us know that the dorm Mom for the girls there at Fairhaven passed away today. She had been struggling with ovarian cancer this year and of course everyone was optimistic that God would grant her a miracle. He has, He delivered from this evil world into His marvelous heavenly Kingdom. Would you please be praying for everyone there at Fairhaven. Mrs. Ellen Leslie (the dorm Mom) has been living and working in the girls dorm at Fairhaven for more than 20 years. She and her husband (which is from Marana, Arizona!) have four children, all still young and single.

Brittaini also said that she has been sick and in bed for three days. I don’t have any details but she said she just got out of bed to write and let me know that Mrs. Leslie had died. Please be praying for Brittaini’s recovery.

Please be praying for both Brittaini and Noelle. This is the first person they have known personally (since they were children) which has passed away and I am sure the next few days will be very hard on them. The Leslies have a son who is a Freshman there with the girls.

Today John Steven and I got out and went on a cheap bus tour that took us to the most famous concentration camp where Hitler and his army murdered an untold number of Jews and others. I can’t spell the name of the camp but I think you know were we were (it is like Asurwhich Death Camp). Using it as a real up close and personal history lesson for John Steven sense he is missing school this week. Saw three buses filled with Jewish teens which came from Israel to tour the camp. They were waving this massive sized flags with the star of David on them (Israel’s flag). Seeing how vast the camp was and how bad the conditions were was very sobering. What a terrifying sight.

We brought an umbrella from the hotel (they loan them to guests praise!!!!) but it wasn’t raining and John Steven suggested strongly that we ask the bus lady if she would be so kind as to take it back to the bus for us. She did. Then we started the outside tour and down came the rain!!!! It rained and rained and rained and we were not able to go back to the bus till the tour was over in camp one. Funny John Steven kept saying each time I gave him ‘the look’, “Mom, why didn’t you bring the umbrella?” Hahahahaha funny guy! We were all wet. For the second tour we TOOK the umbrella but after just a few minutes of gentle rain all the rain stopped completely. Isn’t that Murphy’s law! John Steven and I just looked at each other and laughed about it.

Met a couple on the bus. Nice semi-older couple. I asked where they were from, they said

IRELAND

. When I told them that was neat because my last name was Irish they asked what it was. When I told them O’Brien, they got SOOOO exited and said, “OUR name is O’Brien!”. Everyone on the bus was laughing as we sat there together saying, “Wow! Look at all the O’Brien’s on this tour! Any other O’Brien’s here?” the man especially seemed blown away about meeting O’Brien’s from America. He asked for pictures so that he could show them to his Dad and pals once he gets back home. He said, “No one will believe me, this is Amazing, O’Brien’s from

America

!” It was sweet. Very nice.

Hopefully we won’t be sick tomorrow from getting wet in the cold. We did have a memorable time though. I am so glad that John told us to do that. It was most assuredly the right thing to do. I wish all Christians could see that in person. A memory to never forget. Helps us to focus on “Redeeming the time for the days are evil!”

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John Steven and I both need to leave Ukraine in order to get our new visas. Unfortunately for John Steven, the day I must have my passport stamped with an exit is ON HIS 18^th BIRTHDAY! He is taking it like a trooper though this is not the way he has dreamed about spending his big birthday.

So many things could have gone wrong and God has been so faithful to reveal each error as our plans have been drawn up. To start with, John Steven had miscalculated his exit date (we all came into Ukraine on different dates this year) and when we decided to have him exit with me we all discovered the mistake. His deadline was FEBRUARY 14^th. Oh no! This could mean a huge fine and even more they could block his visa from re-entering the country as they just did to one of the missionary wives who just exited. Huge weight on our hearts right now and so we are praying and praying for a merciful exit agent on the boarder.

Next we booked a flight to Krakow, Poland as it was MUCH cheaper than the train. Sounds good, right?

Then we started filling out the paperwork that must be signed here in Kharkov for our exit. Our departure date coincides with the date when the Religious affairs office hands out their approved documents for the re-entries.

Monday night, I was plotting out my steps for our trip. From the airport to a hotel to the Embassy and back again but something was very wrong. I would not find the airport on any map we have of Poland and I would not find it on the internet either. I checked and checked but things were just NOT adding up. I slowly went over every street in and around Krakow on a map searching for our airport. Not there. The only airport there had a totally different name. Could it have like an old name and a new name maybe, I thought? I kept searching. Around 1 a.m. (a little later actually) the answer came. The airline though selling tickets for “Krakow” were not taking us TO Krakow but rather to a city 75-100 km away! I couldn’t believe it! There it was, on a hidden back page on their on-line sight. They fly you to this other city and then suggest that you buy a bus ticket to take you 30 km to the nearest town and then another ticket to take you 75 km further to Krakow. Once in Krakow we would have to pay a taxi from the bus station to get to the hotel. (hotels shuttle from the airport in Krakow but not from the bus station). Money, money, money plus time, time, time. I couldn’t believe it. I hated to tell John but that was not acceptable.

Morning - I send a hot letter to the airline cancelling our tickets. John heads to the train station here to buy two tickets. John Steven and I now would leave on March 4^th and be on the train 30 hours. Poor John Steven. Not much of a birthday.

Another thing on our minds was that Kendon turns 16 the end of April and he will have to have a visa then as well.

Since the train leaves (it does NOT run this route every day) on the 4^th and our documents will not be ready till the 5^th taking the train route would mean that John would have to pick up the documents and then have UPS overnight them to me in Krakow.

John bought the train tickets and then went straight to UPS where he learned that UPS no longer IN KHARKOV has over night, next day, or even two day air service!!! Now we have train tickets but will not have the papers and the Embassy in Poland only takes passports on certain days as well. Oh No!

Natasha comes out of the Religious office after submitting our documents for approval and she tells us that the official gave her a “word of warning” that many Embassy’s are no longer accepting the Kharkov document unless it is accompanied with another document stamped by the Capital. If that is the case in Poland, then we would be stranded (Hotel$, hotel$, hotel$) for no less than seven days!

So, this is how things looked this afternoon: John Steven and I had train tickets to Poland, where at the boarder we would have to deal with corrupt officials who would want $ribes to NOT block out John Steven’s entry visa due to his missing his deadline and IF we got a grumpy officer he could both $fine up (a huge amount) plus demand a $bride to let us back onto the train to exit, plus stop John Steven from re-entering for SIX MONTHS.

After that we would wait at a hotel for documents that would not arrive on Friday as planned, so we would be stuck in

Poland

until John could get the documents to us (4 - 10 days).

Then IF John Steven is not blocked from re-entering we would buy train tickets back to Kharkov and then do this all over again the end of next month with Kendon.

We had Luda call the Embassy in Poland and the nice man there told her that at this time they do not require the Kiev Capital document, just the Kharkov one would do. PRAISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then Natasha was informed by a Religious official that the laws just changed (again!!!!!!!!!!) and now a minor under 18 is not required to have the six month visa until their eighteenth birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow!!!!! So John Steven should face NO problems getting out or in, and Kendon does not have to jump through all these Red Tape hoops for another two years!!!!!!!! Praise, praise, praise, praise, praise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One last hurtle is tomorrow when we find out WHEN DHL can get the documents from Kharkov TO us in Poland. Please be praying for that.

John, John Steven and Kendon along with a 17 year old boy names Sergei from our church, are in Simferopal, Ukraine right now at a Men’s Conference right now. A new believer, Egor, who John has been helping to disciple from Zhitomir, Ukraine is also attending with them, and a new contact we have made from Pisochin (How to spell it in English I have no idea!) is attending with them as well. We are paying the cost of the conference for all of them to help them all get there. So far everything that I am hearing back from them is very good.

Noelle wrote about a little girl on her bus route there in Indiana. The girls both work on the bus route ministry (as well as the nursing home ministry) which ministers to the poorest and most dangerous town in that part of Indiana. The city is called Gary. It is known for its crime there so students are never allowed there alone or near dark. Noelle’s story is about one of the little girls who lives in that poor crime infested town. I am copies her story below.

Brittaini is asking prayers for her roommate, Megan, who just found out the elderly lady in the nursing home she has been witnessing to just died and did so without Christ. Very hard.

Brittaini and Noelle are taking part in a Volley Ball marathon at the school in order to raise up money to offset the tuition costs there. Both of our girls receive a tuition scholarship from the church there and we are deeply grateful for that. Fairhaven keeps their tuition to $1,700 per semester so rich and poor can have access to a good Bible Education. This marathon is to help maintain that low figure. When we checked out Bible Schools for our daughters tuition prices for MOST good Bible schools were unrealistic for lower income families without subscribing to debt loans, and for families with more than one child in college. The heart of the school targeting education for ALL was a huge draw on my heart to look further into having our children attend there as that is the heart which I desire my children to have. I guess that is because I rode a bus to church often as a child, and could not afford a Bible Education when I graduated from High School. How can God not bless such a heart as to do all it can to provide Bible Education for all? Anyways, I gave the girls my personal address book and gave them permission to write any who would help them in the Marathon. If you can help them, please let them know. I believe the marathon is asking for donations of $20, $50, or as the Lord puts on the heart. I am not sure about that, but if you hear from them, or if you would contact them, they will let you know.

Bus Blessings

Bibles & Bus Kids: I had the biggest blessing yesterday on bus that I thought to share with you all, given the topic currently under debate. We took our kids to a puppet show after morning services before taking them back home, and one of the program’s songs was about the Bible (one of the puppets was a big black Bible). There was also a skit about a little girl who loved her Bible, grew up and sent it to Africa where it came to another little girl whom it meant a great deal to, as well. The skit ended with the question, “How much does your Bible mean to you?”

When we got our kids back on the bus, a brand new little girl came up to me and told me she found a Bible on her seat. (It was an extra that circulates around for kids who forgot theirs). I told her just to hold onto it (my hands were full) and she sat down and just started flipping through it, intrigued. I noticed how much she was really into the Bible - the columns, the numbers, and the words. She must be 8 or so. I asked her if she had a Bible; she said no. I asked if she’d read the Bible before; she said no. How sad! I felt awful when she emphatically insisted that she’d never read one before.

Just then my bus captain came by and (not hearing our conversation), asked if the Bible was hers. When she said no, she didn’t have a Bible, he mentioned that if she came again next week he’d give her a Bible for her very own. I’ve seen him offer to other kids before; but she looked at me with such wide, amazed eyes! It was so precious. She looked so awed and overjoyed that she could have one for her very own. She mentioned the skit. I told her to make sure she started at the beginning, because it was God’s very own letter to HER.

Pray she comes next week. I’ve never had that kind of reaction before with my Gary bus route kids. Praise the Lord! There are a few precious, needing kids out there who will appreciate the opportunities the church gives.

Tonight our church voted unanimously to take on Stac, & his wife Luda and baby Sarah as our first missionaries!!!!!!!!!! They are a Ukrainian couple who work with a tiny group in

Russia

who are part Chinese part Kazakhstani, part Russian. They were all instructed to read 2 Cor. 8 & 9 this week and then come with an answer from the Lord tonight. They were all so excited and united about this. The spirit in the church was SWEET!!!

There is a bread lady who really likes Kendon and they have become quite friendly. When Stac was here he and Kendon went to buy bread and Stac asked her what faith she was, she answer Muslim, but Kendon thought she was joking. Yesterday Kendon and John Steven went there to buy bread and when they entered she greeted them with a traditional Muslim greeting, “peace be with you”, and without batting an eye Kendon responded back in MUSLUM “let your peace return upon you too”. She stopped dead in her tracks the boys said. She looked at Kendon and said, “That is exactly the right answer!” (the traditional response). As she marveled she began to fume how no one here in Ukraine knows how to give a proper answer and stated that even when she gave the greeting, “Jesus arose” (In Russian) no one knows what to answer her back, but before she had finished her sentence John Steven answered back, “Truly He arose!” Again she stopped, looked at the boys and then went on and on they said saying how she has never heard of young men who have the right responses like this. It was an AMAZING thing to her and I know she will never forget it. Kendon knew the Muslim response because he memorized it off his games and favorite movie. Kendon always brings her the Christian newspaper printed in Zhitomir and always points out where his Dad’s sermons are in it for her to read and she always takes them and asks when he will have a new one. PLEASE PRAY FOR HER SALVATION. Kendon was VERY excited and so was John Steven.

On Thursdays you know I have a “Bake and Bible” ladies time at my house. We use it for fellowship with the saints and outreach for the lost and teaching those who do not know yet (but desire to) how to cook, how to cook, and then we study our way through the book of Jude.

