Spring 2010 newsletter online

Here is our latest newsletter. I used a site called Issuu to publish it because I thought the site looked slick. Let me know what you think, if it is hard to use/read I'll go back to google.docs.

Open publication - Free publishing -

Ukrainian Wildflowers

Bingo at the Senior Citizens' evening

Wednesday was Bingo Night for our church's monthly evening for Senior Citizens. We had a bunch of calendars with nature pictures and bible verses on them (they love this sort of calendar and will sometimes hang them in the kitchen for years just because they like the picture) and there were also chocolate bars to give away as prizes.

Everyone was really into the game.

For dinner Liese and Natasha made pan fried chicken with vegetables and rice. I helped out by pounding the chicken but they wouldn't let me do the frying. I guess I haven't graduated to that level yet.


A couple of guys from the rehab center always come to help with the setup and and clean up. Sasha and Slavic came this week and helped set up and take down the tables, pour tea, and wash dishes.

Worship ministry

Once of the ministries we are involved in here in Calvary Chapel Kaharlyk is the worship ministry. Liese has been overseeing the worship team for about a year now. She schedules the worship bands, leads three times a month, fills in for people when they get sick, and finds and teaches the band and the church new songs. I play guitar twice a month and work with other musicians on the team to improve their guitar playing.

Liese grabbed my guitar to work on some harmonies with Oksana

We are always thinking through various ways to help our church understand what worship is and then take that understanding and apply it to the church service and their lives. One of the ways we decided to do that was during the time of song I would talk briefly about one aspect worship. We talked about giving, singing, clapping, Jesus being the mediator who brings us to God, corporate worship and individual worship, worship being a response to God. We found it was helpful to stop singing for a minute to remember why we sing, what the time of song is all about.

A couple months ago after spending time praying and talking with the church leadership we decided to split the time of song up so that there would be more time at the end of the service to respond to God in song instead of just getting up and going home after the sermon. The new format has required greater coordination between the worship leader and the preacher which has been good to build more togetherness in these two ministries. For me sometimes it is more difficult as sometimes I have to grab a guitar and play right after preaching for 40 minutes.

That's what has been going on in the worship ministry over the last few months here in Kagy.

Study Group

For the past 6 months I've been meeting with three young men in our church and reading through John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life" and on Sunday afternoon we finally finished it.

Zhenya, Petya, me and Roma.

We had a good time reading through the book and I think these guys learned a lot about how to look at their lives and the questions they should be asking themselves as they make decisions in life. We are talking about what to do for the summer months and which book to read through next. They want to keep meeting and talking through spiritual things which is really cool to see.

Pouring concrete

When we dug underneath our house's foundation to bring water lines in and sewage lines out we broke up the cement slab that was poured around the foundation to protect the foundation from water seepage. Fixing up the cement has been on our list of things to do for the last year and a half and today it is finally getting done. I talked with Oleg (one of the men in our church) about helping me do it because I haven't had the time lately to do cement work by myself and he said he'd love to help out and do the work for cheap. So last week I ordered a truckload of sand, got some aggregate and half a ton of cement and today Oleg showed up with two other guys and are pouring a new layer of cement all around the house.

Global Mission Mondays: New Zealand

We've been praying for a different country each week at our church's prayer meeting for more than six months now so I thought I'd remind everyone why we do this. John Piper summed it up quite well in the last chapter of his book "Don't Waste Your Life":

Most of us are pretty parochial and ethnocentric and narrow, and even sometimes self-centered and racist, in our way of life. We hardly ever even think about the global, multinational, multiethnic, multi-linguistic cause of God, and what God’s passion and purposes are for Guinea and Indonesia and Tanzania and Thailand and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and Turkey and Czechoslovakia and China and Siberia and Japan and Cameroon and Myanmar and the Somali or the Hmong or the Dakota or the Ojibwa of Minnesota.