Tonight Hilda came and so did Luda. Natasha P. was not feeling well still, and Natasha B. was working late so she and Zhenia couldn’t come. WE made a ham salad that is decorated by green salad leaves inside a fancy bread that you back to put the ham into. Very pretty. They both loved the way it looked and Luda raved and raved about how it tasted. Hilda seems to enjoy it but I think her mind was on our lesson. We prepared the food, then while the bread part of it baked we did our lesson and then we ate after the lesson was over.

Today before the lesson she was compelled to tell me that when she first met you girls, Brittaini came to her and told her that she should NOT use God’s name in vain. She told me that she doesn’t mean to, but everyone around her does and she does it without realizing it though she does not want to and asked if I knew of a way to help her to stop taking God’s name in vain. It was a great opportunity to show her the compassion of the Lord and how important it is to be pure towards Him. I quoted to her the words that God says about how holy His name is and how we are to hold it dear and precious and never use it vainly or disrespectfully. I could tell she was deeply ashamed that she did use it that way. I told her how substituting a word that starts with the letter G could help me to correct herself every time she starts to say it and while saying realizes it’s wrong and she can switch it to the other G word (like GOSH) to recover herself. She smiled so sweetly and shook her head, “Yes, yes.” Then we worked on the recipe for a while.

I think Hilda was showing the work of conviction in her heart as last week we talked about what happens to the ungodly and I think she is trying to prove to herself that this is not her by removing those things that she knows to be ungodly.

The lesson was on Jude 1:16. The cross references were GREAT especially after studying Jude 1: 14 & 15 last week. Twice during the lesson Hilda looked like she had tears in her eyes and twice she jumped into the lesson to use herself as a demonstration, talking about things that God is showing her about herself through the verses we are studying. She said that she often does the right things (church, Bible reading, etc) in order to get God to provide for her and to receive blessings from him. She saw in the Bible verse that to try and put herself in a place of admonition (to be admired or looked at favorably because of her works or words) and to seek him simply for her own advantage was sin. She herself said, “I can see that this is wrong.” She was very humble about it and really convicted. We talked about how it feels when someone pretends to be your friend but it’s not because they like/love YOU, but because they want something from you. She again put herself in that boat about her relationship with God! We read so many verses about it and discussed how it makes God feel that we do not love Him for the right reasons. I used the terms she was familiar with a lot, “those who have (or have not) come to God God’s way” and “Those who chose to (or not to) walk in God’s way/will or their own.”

She was soooo quiet when we studied verses about what to do when someone refuses to walk with God, and what our responsibility is (to reject them and depart from them). Before I came to the part where the lesson talked about admonishing them (correcting them) before rejecting them, and also if need be, as you reject them, Hilda stepped in and asked, “Shouldn’t be correct them first?” Then I showed her through the verse she had just read that our duty is not just to abandon the person and never tell them why but that we are to correct them through the Word twice and then if they do not heed God’s Word we are to depart from them AND admonish them. She seemed very happy to hear that and I think she was thinking of her relationship with some of her own friends by the way she was deep in thought through this part of the lesson.

She also became very deep in though when we were talking about those who rise up INSIDE the church who use good words and fair speeches to draw away men to follow them. She didn’t say anything but she made a noise of “I got it!” and I turned to look and she had that look on her face that said, “This is exactly right!” I gave some examples of how men start churches through this evil path rather than by going out and winning souls to Christ. She really seemed to be listening. I have no idea what all was going on in her head but I could tell by her comments that she has some friends she KNOWS are bad influences on her and that God’s way is to depart from them. Also the last verse was on who you SHOULD be around and of course the verse was on those who fear the Lord and walk in his way. I am praying with all my heart that Hilda will make some decisions in her heart this week. First to be, coming to GOD for the right reasons. I didn’t give a full gospel message but I made sure I said enough that if she wanted to come to God, she would know it has to be through Christ and only because of Christ.

HI!

How are you?

We are doing well.

The landlord is here today with a man who is welding the pipes and putting in a new heating system. That means that they had to disconnect the old pipes and turn off the gas to the house while they work (will take from 9 a.m. to about midnight to finish they expect) so the house is growing very chilly! We are very thankful to the Lord that the work is finally be doing though. John will be able to sleep restfully now, no longer haven’t to keep his ears alert for any signs of danger. He told me that he felt like we were sitting on a ticking bomb. We have had three “close calls” with the heating system since we moved it and the electricians who were here for the electrical fire a few weeks ago said that this whole house is a time bomb. Nothing was done to code or with safety in mind. This will be a HUGE blessing to resolve this heating issue. The Lord is good. He has been so faithful to watch over us and protect us. He is so good to have this work come to pass at last.

The girls are doing good in college. Easier in the second semester now that everything is familiar to them and they feel comfortable there. The first semester really was straining simply due to all the adjusting that is required when you move yourself half way around the world and submit yourself to outside (not in your family) authorities. The girls have already written and told me that one of the people they really struggled with (personality conflict) last semester is now being a blessing to be around and they are giving God the glory for that change.

The boys are doing good in school. (I hope this email isn’t too long). He is very excited as the young man who he has been witnessing to (Vova is his name) came Sunday Night to visit the church and came to the fellowship that followed. He seemed to have a good time and wasn’t in any rush to leave. That is good! Vova is VERY religious though and will take a LOT of Bible teaching to reveal to him his lost condition and need for the Savior. He is religious in a “educated” way, meaning he has studied the religions and therefore finds them ALL interesting in their own ways. We call that Spaghetti (someone who is all mixed up!).

Brittaini and Noelle had a college contact here, Hilda of Uganda, who was coming to Bible lessons last year but dropped out when summer came. Hilda came to church to visit with the girls while they were here for Christmas break and during that time Brittaini was able to persuade her that she NEEDED to come to the Bake and Bible time that I have on Thursday nights for the ladies. Well, Thursday Night Hilda did come! Unfortunately, and God is in control, everyone else was sick and couldn’t be here but Luda and she was called away on business after being with us just a short while. So the Lord gave me some private one on one time with Hilda. She wasn’t OPEN to discussing what needed to be discussed (God’s Word) so I just allowed the Spirit to use me as He could to touch her heart. She greatly desires to learn to cook. She has never known how. My prayer is that through her desire to cook, she will come faithfully and through meeting with these Christian ladies she will let down her wall of pride and allow the Spirit to reach her. She stopped coming to the Bible lessons when she could not accept the truth that God accepted Noah based on GRACE and not on good works. I believe it scared her. She is trying to work her way to heaven. She stayed until John and the boys got home because she wanted some time to talk with John and apologize to him for stopping the Bible lessons so abruptly as she did. She is a very polite young lady and her running off (from the lessons) has been used by the Holy Spirit to prick her heart. I pray the Lord will use that to show her that she is dead in her sins and unable to safe herself.

We had two young students visit the church Sunday Morning. They are from Peru!!! Small world. They said they would come back. I pray they do. They really liked John and talked with him for quite a while after services. I don’t know anything about them other than their names, Jesus & Edie (man and woman), and that they are students at the University here.

I love you and thank God for you.

One last thing. Our church member, Natasha, is not doing well. Female difficulties and might need a hysterectomy in the near future. Please be in prayer for her. THANK YOU.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

Greetings in our Savior’s name!

The weather here in Kharkov has finally warmed up enough to put away the boots and coats. We have had a few great Saturdays for Fall Evangelism and on Sept. 27^th the Lord birthed a Ukrainian lady named Elena into His family. Elena has a young teenage daughter and a new born son. The fact that we do not have a nursery yet is hindering Elena from coming to our services. Please continue and be steadfast in your prayers to God for workers to come and build Him a house to teach and grow these believers here. The Architect finally received the last and final stamp needed and we have the blue prints at long last but now we pray for laborers.

The girls are doing fantastic at school (Fairhaven Baptist in Indiana). They are in the middle of mid-term tests right now and would appreciate your prayers. Though overwhelmed at first about working in the library (it’s an amazing number of books to keep track of and they had no previous experience with the Dewey Decimal System), they are now very comfortable there and enjoy the work though it be only part-time. Please pray together with us that next semester and next year they will be able to receive full time on –campus jobs as it will take a huge sting out of the cost of having them there. Airline tickets right now are just insanely priced, I am praying that the banking crisis will not further elevate these costs. There ministries there, (Brittaini – nursing home & a bus route + Noelle, Street evangelism and a bus route) keep them extremely busy. Being so busy makes the time fly and both are saying that they are shocked the semester is already half over. That is a great sign! Though they might not be able to write you back due to time constraints, they love and appreciate hearing from you.

I am finally adjusting to the increased work load here at home that comes from losing my left arm (Brittaini) and my right arm (Noelle). J The boys are adjusting to their increased work as well. John Steven though is still not impressed at the idea of doing dishes in their stead, nor is Kendon impressed with having to take over Brittaini’s cat box and bathing Noelle’s two indoor dogs.

John was asked to speak at a conference in a city 10 hours away. We took all from the church who could get the time off from work. There were eight of us in all who went. We had the sweetest time of fellowship especially on the second day of the conference. It was just precious! John & Sasha (he heads up the prison outreach we have), were so encouraged to meet some young men who are seeking the call of God from Belarus. They sat for hours asking John and Sasha questions and trying to understand the way of God more perfectly. It gave us great hope to see young men seeking God’s work. Please pray with us that God will raise up some godly young Ukrainian men here in Ukraine as well. We so long for a national pastor for this young church of ours. The men, plus John Steven and Kendon included totally enjoyed the time they had day & night (sometimes till 2am!) with the two preachers from America (Robert Sutton, FL., and Rick Venom, GA.). We met some precious national preachers from other cities spread out across Ukraine and John gave a serious charge during his time of preaching for all to contend for the faith and not to compromise as many have done and many are being tempted to do. It only takes a handshake with the Union Baptist to have your membership number soar through the roof and your support to soar as well. But we are called to contend for the faith as the book of Jude so strongly persuades. This did NOT make John popular with two of the men who refused to even open their Bibles for the rest of the sermon and that is exactly what the Bible tells us will happen!

We started a ladies Bible study in my home. We meet once a week and we start by fixing a meal together and then Studying thru Jude. At the ladies request last night we all gathered in the kitchen to make Banana Bread which does not exist in Ukraine cuisine. It was a lot of fun. The first batch I made, slowly, showing them the ingredients (some of these are foreign and so the ladies discuss what they can substitute and this is great for me as well to know!) and then letting them see the measurements. Measurements are enough to baffle anyone as they do not use cups and spoons as we do but rather all their measurements are by grams and milliliters. Explaining to them 1 ¼ tsp. meant I had to show them how to divide the teaspoon into four parts and then only take one portion of the four. ¼, 1/3, ¾, 2/3 are all foreign concepts to them. They thought this to be extremely hard to my surprise. One even said, “I’m just going to write ONE TEASPOON.” When I explained that it will change her results she shook her head showing how hard this was for her to comprehend but by the end of the first batter she was understanding well 2/3 cup, 1 ¼ tsp., and etc. They were all hoping that measuring cups and measuring spoons were available to buy here but they are not. The second batch I stepped back and told them they had to use their recipe (which they had just written in their own understanding) and make it without me as I washed up the dishes. At first they were a little apprehensive but within moments all the ladies were working together correcting each other and figuring out each step. It was so much fun! I also learned that a product I have always been told is NOT available in Ukraine, IS! This information was worth gold to me for half my life is lived in the kitchen due to everything being from scratch!!! Then while we baked up the Banana Bread, we studied through the book of Jude. Once we ended in prayer we sat together eating the banana bread and fellowshipping. I was thinking to myself that I should have started this kind of fellowship/Bible study years ago. There was so much interaction and so much help being given to one another. This can really be used of the Lord to help grow a closer bond between all the lady saints and when the times of persecution come, and if the Lord should pull the missionaries out of Ukrainian at any point, this tight bond will be much needed to keep the believers grouped together. I am very excited about the results I am seeing.

I would ask for you to be praying for our new landlord and his family. The Lord has given us many opportunities to teach them and witness to them. The landlord, Vasilli, even gathered his wife and two adult daughters together one evening for the very purpose of hearing the Word of God. Both the landlord and especially his wife, Luba, are very religious and very superstitious. They got very upset with us when we moved into the house and removed all the 10 x 13” icons from every room. To them that was extremely offensive. Since then, through many instances of clashes and teaching, they understand that THE BIBLE says we do not need icons to reach God, we have ONLY Jesus to mediate for us. This baffles them as it goes against all that the Orthodox Church teaches. Once John showed Luba & Vasilli that “man’s problem” is that we are all born in SIN and therefore SEPERATED from God, Luda was distraught and said emphatically to Vasilli, “Did you hear that! (pause) We are ALL going to hell!” She wasn’t joking. It was a truth hitting home right to the debth of her soul. I thought she was about to start crying. She was pacing back and forth and putting her hands on her head. Then John showed them what sin and separation has done – hindered our prayers. After reading several verses on this Luda became very upset and exclaimed, “I knew it! I knew it!!! I have been praying to God for years about things and it always felt to me like he was not hearing me!” These are HUGE steps for them to take to change their path from Cain to Christ. There is still much the Holy Spirit must reveal and prove to them before they are prepared to leave behind their old beliefs and take up the Cross of Jesus alone. PLEASE be praying for them. Satan is doing all he can to stir them up and to divide us so that our word will not reach them. About once a week they tell us to “get out!” and then about once a week they tell us that we will be renting this house “for a long time”. It can drive you crazy if you do not keep your focus as to who it is that is causing them to behave so (Eph. 6:12!)

I would like to thank you for your prayers and for your love and care. I know that it is a truth not to be lightly measured, James 5:16B “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy

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The gas was turned on this afternoon! GREAT JOY and answer to your prayers. Thank you.

Better news: John WAS able to witness to our landlord for almost four hours as they drove around the town trying to help the landlord get all his ducks in order so the gas company would turn his (and our) gas back on. At the end of their time together, the landlord was saying that he was interested in hearing what the Bible had to say as John had been able to make very plain to him that “man’s way” would never bring a solution or God’s blessings upon the landlord’s life. He is starting to catch on that there is a way (God’s way) which he is missing out on and therefore he is missing out on it’s blessings. PRAISE!!!

The drunkard next door to the church was caught stealing our electricity again. He comes while we are all gone and hot-wires himself into our electric lines. His wife has left him and he is not paying his bills. He is drunk all the time. He needs our prayers for his salvation!!!! He was already told after his first attempt to tapping into our electric lines that he could not STEAL from the church, if he needed help he simply needed to come and ask for it. He didn’t though. He is continuing to stay on the path that leads to death. This is so sad. We removed his lines again and cut them this time. He can either react in the flesh and rage or he can reach bottom and look unto God for rescue. We are praying for the second. If he does not repent of his ways than please pray that God will use his desperate situation to cause him to accept our offer to buy his land. We only seek the will of the Lord and we ask for your prayers for that.

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The Ukrainian natural gas company decided last year that they were not being paid enough for the natural gas being used nation wide so they calculated all the gas used and paid for that year, and then RETROACTIVELY recalculated the gas charge doubling the rate and then sent out “debt” charges to every home. Well, as you can imagine, no one was prepared or expecting such a thing and so it put every home in debt to the gas company. Can you imagine that happening where you live? Our landlord is one of those. We just finished helping our former landlord get his “debt” worked out and now we are facing the same situation here. The people are not able to pay such a large debt and so it becomes a battle ground between them and the natural gas company. This affects us because the house we are living in is run on natural gas for our heating, hot water, and cooking.

Yesterday there were men beating on our gate. John went out just in time to find gas men were preparing to cut the gas lines off out at the street. Within moments the landlord and the gas company workers were in a huge hot shouting match (that is called “negotiations” here J). John was able to calm the situation down and negotiate with the gas workers to just shut off the gas from the house lines that supply both our house and the landlord’s house instead of cutting it off at the street. This is a huge difference. The landlord is embarrassed and we are praying that the Lord will use this to humble him and allow John to witness to more to him. Today John is spending the day with the Landlord down at the gas company trying to help him negotiate a payment plan for his debt so that the gas will be turned back on. The gas company is not obligated to give a payment plan so we need the Lord’s favor!!! Until then, no hot water, no cooking on the stove or oven, no heat.

I would appreciate your prayers on our behalf as it is difficult enough living here without the loss of gas, but most importantly please be praying that he Lord will be able to use this situation to reach our landlord’s heart for Christ. I would give up gas for a year if it would mean winning this man’s soul to Christ. Hopefully that will not be necessary though J.

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Well, our Lord is so ever faithful, ever watching over us. This is the land of Ukraine, where NOTHING is done with safety in mind and where inspection codes fail to meet even the most basic of safety levels that are required by almost all other nations around the world. It is therefore no surprise anymore that once again we were unknowingly facing a serious threat. Here is how the Lord made us aware of that threat:

Today the microwave stopped working right and I noticed the lights were flickering every now and then. I called to John to ask a question about the new location for the microwave and I am so glad I did! John went to investigate why it was not working right and when he inspected the inside of the electrical outlet he found that the wires inside, (we have been here so many times with electrical dangers!!!), had started to burn and had melted together. We were just a beat away from having an electrical fire with that microwave running there!!!!

John spent the afternoon getting supplies, and playing the role of electrician to make the home safe again. He also inspected several of the other outlets as well but they seemed fine.

I am so very thankful to YOU for praying over us while we work in this very unsafe country and I am soooo thankful to the Lord that time after time after time He has shown himself FAITHFUL to watch over us and protect us while there is/was great danger in our midst and it was unknown to us. HE is Faithful! I thank Him and praise Him!!!!

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Greetings in our Savior’s name,

You are a treasure in my life’s circle and I thank the Lord for you GREATLY.

I will be flying to TUC tomorrow. Mom and Dad were able to buy me a ticket from Chicago to there and back so I could see them and be with Dad during his surgery. I am sooooooooooo thankful. John and I wanted so much for me to see them. God worked it all out. Isn’t it just evident it is the hand of God that my Dad’s need for surgery and the scheduling of his surgery to be during the very time I am here in the States! God! All God. To HIM be the glory, this is His graciousness being seen!!!!

The girls are doing very well. The Lord has blessed soooo much. They are getting all settled in to college now, making friends, and very excited to start their ministries (Brittaini – Nursing Home, & Noelle - Evangelism) and their campus jobs (working in the library which will pay for half of their dormitory fee), PRAISE!!! They are also both working in the Bus Ministry for which they are very happy about as that is familiar ground to them. Brittaini is a Music Major, and Noelle a Missions Major.

!!!!! Noelle’s birthday is on Sept. 8^th. Would it be possible for you to email or send a card to her??? Her email address is Ukrainebaptist4@yahoo.com. Her dorm address is: Noelle O’Brien/F.B.C. 86 E. Oak Hill Rd. Chesterton, In 46304 I know she will be thrilled.

We were very limited in how much we can bring on the plane (thanks to the 911attacks) so we had to buy bedding and much of the other stuff here. That would have been a real problem except that the school/church here supplied us with a car for the duration of my stay!!! Full tank of gas in it to. They have been a measure above all that I could have asked for. I am very grateful to Fairhaven and their great out pouring of hospitality. I hope that I can follow their example when YOU come to see me J in being a great host.

John is doing well but terribly missing me. Hard for him to be Mr. Mom during this time while we were still in the midst of our move into the city. Many of the wardrobes (they do not have closets built in the houses here) still have to be assembled. They are not complaining about the “some assembly required” at this point as they are becoming expert on that by now. J John Steven was thinking maybe he could make some side cash when he comes to school by assembling wardrobes for other people till he realized that American’s do not have wardrobes anymore. Bummer!

The boys. Well, I received a phone call from John Steven, and He told me NOT to register the girls in school her but rather to bring them BACK, stating, “You do not honestly expect me to continue doing ALLLLLLL these DISHES? All I do since they left is clean, clean, wash and clean!!!! This is not funny Mom. I’m serious!” I died laughing. The girls are taking it as sweet pay-back for all the years that chore fell upon them J. Hehehehe

John told me, “Wow, church service is SO different with you guys gone.” No pianist now (except for beginners), no deaf translators, and usually Noelle and I lead in the music, only for the fact that Ukraine was not given the portion of musical ability as those living in the US were. Evidence of His hand on our country. “To whom much is given, much shall be required”, comes to mind. John Steven has been given by the Lord a great strong voice so now he will need to use that for the Lord more than ever.

Please pray for my Dad and his surgery which will be Thursday. Please pray for all the traveling I am doing. Please pray for John and the boys (oh, we’ve added a son, Sergei is one of the boys who was saved thru our first Baseball conference, and he has been staying with us 4 out of 7 days a week. John said since I’ve been gone it’s increased to 7 out of 7 days a week – this is a good thing as he has an empty home most of the time.)

I have a huge prayer need I would like you to pray over as well. The time as come that I have to make some final decisions on my back. If I do not proceed with medical care (epidural injections followed by surgery) then the insurance co. will settle the case and all my future medical needs will not be covered. If I proceed with the medical care I will have a lot of “down time” here in the States somewhere till it is all over. (They are not specific as to how long). This is such a major decision. I know I need the back care, I DO, but… is this God’s timing for it??? It will be extremely hard because I will be separated from John and the boys while they are homeschooling. We are absolutely committed to continuing the work in Ukraine no matter what as that is our CALL of God, not our preference of job sites, so it would just be me coming to the States for the surgery if God leads that way. TONS of honest and sincere prayer needed over this matter. I would appreciate it if you would be one of those kneeling together with me about this.

Thank you for your prayers and your love.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy

Thank you for all your prayers. God is so faithful and has answered in many ways.

John and John Steven returned from Poland with their new visa’s just in time to send Brittaini, Noelle and me off to the States. We had a very long and memorable trip to the States but so many blessings bloom out of difficulties. I was able to witness to both an elderly lady of N.C. and a young college girl of N.Y. during our long flight delay. Neither are saved and both reacted to my answer of “what are you doing in Ukraine?” (answer: my husband and I are Baptist missionaries), the same way – with shock and terror. You would have thought I had told them I was a terrorist by their reactions. But I did not let that sway me, I stuck to my horses and marched on with a soft answer and grace in my lips to explain to them the need that all men, Ukrainian and American, have to know and understand God’s Word that they might, with knowledge and understanding, make better choices in their life ahead. I was thrilled as the young college girl really turned around and warmed up (she likes the idea of educating people), and the old lady settled down and just watched EVERYTHING I did from that point on. I pray that she was able to see JESUS in me. She doesn’t have many years left to figure out that she IS a sinner in need of the Savior.

A fellow missionary who is home on furlough picked us up from the airport and he and his precious family took us on a tour around Chicago as I attempted to work on my own Visa.

The girls and I arrived at Fairhaven yesterday. Fairhaven had a car sitting out front for us to use during our entire stay. What a HUGE blessing that is!!! Now we are trying to purchase all those things the girls need for their time here away from home.

Please be praying that the girls can work on campus. That would be a huge help with the finances of two in college.

I will be flying to Arizona to be with my Dad when he has his surgery next week. Then back to Fairhaven to say goodbye to the girls, (Lord, help me not to cry!!!!!!!!) and then take my return flight to Ukraine to start the boys in school.

I will be doing so much traveling. I really need your prayers for my back while I do. If I have one complaint about flying it is that the airports and planes do not staff themselves with young strong men to help with the luggage. Young and OLD, injured and weak are all on their own to lift and grab and move these suitcases. This is murder on my back.

I am trying to get some medical care while here in the States, I really need God to open the door for that. Please pray for that too.

Oh, it feels soooo good to be back on line and able to communicate with my dear friends again!!!!!

Well, the move did not kill us! In the beginning I looked on the unplanned move as ‘a nightmare of a situation’ but realized that was not a very Christ-like attitude so I prayed to the Lord about it and He told me to view it not as a ‘nightmare’ but rather as ‘a challenge’. Boy, did that shift the gears in my head! With my attitude now focused on ‘a challenge’ I was able to handle the move with a Christ-like spirit and consider each obstacle as simply a challenge to be conquered for the glory of Christ! I am so thankful for the Word of God!!! It does comfort. It does strengthen. It does guide and direct!

What, you may wonder is so challenging about moving? Well, this is not the kind of moving that we do in the States. This is moving the way they did it a hundred years ago. Everything must be broken down into flat boards and screws. All my kitchen cupboards, all our wardrobe closets, book shelves, furniture, you name it. Taking everything apart is not so challenging but you know what comes after that – SOME ACCEMBLY REQUIRED! J Every man’s joy, right?! J That is where the challenge comes in. You could hear lots of, “What!? This doesn’t make sense. How in the world did this thing go together?!?!”, and, “I think we put it on backwards”, and “Okay, stop! These are the wrong screws for this, where did the right ones go?!?”, and “Can you tell me what the right screws look like?” (don’t they all look the same anyways? They do to me!!!) and “Can anyone remember, in which box, was the battery charger for the electric drill packed?!?” And keep in mind that you were not the one moving things and placing them in the new home but rather some hired, tired men where who did not care if the arrow pointed to “this side up!” or “FRAGILE” when they dropped it into a heaping pile. Don’t you know also, that when you finally open up the 50^th box you will finally find what you are looking for (at the bottom of the heaping pile) only to discover that the part that goes with it was in one of those last 50 and now you can’t remember which box that was!!!!!

We have learned, and I thank the Lord that through each challenge we face there is wisdom to learn and experience to gain. I have learned that they sell, what looks like, square crayons in the colors of wood so that you can fill in all those new gouges and dings in your beloved wood furniture. See, I never would have known that if we hadn’t made this move! J

John and Noelle, Kendon and John Steven all left this morning on the early morning express train to Kiev (our Capitol) to pick up the kids new Passports. This evening Noelle and Kendon will take an express train back to Kharkov (first time they have traveled that far without a parent with them) that will arrive around midnight tonight. John and John Steven this evening will take an train to Poland so that they both can get new Visa’s in their passports. It is a 25 hour ride from Kiev to Poland. The train arrives after the embassy there as closed for the day so they will have to find a place to sleep and then we PRAY they will be able to complete all that is necessary that next day so that they can return on that evening train. In all they will be gone five days. They hope to be home on Saturday as the girls and I leave Sunday night or Monday morning for the States! Please be praying for all of them as they travel. So many things can go wrong but we are confident that HE is in control and that HE will never leave us nor forsake us.

The church is doing GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have had a rough few weeks. Some sensitive things were dealt with in the body of the church and you never know the outcome until it plays out. The first response was very bad. VERY bad. But because of prayer and sincere love and devotion by all those surrounding, the Devil was defeated and Christ marched on to a monumental victory! We are so joyful and relieved. It breaks my heart when Satan is able to defeat a weakened soul, but it is such a joyous occasion when you see the Holy Spirit move and work in a life and then that soul accept the Holy Spirit’s work, receive the Word’s of God, and repent of their way and return to Christ. The testimonies we are hearing at this time in the church body are so precious! Christ has answered the prayer and cry of family members for Christ to be back in first place in their loved one’s heart. Just more proof that GOD DOES ANSWER PRAYER!

We are so thankful for Pastor Baker, the sacrificial love that he shares with us and the example of his servant’s heart. John’s eyes get all watered up whenever he talks for more than a minute about his Shepherd (Pastor). It is evident to all here that Pastor Baker is PRECIOUS to the heart of his missionary & family. We are so thankful for Faith Baptist, and for their sacrificial prayers and giving which has come so unexpectantly, time and time again. We feel so unworthy of such love and devotion. Truly we have received what we were promised when we came into the sheltering wings of Pastor Baker and Faith Baptist, and that promise was “to be loved”, nothing more, nothing less. We do testify that we have indeed received your LOVE, and through that love has flowed every good gift. GLORY TO THE LAMB!!! We are thankful that it is not OUR name or labour that is bringing such wonderful blessings to the ministry here, but rather it is for the name and work of CHRIST whom we love and serve that Pastor Baker and Faith Baptist are pouring out such marvelous blessings upon the ministry here. He alone is worthy. Glory, glory that he has given to each of you there His unbreakable promise in Luke 6:38 !!!!!!! We pray that for you, with all of our heart.

Sorry for any spelling errors, as my faithful desk dictionary is still packed somewhere in one of those unopened boxes somewhere! J

John Steven was riding his bicycle yesterday with his sister Noelle. As they came down the last hill to return home a drunk driver, driving an unregistered, uninsured car, flew over the hill and though he missed hitting Noelle, he stuck John Steven knocking him off the bike.

John Steven is fine though in pain. The ambulance took us to the hospital and they x-rayed his arm which took the brunt of the fall. No breaks. PRAISE!!! Just a super bad headache some deep scraps and bruises and the memory of a life time.

John waited for the police who showed up long after the ambulance left. While they were waiting for the police to arrive the drunk man was filling his stomach, get this, with all the grass he could swallow. He thought that might fool the police but it didn’t. They arrested him and took him to jail.

John Steven still has to make the trip to fill out a statement but because he was in a lot of pain they allowed that to be put off for a few days.

We are moving this week into the new place. John Steven is a HUGE part of the moving process with his strong arms. Please be praying for him and for us as he will probably not be up to lifting a lot of boxes J.

We covet your prayers at all times. It was so clear that it was the hand of the Lord that spared John Steven’s life. On that same road we have lost 3 souls this year. The city desperately needs to install some speed bumps there.

Greetings in our Savior’s name.

On Friday, we had 14 foreign students, and one Ukrainian teachers aid all come up to our house. Most of the foreign students are flying back to their home lands as finals end this Tuesday (today). It was our last chance to give some of them the gospel as we have not been able to get them all into Bible lessons and as soon as the University got jobs for them all it hindered them from continuing the Bible lessons for most of them. So at the end of the day after a lot of fun and games, we asked them all to sit down at the table and I presented to them each a salvation keepsake, thanks to the donation of crystal beads and all the supplies which Ted and Kathryn Regal donated to our ministry. I told them all that this beautiful keepsake was a gift from our family to them and I thanked them for being so good to our girls in school and for being so friendly towards our family. I then told them that the story this keepsake holds, is for them to always remember, and to know. I then gave them my personal testimony as I explained to them the meaning of each of the colors of the beads. The reaction at first was very sweet. I are not well received here in Ukraine. The Ukrainian people are very fearful and therefore very unfriendly until you win their trust. Many of these students have endured great persecution for being here. They warmly received our family as a place of love and of safety over these last few months.

When I began to tell them my testimony and how my life was in complete and utter darkness as I was born separated from God, I used my foreign passport as an example. All the foods that ate at our house that day were “AMERICAN cuisine” and all the games (baseball J, spoons, etc) were also American. I explained to them that all I know and all I do is American because that is where I was born. The same is spiritually true. All I know and all I do is done in darkness because that is where I was born – separated from God. By the time I was done with the black bead, there was a very different spirit in the room. Some where looking at me with shock. Some where not sure where I was going with this. Some where looking at me like, “I knew it, I knew it! They would not keep silent about their God!”. I was remembering what the Lord said in Jer. 1:17, “Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.” And in Jer 1:8, “Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.”

Brittaini was translating for me as I gave my testimony and Noelle, John Steven and Kendon all sat among them and helped explain anything they were asking about.

By the time I was done, their faces were much softer and I handed to each one a crystal keepsake and told them that we love them as Jesus does and hope they will think of us as their family away from family and visit with us once they get back. Please pray that God will water this seed and make many missionaries of them to these foreign lands. Wouldn’t that be great if missionaries to these forbidden places God raised us here through the work that YOU support? I would be so in awe of the workings of the hand of God if that were to come about. Not that I am not already in awe of all he has done here, mind you.

The Lord has answered our prayers for a temporary place to live. It is an unfinished home in the city. One huge reason for moving to the city is that is that it is the long distance traveling on these roads that is so injurious to my back and hinders my healing. With the traveling cut down, my back will have a better chance to heal and rest. John and I are both PRAISING Jesus for that! On the down side, our rent will more than double and the house is very tiny and presents many problems for us, but we know for certain that this is the place the Lord has opened and so we are facing the challenges with confidence in our Lord’s provision.

We beg you all to be in prayer for our desperate need for a permanent home. We have no ability of our own to meet this need and so we are fully and completely dependant on your prayers to our Father for this. The same spiraling inflation and fall of the US dollar has hit some of the countries around us and missionaries are packing up and leaving the field because of it. We do NOT want this for us. So for now we are willing to make all the sacrifices necessary to stay on this field. The financial future for us, without our own housing, is very bleak. Please, please, be in prayer for this.

Both Brittaini and Noelle have been accepted to Fairhaven Baptist College in Indiana. PRAISE!!!!! Plus, without application, they have both been given four year scholarships. HUGE PRAISE!!! They will be flying to Indiana in August. They will be in need of jobs to pay for their room and board, books, and all their needs while Stateside. Please pray the Lord will lead them to the right jobs. We want HIS direction in this and covet your prayers.

All our love to you. Thank you for your prayers and concern for our family and ministry as we serve our Lord Jesus here in HIS field of Ukraine.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

Our biggest service of the year was Sunday – Passover here in Ukraine. We had our Passover Seder. It was great. Again God filled the room. We had approx. 22 attending. Seven have never been to a Passover Seder before. Hilda, from Uganda, was one. Please keep praying. She is still going through the Chron. Bible lessons. She still struggles with the fact that “good” people are born separated from God.

The Lord provided for my MRI needs here in Ukraine! I could not postpone my departure date from Louisiana due to the airline disaster that you all read about in the papers (all those cancelled flights). When I came back to the MRI office here it was to find out that they have just put in a state of the art, brand spanking new, MRI machine. It’s even better than the ones I was having in the USA!!!

Elizabeth Troyer flies back to the USA tomorrow. We will miss her greatly. Brittaini will escort her to Kiev via airplane so Please pray for both girls. Elizabeth will be mailing off the MRI to my doctor in the States. Pray for that please.

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I have just returned home safe and sound from a quick trip to Louisiana where I saw two neuron surgeons for my accident injuries that I received from our car accident while we were on furlough.

They have me wearing a special brace now while we are wait for more of the test results to come in. At this time they are recommending back surgery for my injured disc which has not healed. We will wait till all the results are in though before making any final decisions.

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HI!

The Lord gave me the great honor of being the guest speaker for the combined deaf and hearing banquet for Simferopol Bapt. Church down in Simferopol, Ukraine. Bob and Judy Vansant are the founding missionaries there (David and Joleen Sloan work there with them along with two other missionary couples). Judy invited me to come and speak and so I did. 84 women came. 10 men were their posing as the very finest waiters and singing. It was a beautiful banquet. Judy and Joleen put a ton of work into the planning of it and were aided by several of the women there with all the decorating, cooking, and cleaning.

While I was in Simferopol, the ladies here at our church were also doing a banquet for March 8^th. Natasha took charge of organizing it, Luda oversaw the work, Natalia and Zhenia were to bring the devotions and Brittaini and Noelle were in charge of the games. I sure missed being with them but a missionary’s job is to train nationals and then give them opportunities to serve. They were well ready to handle a banquet without me and they did so very well. Only one picture was taken by digital camera here (thank you Elizabeth) so it is attached.

As John prepared to drive me to the train station, we received a call from Pastor Troyer and his daughter Elizabeth who are here for a visit. They were supposed to come in on Wednesday but the plane had mechanical problems which delaying their flight and caused them to miss their connection in New York. They were there for a day and then were flown to Kiev but while they were filling out their documents there, their second connecting flight took off without them. Very exhausted and without their luggage they borrowed a cell phone from another passenger and called us. John was able to direct them to a bus that runs from Kiev to Kharkov so they would not have to spend another day and night at the airport waiting for the next days flight out. They were dropped off not far from our house and again thru borrowing a cell phone for one phone call, they contacted us. They finally reached our house, on FRIDAY at midnight! That is a long trip! Pastor Troyer said, “I prayed that God would show us what missionaries REALLY go through here in Ukraine. I didn’t really mean for God to show it ALL to me. J. Hahahah”

They have been a tremendous blessing and though Elizabeth has no clothing (both her bags are still “lost” ) and is making due with clothing from our daughters, they are in excellent spirits and are joyous to be around. We are very glad to have them here with us! (picture attached)

Below is a picture of the group of women who were at the March 8^th, “Women’s Day Banquet”.

The picture below is Judy (L), me, Joleen (R). Both ladies are dear and sweet and I am so blessed to be in their company. They are some of God’s very best servants on the foreign field !!!!!

Yes, that is me speaking. Look! I just can’t talk without using my hands J. I had to force myself to remember that if I used my hands then the deaf would look away from the deaf translator (who was standing on the left but isn’t in the picture) and watch me instead so it was a real challenge for me to talk and hold still. These pictures are evidence that I slipped a few times J.

I was very impressed with how the missionary men, pastors, (deaf and hearing) and the deacons all enjoyed waiting on these women. It gave a very special touch to the banquet and really made the “women” feel special as they celebrated their special day. It’s a HUGE holiday here.

Thank you for your prayers.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

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THANK YOU for your prayers. God is still in the miracle business here and is keeping us safe by HIS hand. This morning John arose early to pick me up at the train station. When he got out of bed he was greeted with the strong smell of smoke. He thought, “Oh, the neighbors are already burning their leaves.” But once he opened the door he found the house was filled with thick smoke. Someone, I won’t name who J, was making chicken stock in the kitchen and left the stock pot full of water and chicken bones on the stove with the burner on low all night. They had forgotten to turn it off and no one else realized it hadn’t been turned off. The water had all boiled away and the bottom of the pan was now burning. John was able to get the pan out of the house and open the doors and windows. It was all GOD! Monday’s are our days off and usually we sleep in on Mondays. If I had not been on the train, we would not have known about the pan for at least two more hours. That would have been tooooo late.

The smoke from the burning pan was so bad that it is like embedded into my cabinets now. You can not walk into the kitchen without getting a headache from the smell in the kitchen now although we have had the windows open all day. What a praise that God was watching over the family!!!!!

Please pray for Elizabeth. Her luggage is still “lost” somewhere between Pennsylvania and here. She would like to have her own clothing and still soon. You understand. She has a sweet spirit about it though.

Deaf Tanya and I will be leaving by train back to Simferopol again this week for the Deaf Conference there. Please pray that Tanya will be richly blessed in her spiritual life through this conference and that I will be richly blessed both spiritually but also with sharpening up my sign language that God might be able to use me more for translating for the deaf.

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Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus!

This morning for church we had all our regulars plus one lady who was saved in our children’s church and then strayed. I do not know if she will return next week but it was sure good to see her again and have her sit with her Bible open and listening to the Word of God being preacher. Her name is Tanya, please pray for her.

Bagdon has become very attached to our church. He is there on time each week and very studious from start to finish. He comes for Sunday School, Church, and then the Bible lesson after. (10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) He answers the review questions very well and pays good attention. Please be praying for his salvation.

Yura (urah) was in church again sitting beside his mother. At the beginning of the Bible lesson he was having a hard time paying attention until John mentioned how God created all the fish of the sea. Yura asked why God created the sharks to be so ferocious. It seems like a silly question, but to him it was a very serious one, and so John took some time to talk about what the Bible says about it. It always amazes me what it is that the Lord will use to capture someone’s interest. From that point on Yura paid close attention.

Bi-chin, Makx, Vin-vin (she is the new girl I wrote of on Friday), all came for the lesson. PLEASE be praying for them. Bi-chin is a huge advocate for evolution and today as we studies thru Gen. 1 it seemed as if we hit a wall with him. He became VERY quiet and that is not his normal self. I was surprised to see that the Chinese struggle so greatly as do the Russians with evolution vs. creation. Why is it important? Because if they can not understand GEN. 1, that God is the creator and therefore the owner of all, then they will never understand or accept the fact that God therefore has authority over his creation and their created soul. It is a HUGE part of cross-cultural teaching. They must understand that God is there creator. Please pray for Bi-chin. Pray that God will open his eyes and show this truth to him. Several of the Ukrainian men that have been saved in the past have said that the lessons on creation were the very hardest ones for them to accept. All of them say that they wanted to quit coming to the Bible lessons because it opposed their belief in evolution, but by diligent prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, and a careful teacher, those men came to accept God as their creator and eventually accepted Christ as their Savior. That is our prayer for all these Chinese students.

Something special that happened today was that after the lesson, John asked if anyone had a question, any question, about the Bible or about what they are learning. Then it was like a pan of pop corn. First there was one hand in the air, then another, and soon questions were coming from all over the room, even from some that were there just in support of the students. It was precious.

Thank you all for your prayers.

We love you and thank God for you.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

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We had six Chinese students out to our home in the village today/night. They were soooo much fun and sweet as sweet can be. Two were new to John and I. These are all classmates of Brittaini and Noelle. The two new ones both said they would come to church on Sunday for the Bible lessons!!!!! The two boys who are already attending the Bibles lessons were here and both said they are “VERY much enjoying” their Bible lessons. They do not say that with as to only please us, but rather they say it with great expression and joy. One of them, Bi-Chin told me as we worked together in the kitchen: “Where I live – China – there is no chance to know the Bible. NO chance. Here, I have a chance. A chance!” He is the sharpest of the first year students and I have been surprised to see how he and Makc (the other boy) have just dove into learning the Bible.

Our female doxin was severely bitten in a dog fight and the Lord helped us to find a new vet clinic where a doctor is on call 24/7. The doctor was a younger fellow but EXCELLENT. We were so thankful to God. There are as many quack animal doctors here as there are quack human doctors here so to find one that is “excellent” is like a needle in a hay stack. We have been praying for a “good” vet for several years. After her exam the doctor said that we will not know for five days IF our dog will keep her eye or lose it. It is her right eye. They believe the bite only penetrated through the tear duct and ripped that open inside but only time will tell. The entire eye & eyeball are filled with blood. We thought she had a tear from her eye down to her nose but the vet said all that blood and swelling was from the eye injury. So for now we are to give her five shots a day and cleaning and etc. Please pray with us that she will make a full recovery. Noelle has had this pet since her ninth birthday. Thank you.

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Greetings in our Savior’s name!!!

Thank you for praying for our Bible lessons on Sunday. God did hear your prayers and bless. Thank you.

Bagdon (Ukrainian man) came for lesson #3. He is doing very well. His mother had a relative stop by just as they were leaving for church so she couldn’t make it. Satan uses that trick all the time here in Ukraine to keep people away from hearing God’s Word.

Two of the four Chinese boys returned. They have said some pretty interesting stuff!!! One thing is that one of the boys said to Brittaini on the phone, “We missed lesson 2. Lesson one was “who is God?”. As your Dad explained, each lesson builds on the previous lesson. Since we did not get lesson 2 (they had final exams during that time), how will be understand lesson #3 and how can we learn what lesson #2 was?” GREAT understanding of how important each piece of the lessons is to a right understanding of God’s message of salvation. John did a thorough review of #2 turning it into a mini lesson of #2 to get the Chinese boys up to speed since they came Sunday for lesson number three. The second amazing statement was after the lesson was over and we were taking the guys back to the Metro. One of them said, “In China I heard about God and I heard about Satan and that they were like not friends. But I thought it was like a fairy tale. I did not know they were real. I did not know why they were mad at each other BUT now I know EVERYTHING from the beginning. I know who they are and why they are enemies!”. He was very happy with himself that he could not explain who they were to others and why they are “not friends at all”. Sweet and precious.

On Friday we (via the girls) have invited 11 of the Chinese students to come out to the village (they rarely leave their little dormitory area) and have dinner with us. Please be praying for that. Since there is a major language gap (they are only now learning Russian and that is very limiting) so we will need them to SEE Jesus IN our deeds since they can not understand Jesus through our words. So far, we are having a positive impact on them from comments they make and things they do. Oh how I would like to see them all saved and see them go back inside closed China as missionaries for the gospel there!!!!

Several members of the church seem to be doing better than they have in the past few months. We have been doing a lot of work to teach them how to forgive one another and heal their relationships with one another. Both times we have had to leave Satan has used the same tactic to try and destroy the church here: brother offending brother. They survived, that is a huge praise, but there were many wounds that needing tending and healing. Praise the Lord that we are seeing that come to pass and they are growing from it and coming out stronger.

Luda, huge praise, found an apartment to rent and we helped her move out of our house to her own place yesterday. She is so excited. We are so excited. J. God has given her the desire of her heart as it is extremely close to the Metro and has a balcony which for her was a major “need”. Hard for me to understand how important that is, but that is because I’ve never had to walk in her shoes. I am glad that SHE received from the LORD all that she desired. She is a WONDERFUL sister in the Lord and servant unto our Lord Jesus. Rejoice!!!

Thank you for your prayers.

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

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Special prayer please for us tomorrow. Again we are having a mix of Ukrainians and Chinese for the Bible lessons. We have learned some Chinese (how to count and say a few sentences) and have worked out several of the kinks (like where in the Chinese Bible are the books of the Bible. Everything looks like chicken scratch!).

The lessons are taught in Russian so it’s quite a mix of languages. Please pray for John that the Lord will truly bless through him as he teaches. He is VERY good teaching this group. He would like to divide it up but for now they are coming together in one single group so it takes all of his wisdom to explain things in a way in which is clearly understood by everyone in the group.

Praise, Bagdon is returning for lesson #3 and His mother is coming to take the lessons as well. We were not sure if she would come back, but she is. PRAISE!!!

We have an architect drawing up the church floor plans. We had a real good meeting with him this week and then he came to the property today to take pictures of the landscape. I am soooo excited! Praise to all those who have pray with us for this and have helped provide for it as we raised up funds on furlough.

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Hi!!! I’ve been sick so I haven’t written but now it’s time to catch you up a little if you have some time.

Our new Bible student Bagdon did come back today. He had his second Bible lesson and he did bring his mother, Rita, with him today and she also sat in on the Bible lesson. Both of them really seamed to enjoy the lesson. Bagdon was much more interactive in the lesson this time and on his review of last weeks lesson he did VERY well. At different times during the morning services different ladies in the church would talk with Rita and each gave her a tract or paper for her to take home and read. Everything was evangelist of course :-). Please pray that she reads it, understands it, and comes back to study the Bible more.

Urah, Alla's son, had to be at work this morning so he missed out on the Bible lesson and the Chinese are all having final exams this week, as are our girls, and so they asked please if they could have more Bible lessons, but not this week :-). Totally understandable. Urah did make it to church tonight and I am very pleased to see how faithful he has been in his attendance since his profession. That is a BIG change in his ways already.

Please pray for our girls. The schools here do not calculate "church" time into their study time for their final exams and so our girls who were away from their studying for five hours this morning, (due to travel plus an urgent need one of the members had that required some counseling after the Sunday School + morning service + Bible lesson hours). Then tonight we had evening service and then a Birthday fellowship for John & Luda and Sasha so we didn't get home till 10 p.m. Praise the Lord that for our girls, no matter how hard it makes the load, they still put and want God to be first, especially on the Lord's Day. They never even suggested or hinted of skipping any part of the Lord's Day for their studying needs. I am confident that our LORD who is beholding all, was well pleased at their devotion to Him and will well reward them for their faithfulness unto Him. He is faithful! They will be up late tonight trying to make up the time. So far they have done very well on all their tests and during prayer and praise time in church today they asked that we pray more specifically for them to have a good testimony before their teachers and fellow students, than for good grades. They have such a strong desire to be HIS light there at the University. Please pray for them and for the Lord's abundant blessings.

I am VERY excited: Last Tuesday Luda met with a lawyer about the zoning for our Church building. I was very sick and in bed so I did not get to go. He was very helpful and gave us the green light to proceed with building. Then on Thursday I dragged myself out of bed, still sick, and went with John and Luda to see the architect because I am the one who has made the drawings and I had to be there to explain them. The architect said if we get the drawings started then she expects that we can start laying the foundation down in March-April!!!!!! We were soooo excited to hear that. Praise, praise, praise!!!! It will be an unspeakable blessing to have more than one room to work with. Right now everything just has to line up one event after the other and so we are there for a LONG time to accomplish what can be done in a fraction of that time if we were able to divide up into different rooms. I think it will especially help with the children and deaf ministries.

F.Y.I. John just turned 41 and Luda 31 on Saturday the 26th. Sasha turns 39 (?) tomorrow. That was why we had the birthday fellowship. Our home church in NC and Pastor Baker made a special “Happy birthday” video clip, with the whole church singing Happy Birthday to John and they put it on their web site and emailed us the link. That was the first thing John saw when he got up Saturday morning. It was soooooooo sweet. It really touched John’s heart. Our church has done so much to reach out to us. I can not thank God enough for them. They define the word, “ENCOURAGEMENT”, by their walk. Even our Ukrainian believers are noticing that and making comments. They have even asked us if we have a pictures of pastor and wife to put up in the church here. We do have one the Regina took of us and them together so we have it framed and it’s going up there. Then pastor and wife, Vicky, called and wished John a happy birthday and then they talked to Luda and wished her a happy birthday.

One last thing, I have a special unspoken for wisdom in how to proceed with the care of my back injury from the car accident last Feb. I am totally opposed to surgery but that is what the neuro-surgeon in AL. is recommending at this time. John and I are both seeking God about it. Thank you for praying with us about it.

Love you and miss you. Please tell everyone I said, "Hi!".

Joyfully in Jesus,

Cathy!

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Tomorrow we are expecting several visitors in church. We could use a lot of prayer about the service tomorrow.

The service will be VERY challenging as one man coming tomorrow, Bagdon, is a mentally challenged man who came and asked for Bible lessons last week, and praise be to the Lord he is returning tomorrow with his MOTHER who will be a first time visitor.

In addition to Bagdon and his mother, we will have, IF they keep their word, FOUR of the Chinese students from the University coming with our daughters. Three of these Chinese students have never come before. The one that has been before, named Edya, is the girl who Brittaini was able to give the gospel to, by using the crystal bead bracelet that I gave to Edya when she visited our church. Brittaini and Noelle say that Edya ALWAYS has the bracelet on and often points to it and says, “I remember what each color means”. Edya, has been telling all the other Chinese about her bracelet and so it opened the door for a young Chinese man to come and ask Brittaini to explain “the meaning” to him because he could not understand what Edya was trying say about the meaning of the colors but he could tell that that they were very important to understand. Brittaini spent 45 minutes giving this young man the gospel. The difficulty is that the Chinese are here to learn Russian and they are first year students. They are full time students and speak better than I did after four years but still they only have a basic understanding of words in Russian and they only speak little English, and of course we do not speak any Chinese at all (the girls are only now learning J). So it’s a difficult thing to minister to your regular people, a visitor who is slow, and a visiting group that is extremely slow with the language. But all things are possible with God and we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us.

Thank you for your prayers. I’ve been sick with a cold as had Kendon and John. The guys are doing better but I caught it by taking care of them so now it’s my turn to be sick. Keep up lifted up please as we continue to lift you up.

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1/2/08

Greetings in the name of Jesus! We hope and pray that your New Years was a happy one and that PHIL. 1:9-11 will be our prayer for one another for this new year.

Kharkov was an exciting place for the New Years. Here is why:

We had such a battle with the Devil this weekend. We just got our microbus out of the shop In time for the New Years celebration on Monday. We always do New Years up in a big way to give the believers a place to celebrate together and to keep them out of harms way by the drunken members of their homes. New Years is the biggest holiday here in Ukraine.

We pick up the elderly and young and one invalid with our van and run a bus route to help all come. We start the service at 8 p.m. and then have preaching, prayer, games and food until we pray in the new year and then we have a fireworks display. We brought in a deaf preacher from southern Ukraine, Slava, who is the preacher of a huge deaf Baptist Church which was started by American Missionaries. We asked him to come and preach and talk to our visiting deaf to discern the needs of this group that is coming to our church. He is a precious preacher! We had 8 deaf come and one of our Bible students from the University plus all our members that could. The deaf preacher, Slava, did a great job, he preached 4 times between Sunday and Monday. God revealed much. One of the deaf ladies desires to be a preacher herself and at one point told one of the unsaved deaf men who was very open hearted to the preaching, to stop listening and just get up and walk out. I was shocked. She is 100% against “eternal” security, we’ve come to find out. She is the one that smiles the most, and invites all her friends. I thought after Sunday she would never come back. She was shaking her heard “NO!” during the preaching several times and was very upset at the preaching of the gospel. But, not only did she come back, but she brought two more visitors with her on Monday. Though the other seven all were listening, this one lady sat with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face the whole time. (FYI: Two of the deaf are saved members of our church. Five there were new deaf to us.)

The morning of Monday, I was running the van into town to get supplies for the service. But to our surprise the brand new battery in it was dead though no lights were left on. So we charged the battery for two hours and then let it run for a while. While we did that it ran out of gas because it is parked up hill. That killed the battery again. Again charged the battery and then John Steven and I with little gas in it drove up to the gas station at the end of the road. As I drove into the gas station it ran out of gas again (though we put a liter and a half of gas in it at the house) and the engine died. No battery again. So they filled our tank with gas and pushed us to the shop down the hill. Waited there for 20 minutes but they were too busy to help. Flagged down a van and the man jumped our battery for us. We drove down to our usual gas station to fill our low tire and buy a tube cap but as we pulled up the van started backfiring like crazy and though I tried with all my might I could not keep the engine running and it died. No battery again. CRAZY!!!! Called John he came in the Niva, jumped it and drove it home. As he drove it home it died as he pulled into the yard. So we called everyone and told them the van is down and we would not be able to take people home after the service at 12:00 midnight as planned so many did not come.

Three of us have to take the walk +bus+metro+tram+walk route (2 hours) so the other five with all the stuff could cram into the 4 passenger Niva to get to the church. We all get there. God really blesses. Everyone has a great spirit about them and all recognize Satan is fighting against the gospel being preached tonight. Services were great. Four of the deaf say they liked what they heard (the BIBLE) and saw and will be back on Sunday for our new DEAF ONLY services. (Now we have Sunday School, followed by Morning RUSSIAN services, then DEAF services, then a tiny break and then ENGLISH evening service, and finally Russian evening services.)

At the end of everything the plan was for 3 of us to go the metro route to the last stop there and then wait. All the busses stop running to our village (30 minute drive) earlier in the evening. So they will wait there while John drives four of us home and then returns to town to pick the other 3 up at the last metro stop. Sounds great. The three (Luda, Brittaini and Kendon) leave on foot. We stay and clean up some but there is too much to do and so after 30 minutes we decide to leave the rest for Tuesday and just go home. It’s now 1:30 a.m. We bring a lot of the stuff to the Niva, which I parked under a street light two houses down, only to find when we are finished packing everything into the back that someone has SLASHED two of our tires on the drivers side!!!!!! Several of the neighbors are awake and come to see what is up. They all brainstorm and one uses a bicycle tire to see if he can pump up the tires but to no avail. It was touching to see their compassion for us.

After finding no solution we pile out of the car and walk to the street. Now it’s 2 a.m. All the taxi’s fly by us and will not stop. Trams stopped running and so frozen and tired we start walking towards the metro which is about an hour walk by foot. I am feel bad for my husband who is suffering from severely chapped feet, our deaf preacher who isn’t used to cold weather at all, and my children who are extremely tired as they never stay up past 10 p.m.. Finally a car stops and gives 3 of us a ride to the metro. Then John and John Steven get a car ride there too. It’s now close to 2:30 a.m. The Metro is only running one wagon and so there is a long wait between pick up times. The 3 that left earlier have no idea what has happened and are probably waiting on the road freezing thinking, “What is taking them so long????” All our cell phone batteries are dead but Noelle’s so there is no way to contact them and let them know what is up. As a Mom, I am worried to death about the 3 that are not with us. There are drunks looking for trouble all over the city.

Finally the wagon comes after standing there a long time and watching several people who are way, way, way too drunk to control themselves, display the foolishness of drinking. We get ton the wagon and ride for 40 minutes to the last stop. PRAISE, our other three are there and fine. They helped one of the girls home from church and so they were never out on the street in the freezing cold. PRAISE. A great relief to my heart. (It was -10 outside with terrible winds).

God GREATLY blesses and Luda and John are able to flag down an empty van which drives us the 30 minutes to our front door. It’s after 3 a.m. now and we are BEAT!!!

So, though we have 3 vehicles, we are axle bound!!! One is in the shop from the car accident the kids were in, the van is down with what we suppose is a bad alternator and now it’s so cold (-16 today) the engine will not start anyways, and the Niva has two slashed tires and is sitting in town. CRAZY!!!!!

Today John and John Steven hitched rides to get here and there to try and get the tires off the Niva and get them patched. The good thing is that Niva tires still use tubes! The bad news is that John has to cancel going to the Men’s conference in Simferopol with John Steven and a man from church because the van has to be prepared to leave to go pick up a package down in Odessa, Ukraine on the eighth.

Wow. Many trials right now. Pray for us. All this stuff comes at huge unexpected and unprepared costs. We are all in great spirits though and just know that God is doing great things and got us home despite all Satan’s attempts to discourage us. God is bringing good out of it and the neighbors which normally ignore us there near the church are all upset that such a thing was done to our vehicle. They all know how far away we live and how difficult it would be for us to make it home at that time of night. They all know how we have helped many in the neighborhood and they are rallying around us with support. PRAY please that God will use this to open their hearts to hear HIS Word.

Hope all is well there.

Enjoy your days off during the holidays.

The servant of Jesus,

Cathy!

12/30/07

Wishing you the very best of new years. May 2008 be a year of tremendous spiritual growth for all of us. Maybe 2008 is the year of our Lord’s return!

Please be praying for our special DEAF conference that is going on right now. We have a special deaf preacher from Simferopal here preaching the conference/meeting. We asked him to come up and preach and discern for us what their needs are spiritually because the deaf could not give us sufficient answers to even some of the most basic spiritual questions. Two came to the services today. The others are out of town for New Years or working. Tomorrow they have all promised to come. Through the meetings tonight we have found out that one of these two is most sincere in his desire to learn of God, though admittedly unsaved as of yet, and the other is a woman that desires to be a Bible teacher and does not have an interest in learning anything from the Bible at this point and was constantly disrupting the preaching with her arguments to the gospel of grace. Pray for our meeting tomorrow that she either has a change of heart or that the Lord is able to keep her away or keep her quiet so that he can work in the hearts of the other deaf which will come tomorrow.

Our four kids were involved in a serious car accident today. All are well, THANK GOD!

Brittaini had come up to a yield sign and there was a large trucker blocking her view of the street. She slowed down didn’t see anyone and proceeded thru. She said she never saw the taxi that hit them. He just slammed into the drivers side of the engine and the two cars careened across the intersection and the taxi’s car slammed into an older man who was walking on the sidewalk. John Steven was in the front passenger seat and when the taxi hit them and spun them his head was thrown and his head slammed into Brittaini’s cheek. OUCH! He has a sore head and she has a very sore and red cheek with a bad headache. They will probably be black and blue tomorrow. The Taxi driver was not hurt at all and the pedestrian was at the hospital with Brittaini and I and he wasn’t in any pain there and even left before us, walking home, so I guess he is fine though he was completely plowed (drunk).

The kids were in town shopping for my birthday. John and I were enjoying a quiet Saturday morning and sleeping in. We got the call from Noelle and though we could hear here shouting, “Dad! – Dad!, Dad! – Dad!” She could not hear John. There is just something about a certain tone in your child’s voice, especially if they are yelling, that already tells you what has happened. By her fourth shout of “Dad! – Dad!”, I was not only up but had my skirt on and both socks and throwing a sweater on to run out the door. John was trying to get her to hear us and tell us where they were. We got to them in record speed J. Brittaini was taken by Ambulance (remember the old hearse ambulances?) to the hospital and they let me go with her. They not only were checking out her head injury, which at this time seems minor, but also it is law here that all drivers in an accident be tested for alcohol. Everyone at the hospital was polite and they have done MAJOR renovations there so it is no longer the dark dirty place it was just a year ago.

The kids new car, a Russian Lada (cheap but cute), which we saved all year to buy for the girls while they are in school this winter, is really beat up. We do not yet know if it is fixable. John was telling me that it may have a sub frame because it is such a cheap made car (it’s Russian what do you expect? ha-hah). If it does than we will not be fixing it at all. If it just has a frame and that is bent then we will try to find a way to get it straightened. If not, who knows what we will do. We put all our pennies into buying that car and so there are no funds for this. Our insurance only covers the other guy. The financial burden will be heavy on John but I am just thankful that God spared our children. That is all I care about. If Brittaini had pulled out any faster than she or Noelle who was sitting in the back seat behind her, would have been killed or badly hurt. God was so good to make sure that only the car was hurt bad. I can live without the car, it will cause us a lot of problems but I can but I can not even think of losing one of our children and I am so thankful that God didn’t bring that kind of a trial into our lives. I can not thank God enough for that. HE was watching over the children today. PRAISE HIM, PRAISE HIM!

On the police report the accident is Brittaini’s fault. She did not realize that, though yes, the other guy SHOULD slow down too and watch for oncoming traffic, legally he does not HAVE TO, and though she did slow down and he didn’t, she had the yield sign and so it was her fault. She had thought that his sign was also a yield sign but it was a sign that looks like a “yield” sign but is only an “intersection” sign. Hard way to learn that. She was really upset to hear that it was HER fault and not the taxi’s. She really thought HE was the one at fault.

I’d appreciate it if you would keep them in your prayers for a few days just to make sure no unseen wreck injuries appear later like they did when we were in the States. I am already giving all four of them ibuprofen just to keep their muscles from cramping up. Hopefully that will work.

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Hi! What a day we had today. We just walked in the house and I left on the counter all the dirty dishes we just brought back with us and rushed back to my computer to write you all about it. I am so excited to see what the Lord did today!

John and I had planned a BBQ fellowship for our church members for today. Then we got to talking and decided it would be good to use the BBQ to try and round up many of those who have fallen by the wayside while we have been home in

America

. If we could just get one straying sheep back into the safety of the fold it would be worth all the expense and effort. Then the girls who are making many contacts at the University asked if we could open it up to include new people too (evangelistic) as they have 4 to 6 co-students that they wanted to invite and we decided it would be a good idea.

For the last several weeks we have had nothing but bad weather. So cold that people are all in winter jackets and rain, rain, rain. I was concerned about the timing of our BBQ. It would be a flop if the weather was bad. The girls and their Dad though had the utmost confidence that God would give us good weather. Two days before the BBQ the clouds rolled away and the sun came out briefly. Yesterday was very hazy all day but today it was sunny, warm and gorgeous! ONLY God could give perfect weather on the one day we needed it. The weather forecast here is COLD and snow by Wednesday. Can you believe how God blessed us today with such perfect weather?!!!

Today we had the BBQ. At first no one showed up but our ever faithful members. If no visitors came, we had already decided that it would be okay, as the most important part was that our members have a great time of fellowship one with another. When Zhenia came, the one who just had the operation on her eyes, she was glowing as she had two friends that came with her for the first time. She has tried and tried but they would never come before. Yea! Two visitors!

Ludmelia, Sasha’s mom, who has terrible blood pressure and therefore is normally a shut-in, also came! Her husband was not able to (he is in his 80’s) as he is not feeling well but she said he said he would be coming tomorrow if we can pick him up (so we will!). We were so excited to see the two new visitors and Ludmelia there.

Then came in three of our teenagers who went astray while we were gone. Egor (saved & Baptized), his sister Alona (not saved yet), and Katia (saved just weeks before we left for America). It was sooo good to see them again and see them come on their own. Egor is John Steven’s closest friend here in Ukraine and when Egor stopped coming to Church to spend time on his father’s new computer, John Steven told Egor that he, John Steven, was Jesus’ friend, and that if Egor was no longer wanting to be around Jesus then he no longer would be around John Steven either. I was very surprised at John Steven’s stand. I had been worried that as Egor turned away from Christ to the world that he would draw John Steven with him as we have seen so many teens do. I was very relieved and encouraged when John Steven took such a stand for Christ though it would cost him his closest friend. John Steven has tried to get Egor to come back to Christ through phone calls now and then (Egor went astray two years ago) but Egor usually is normal towards John Steven and not interested in anything church related. What a shock to see him come through our gate for the BBQ and to see that he brought his sister Alona and Katia with him. What a joyful sight!

Our two girls were down in the metro (subway station) waiting to meet their fellow students who said they “might” come. Three of these students came to our church a few weeks ago. The girls were like an hour late for the BBQ and I was starting to get worried. Then Brittaini came and with her were NINE of her fellow classmates!!!!!!!!! I didn’t see Noelle anywhere so when I asked Brittaini where her sister was she said, “Oh, there are more (students!) and Noelle is gathering them and bringing them!” Shortly Noelle arrived with SIX more students!!!!!! The girls were bubbling over with joy. God has blessed over and above all their expectations. They had thought that four would come for sure and two others might, but not only did all they invited come, but those who were invited then invited others to come. Fifteen students came. They were all soooo sweet. You can tell that they are lonely and far from home. My heart just aches for them and so I did all I could to make them feel loved and at home. They responded with such gratefulness and one of the Chinese girls even called me, “Mama Katia” (my mom Cathy) as she gave me a hug goodbye. It was sooo sweet.

Then our next door neighbor, Vetalick, who is not saved, also came over for a very short while. He was unable to stay but while he was there Sasha had the perfect opportunity to witness to him and he was listening intently but did not respond. That man is resisting so strongly though his wife and adult daughter have both already accepted Christ. He is holding them back from attending church and so it is very important that we do all we can to see that he is reached for Christ.

We build a fire and BBQ’d up a ton of food. While John cooked up the food everyone played volleyball with the new net we found and bought (John & Sasha built the poles for the net Friday out of tires, cement and 4x4 wood poles) while others played bat mitten or threw balls with our baseball equipment. The alcoholic couple who live beside us were home and the drunk wife threw a brick at the boys who were playing catch with their baseballs in the front yard. She was upset that her dog was barking because of all the activity in our yard. I was not happy hearing that she threw a brick at the boys but Sasha had some firm but meek words with her and she went inside and left us alone. The boys moved to the back to not agitate the dog. We need to build a fence there BAD. Talked to a guy about building one but he said we had to wait till spring due to the weather.

I made chocolate chip and chewy fudge cookies, they were as usual a complete hit with all the guests. To this day it blows my mind that chocolate chip cookies are completely unknown to the rest of the world. Our church folks all brought cookies and young Zhenia who had the operation even made a chocolate cake! The Chinese students all brought food with them and so we were feasting with lots left over. After all the good eating we gathered in our tiny church house. God is such a great organizer, HE always knows exactly how many chairs we have in the tiny building and don’t you know it, there was one chair for each person with not one chair left empty and not one person left standing! That always amazes me to see how exact God is in all that He does. Never too much, never too few.

John asked Sasha to give the gospel SLOWLY with the most basic Russian Words since it was such a mixed crowd. We had souls from America, Russia, Ukraine, China, Uganda, Cameroon, and

Nigeria

present. Some speak English with a little Russian, some speak a little Russian and no English, some speak Chinese with only a little Russian and a little English. So Sasha introduced them to the gospel as slowly and clearly as he could. They all (Russian, and the students) were very attentive. John told them we will have Bible lessons for them if they are interested. Afterwards two Chinese students came up to John and asked to enroll in the Bible study. Others said if we were not so hard to get to (some of them travel almost an hour to get to the church) they would love to come. We will see.

Then when it was all over, the girls professor showed up. He got lost as this is far, far, far away from where he lives as he is not familiar with our side of town. He took the tram (the last part of his journey) the wrong direction and ended up far from us. He said that he would return again to visit our church now that he knows where it is. I couldn’t help but think that it was the Lord keeping him away so that the students would have to mingle with the Christians without their teacher being their mediator as he is not saved (yet!).

Seven of the Chinese students raised their hands saying that they do NOT have a Bible (here or at home). One of the girls, the one from Nigeria, also raised her hand. John told them all that the church would give to them as a gift their very own Bible if they were to return again. They all said they would. We pray they will. Pray that we can locate Bibles for them in their own languages quickly!!!

Alonia – Russian girl 14 years old. Hear the gospel several times but was very young mentally then. Pray that now she is ready to understand it.

Vetalick – Russian man, Next door neighbor – resisting the Holy Spirit at this time but God is working on him.

The alcoholic couple next door – Russian couple (I do not remember their names)

Polye – Chinese boy who was showing great interest and visited our church once before.

Vacia – Chinese boy studying to be a vet and was using a dictionary to look up all the words in the gospel that he did not understand.

Liosha - Chinese boy, only been in Ukraine 5 months, understands VERY little Russian but we tried to shine our light for Jesus as bright as we could for him and he seemed to really enjoy being with us.

Tao E – Chinese girl, visited the church once before, very friendly and respectful. Not very interested in the gospel but friendly and open.

Edya – Chinese girl, visited the church once before also, and wears the gospel bracelet that I gave her when she came the first time. First thing she did when she came today was to show me that she is still wearing that bracelet. J. I asked her if she remembered what each stone meant, she said yes with a smile.

Syao – Chinese girl who is very interested in the gospel. Noelle witnessed to her for 45 minutes the other day. She asked to enroll in the Bible lessons. Has a decent understanding of English and a poor understanding of Russian. She asked if we could give the lessons in English. We need to find a Chinese translator ASAP!

Alex – Chinese man (real name impossible to translate J) here to get a doctorate in Language. VERY receptive. Will come with his niece Syao for the Bible lessons.

Buma Karen – African married lady from Cameroon. Catholic, very religious, thinks all religions are the same. Hope she saw and heard a difference today!

Mabel – girl from Nigeria, has no Bible but wants one. Hope she comes back to get one!

I know this letter is long. I am overflowing with joy in seeing all whom God brought today and all that he did. To think that 12 of these souls have never ever heard the gospel before in their lives, and if they never return they most likely will never hear it again, is a terrifying thing to comprehend. I pray that the seed we planted today will not fall upon poor ground.

Thank you for your prayers and support in helping us to make a difference in this dark world.

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Well, I have finally dug down to my desk through all the mounds of unpacked paper work, school work, church books and etc that were covering it. And behold, here is my computer J! I know that you are wondering why she never writes. Well, I’ll make up for that tonight with a long letter filling you in on everything! Hope you have some time.

Every time I get all the “stuff” unpacked, cleaned up, sorted and put away, another delivery comes. Because our luggage was soooo limited in size and weight we shipped most everything back to

Ukraine

. John and I spent a fortune in Gorilla Tape to try and get the boxes here in one piece. Didn’t work. L. Would hate to see what they would have been like without the Gorilla tape though. Most all of the boxes have been “rolled” from place to place because they do not use fork lifts or dolly’s here in Ukraine for moving and shifting boxes being shipped and delivered. John Steven even watched one of the loaders who was delivering several of our boxes, loaded one of the heaviest boxes, marked FRAGILE (in Russian), onto the loaders HEAD (like they do in Africa), the loader walked with the box on his head to our garage where he then just tipped his head forward and let it come crashing down to the ground. It’s a VERY good thing that I was not the one to witness that or I would have cried or screamed or something! Sooooo much is broken that has been delivered. We shipped 2 years worth of food supplies and 100% of the pepperoni’s shipped and brown sugar have had their seams burst due to the pressure of being dropped. Lots of broken glass. I shipped several Wal-mart oil lamps and though two of them were smashed to smithereens, AMAZINGLY four survived. (God gave those four special angels to watch over them J and I am soooo grateful). So I end up spending a lot of time cleaning (Gatorade, brown sugar, or other powders that cover everything in the box once it is smashed open), gluing, or patching things together. HOWEVER, we do not dwell on what is lost but rather on miraculously what actually makes it through and just praise, praise, praise, praise Jesus our Lord for each item that gets here. Yesterday two boxes came that were soaked thru and thru from rain. I was soooo thankful again that we had wrapped everything inside zip lock bags inside the box!!! Such is life in Ukraine! That should make you feel blessed for having UPS there in the States. J

We are doing well. Good to be back in our own beds again. Not that living out of a car wasn’t fun -- Hahahahah.

The girls are still enjoying the University though it is not what we expected. The girls at this point are learning more Chinese and French than they are of new Russian. They are so far ahead of the one class, and the other class that is perfect for them is only once a week. So they go the rest of the week to use it as review for their Russian and help out the students who are struggling. On breaks they learn Chinese from 10 different kids from China. 3 of them have come to visit us at Church and we are inviting them all to a church cook out Oct. 20. IF we can find a Chinese translator we are already kicking around the idea of starting a Bible Study with 10 Chinese students that are interested. The professor who helps our girls the most, letting them sit in on his classes for review, is a WONDERFUL person. Please be praying for his salvation. The way he cares for the foreign students (he gives his number to all the kids and tells them if they have ANY troubles to call him; they do; and he does help them) makes me wonder how mightily the Lord could use him to care for the Saints in the church. His name is Andrei. Please be praying for his salvation. He claims to not believe in God though his wife does. John gave the girls one of the Kent Hovind films (in Russian) to invite him to take home and watch. He gladly accepted it from the girls so please, please pray that God is able to open his heart.

The boys are doing good. Kendon has a cough that won’t go away. It’s between 40F-60F here in Kharkov each day and rain, rain, rain, & icy wind, wind, wind. I do not remember it being so cool and rainy in September but this year it sure is. Everything is muddy outside so that means lots of mopping as people come in and out of the house J. I am soooo glad that they started importing mops for sale here 3 years ago!!! The rain is knocking down all the walnuts out of my trees so the kids do not have to climb and shake to get them down. I have tons of walnuts to crack and store now. Yeah!

I am getting back into the groove of things. Sooooo hard to go from American cooking to scratch cooking. I got spoiled on dinners only taking an hour or less to prepare while we were home in the States. It’s a real adjustment for me. The constant electrical outages are also hard to get used to again but I am soooo thankful for our oil lamps! I am also thankful that so far the village has not turned the water off one time. That is a shock. Before we left they were turning it off at least once a day and very often they were turning it off for the full day, two, or three days.

A friend in Florida, Kathryn R., bought me (as a gift) a pasta maker. The kind that you put the dough in, then you use this machine to roll out the dough into pasta. Well, Luda and I worked on it together and learned how to make all kinds of pasta with it. Took us about 3 hours to make it all. It was a lot of fun. The first time it was a lot of work but now that I know what I am doing it will not take so long. I am soooo grateful to the Lord and to Kathryn for that little pasta press. It has always been a challenge in the past to find lasagna noodles, and etc. when I needed them. Now I don’t have to worry about it, I can just make it whenever I need it and do it without aggravating my neck, collar, or spine with all that rolling. What a blessing!!!

One of the things that God has put on my heart was to make some salvation bead bracelets for us to use in the church. The year I was home I researched, hunted down, thought out all the ways we could use those beads to give the gospel here in Ukraine. I didn’t have peace about the bracelet because the one that I had before (Judy Vansant missionary in Simferopol, Ukraine had GRACIOUSLY given me several before) I gave to a Ukrainian lady and she wore it every single day until all the silver wore off and then it turned her wrist green. So, as I thought on what to do, God brought me to Kathryn and Ted R. (they own a bead store and are STRONG, active soul winning Christians). They were soooo helpful and joyful about providing all the supplies for it and giving me ideas. It ended up that the beads would be used to tell the gospel in three forms: book mark, phone fob (my favorite), zipper pull. Well, the ladies at the church LOVED them. We all got together and each lady picked out which kind she wanted and then we enjoyed some time together making one for each lady. Because they have never done anything like that before it took a LONG time and a lot of instruction. The results were sweet. Luda made a zipper pull, and instead of putting it on her Bible or purse she insists on putting it on whatever shirt/sweater she is wearing each and every day. J. We plan to make more, next time it should go faster, to give as gifts to visitors in the church and to anyone we have a good gospel contact with out on evangelism. It was such an answer to prayer for God to bring me to Kathryn and Ted. Please pray for them as Ted has some very serious health issues right now!!!!!

The two Chinese girls who came to visit the church (classmates of Brit and Noelle) we gave the last two gospel bracelets to (from Judy again) that we have. Brittaini & Noelle told me that one of the Chinese girls is wearing it to school every day and she is trying to guess what it means. She does not speak enough Russian to understand the gospel yet, so Brittaini just keeps telling her to wait and she will explain the meaning of the colors of the beads to her a little later. The other day the girls said, “I think I know what it means.” Brittaini said, “What?” And she replied, “Is it my horoscope?” Brittaini told her, “NO! Not at all. Remember we told you it is about God.” Brittaini wants to write out the gospel in the most simple Russian but detailed enough to make sure that the gospel is clearly understood through it. She is being very careful not to be hasty but to trust in the Holy Spirit’s leading as she continues to reflect the Light of Christ to this classmate and pray for the right words to best reach this girl’s heart with the gospel in hopes that salvation will be the result.

John and I had to make a trip to Kiev to get my passport filled with new pages. I didn’t realize the pages for visa stamps in it were all used up but John did. Praise for that. You have to bring your passport to the American Embassy in Kiev IN PERSON so we took the train up and back. While we were gone the kids kept smelling plastic burning. They couldn’t locate the source of the smell so they figured it was a neighbor burning something. WRONG!!!! John and I got back in the wee hours of the morning and everyone slept for several hours into the morning. When we woke up there was no electricity on one side of the house. Strange. When John got to checking things out (with a flashlight) he discovered that we had had an electrical fire and that GOD had contained it. I know you will be horrified in hearing this, and NO this is NOT how it is to be done, but remember this is UKRAINE which means nothing is done the right way or safe way, but our electrical circuits are mounted to a block of WOOD. (Not our decision!!!) The owner and the electrician did it that way despite our strong objection. It was a MIRACLE that the wood did not catch fire. The wires were totally burned up. The plastic fuse was melted away. Only way to explain the wood not lighting up – GOD!!! Thank you for your prayers for our protection. They are already being answered!!! We had to use the oil lamps from Sat. to late Monday. Boy was I glad we had those!!!

Our van is in the shop at last. It broke down and left me stranded by the roadside twice since we have been back. The last time was the end for it’s motor which we knew was in bad shape. We knew this day was coming and so while on furlough the Lord raised up the designated funds to have it repaired and so the time has come to do so. It just can’t limp along any longer. So in the shop it goes. They expect it to be at least four weeks to get all the parts (foreign parts). I think they are in for a long surprise because it takes us 6-8 weeks just to get the door handles when they break each winter. We are prepared for it to take up to three months to get it finished and back to us, if it comes sooner, great. We will not be able to run a bus route until the van is done. God knows what He is doing though and HIS timing is always perfect. It is easiest to get people to ride on the bus route when it is COLD outside and deep snow. We should have the van back and in perfect shape just when the deepest and coldest weather hits.

Thank you for all your prayers. We still do not know how badly the Devil’s attack has hurt us with our support but so far we have only had 3 churches drop us. Though that hurts, we feel it is God’s hand pruning and we are just simply trusting in Him to supply all our needs and to keep those supporting this work who are sincerely praying for it. As my friends, you should be aware of some of the false rumors that the Devil is circulating right now. One, that caused one of the churches to drop us, is that we ordained a man into ministry that has been married and divorced twice over. I want you to know, straight from me, that this is a total and complete lie from the Devil. In fact, we have never ordained anyone at all. We have brought more than one man up for consideration, and we will do so with any man who comes to us and says he feels called of God, but up to this day, September 25, 2007, sadly we have never had the pleasure of ORDAINING any of them as none so far have been found to be truly called by God to be a pastor/missionary/deacon. We believe that the rumor is being spread in reference to Brother Sasha who filled in the gap preaching for us for a time while we were gone. Aubrey Mapp had STRONGLY recommended to us that we ordain him so that we could come back and tell the churches we had a church standing on it’s own but John sought counsel from several pastors and the Holy Spirit and decided that it is NOT of God to do so. We do not feel we need to “perform” for the churches, we need to follow the leading, as slowly as He chooses it to be, of the Holy Spirit and make sure that when we do ordain a man it is of God’s will and not man’s. Sasha is a man in the church who joyfully serves his Lord in a layman position as an UNordained servant of Christ. He is not ordained. Plus he has never been married before or divorced. He has just one wife. Lots of holes in that rumor. Please be careful about what you hear and what you believe. Satan is a deceiver and there are some who are willing to believe his lies without checking out the facts. I do want you to know that if YOU hear this rumor, please know that it is false, and tell whoever you hear spreading it that it is a LIE from the DEVIL with only the intent to bring harm to the servant and work of God.

Well, I have written to you a book, but it has been such a long time since I have written that I really wanted to just fill you in a little. Please write to me when you can. It’s good to hear from you.

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Hi! Well, we made it with the Lord’s help and we were even able to get my computer on line via John’s help by telephone.

I’ll make this short.

In Washington one man, immigrant worker at the airport, gave me a horrible time. He was soooooo rude to me and the kids. So I rebuked him sharply and out-loud telling him that in America we do not speak to people as if they are dogs! I repeated it twice to make sure he was understanding what I was saying as his English was not very good. He kind of stopped for a second looked at me than repeated himself and as we followed him to where he wanted us to be he turned and said very apologetically, “Would you …”. John was close enough to add out-loud from the lobby, “PLEASE!”. The man looked kind of frustrated and then looked to me and said, “Please.” (almost made me laugh) I hope that he will treat people more politely now. I understand that he is not saved and does not like his job, at least not that day, but it is very important to me that when others (people visiting the United States) get their first impression of our blessed country, it is a good impression not a bad one, so it is very important that airport workers mind their manners when dealing with passengers. Other than that, the trip was completely blessed.

We checked on more baggage than allowed and ALL but one bag was over weight by approximately 20 pounds according to their scales and yet without one word about it (we were ready to plead for mercy J) they checked it all on and didn’t charge us a penny for it!!!!! We had pooled our cash together before we left for the airport to pay for all the over weight fees. It was a wonderful blessing not to have to pay for the extra weight. Made me feel better about the airline, after being toyed with by them for 3 weeks, about my submitted requests for the extra baggage; and only getting the answer “no” back from them the day before our flight. Another missionary couple flew with the same airline to Ukraine two months ago and they were denied ALL their extra baggage and were not permitted extra weight in any of the bags. That had us scared to death when we had so much to take. All I can say it is must have been the will of God for us to bring this stuff for the flight was packed and our route was the exact same one that this other couple had taken. We even were flying in a worse time of year than them as August is the month all the students fly back to Ukraine. What a blessing!!! No, wait, it was more than a blessing, it was a miracle!!!!

I could not sleep the day before we left or on the plane because I was so concerned about the Ukrainian customs. They have given so many people we know a hard time and I was bringing with me (extra baggage) a copier/printer/scanner that John and I got for me for the kids school & Children’s church use. It was brand new, only used a few times since we bought it, and in it’s original box. I just knew that they were going to try to wheel and deal me for some kind of fee. Once someone sent us some movie discs, the cost for the discs was less than $50 but the customs official (all depends on who you get and how badly they need money that day) charged us $100 for them – so we refused the package and they sent it back. So I was really uneasy about dealing with them myself. Well, when we got to Kharkov again God moved in (I was praying non-stop on the flight). A customs guard came over to me and asked what was in that box. I told him straight out. And he just waved his hand and said, “Take it”. They told us to also take all our bags they would NOT be x-raying any of our bags so we could just go. We were praising God as we rushed out of customs as fast as we could with all our baggage J. They x-rayed every single persons bags that was on the flight but ours. Wow!!!! Saved us like 45 minutes of time as well as money and stress and boy were we tired.

John was expecting Sasha to pick us up with his little car as our van is in the shop. John told me it would take 2-3 rounds of him taking someone + baggage to the house and then turn around and come back to the airport and pick more up. I was NOT looking forward to sitting there with all our luggage, tired kids, tired me, it’s very hot 98 degrees + humidity, 40 minutes per round per trip, before the last person would arrive at home. God knew that, and so without our knowing it Sasha talked the guy at the shop into letting him take our van (has no front or back bumper yet) to pick us up. We fit ALLLL the luggage and all of us with Sasha and his daughter Zhenia into the van (no air conditioning yet) to make it home in ONE trip! J J J J J We were five very happy hot campers.

Luda had supper (borsht soup) ready for us. It’s a Ukrainian thing – HOT soup on a HOT day L. Hahahahahahah. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and so I did eat the hot soup. I was soooo hot and inside utterly miserable but she was sooo happy to feed us. She is so sweet. She had the house all beautiful and all the folks from our dear church here had been ringing the phone off the hook for almost an hour Luda said waiting to hear if we made it okay. Sweet.

The jet lag for us this time has been worse than ever before. I think it is because it is so very hot and humid right now and there is no air conditioning just fans that blow the hot air on you. Even the kids are really struggling. This morning was the first time Brittaini, Noelle, Kendon and I all woke up in the morning saying we were able to sleep. John Steven didn’t. He said he fell asleep around midnight and then woke at 3 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s a terrible feeling. I got everyone working hard in the yard and stuff outside to try and keep us awake and moving. Hopefully now tomorrow we will all be flipped over onto Ukrainian time and be able to think clearly in the day time. We’ve been here for five days already. Usually it take 2-3 days to wear off the jet lag.

We have a registration meeting at the University on Wednesday for the girls. Pray for that to go well. Their classes will start within days of that registration.

John is doing good. He is so lonely without us. He said he is calling and talking with my Mom a lot. It makes him feel closer to me to hear my Mom’s voice. Sweet. I know that Mom is enjoying hearing from him too. I think it’s great. John is traveling tonight up to Lviv to send off a package from there. Then he will be headed down to NC for his last few days in the States. I will be soooo glad to see him again.

Well that is all for now. Just wanted you to know, that we are here safe. THANK YOU for your prayers for our traveling.

If there are a ton of spelling errors please forgive me. I am still groggy from jet lag.

God is good, ALL the time!,

Cathy!