To combat that ethnocentric, self-centered view and build a global, multinational, view of God's plan throughout the world we pray for a different country each week. I share a few facts about the country to give an idea of what its peoples' needs are, what their lives are like, how to pray for the Christians and missionaries in that country, and then we just pray. This week we are praying for New Zealand.

New Zealand has a population of about 4 million. 78% of the population identify with European ethnic groups, Māori are the largest non-European ethnic group, accounting for 14.6% of the population and. Asian ethnic groups account for 9.2%. Twenty-three percent of the population was born overseas, one of the highest rates in the world.

According to wikipedia

"New Zealand is a developed country that ranks highly in international comparisons on many topics, including education, economic freedom, and lack of corruption. Its cities also consistently rank among the world's most liveable."

Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, held by 55.6% of the population (5% decrease in the last 5 years) while 34.7% indicated that they had no religion. There have been a few missionaries in Kaharlyk from New Zealand.

Tonight we are going to pray for the people of New Zealand who do not know God, we are going to pray that God strengthens the faith of the Christians in New Zealand, and we are going to pray that God would bless those churches who have sent missionaries to Ukraine and thus been a blessing to our church.

Global Mission Mondays: Kyrgyzstan

Tonight at our prayer meeting we'll be praying for the country of Kyrgyzstan. Last Thursday rioting broke out in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh. The violence focused on ethnic Uzbeks in the city and since Thursday more than 120 Uzbeks have been killed and more than 1,500 injured. Around 100,000 have fled the area to nearby Uzbekistan.

Read this AP news article for more of what is happening as well as pictures.

Some quick notes from the article:

• Kyrgyzstan's interim government, which took over after former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted by a mass revolt in April, has been unable to stop the violence
  
• Uzbeks make up 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan's 5 million people, but in the south their numbers rival ethnic Kyrgyz.
• In 1990, hundreds were killed in a land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh, and only quick deployment of Soviet troops quelled the fighting. Russia has refused a request by the interim government to send troops into Kyrgyzstan, so the government began a partial mobilization of military reservists over the weekend.
  
• Food and water were scarce as armed looters smashed stores, stealing everything from televisions to food. Cars stolen from ethnic Uzbeks raced around the city, most crowded with young Kyrgyz wielding sharpened sticks, axes and metal rods.
• No police or troops were seen on the streets of the city of 250,000.

We will be praying for peace, praying that God would turn people's eyes to Him, praying for the basic needs of the 100,000+ refugees, praying for the safety of the missionaries in Kyrgyzstan.

Please join us in prayer.

The first fruits of summer (literally)

Gardens are awesome. Thanks to our garden we've been eating fresh spinach, romaine lettuce, cilantro, strawberries, and cherries. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, apricots, pears, apples, corn, and peas are on their way.

Road trip to the sea

Last week Liese and I drove 11 hours across Ukraine down to the town of Primorsk on the Sea of Azov to spend the week relaxing with our missionary friends the McNamee family, the Knotts family, Chris Zurbach, and Reenie McNamee.

On the way down we crossed the river Dnipro 3 times, drove through 6 oblasts, and only got lost once.Every city in Ukraine has a sign and a statue/monument along the road as you enter and leave the city. This is the city of Kaniv which is where we crossed the Dnipro the first time.

Not only cities have signs, the oblasts have them too. This is probably the biggest oblast sign I've seen yet and so as we entered the Dnipropetrovsk oblast we stopped to take a picture. I've decided that Dnipropetrovsk is Ukraine's Texas: everything there is big.

Here is the Sea of Azov which wikipedia says is the world's shallowest sea. The water was warm and when the wind wasn't blowing on shore it was like a lake. For more pictures of the sea and us hanging out check out Reenie's blog and the Knotts' blog.

We had a great time relaxing in the sun, swimming in the warm, almost salty water, reading books, discussing life and theology, and eating. It is crazy to think that we've all been in Ukraine for about 10 years now.



On the way home Liese took a turn behind the wheel and I took some pictures of the countryside as we drove.
Here is the route we took:

View Larger Map

Global Mission Mondays: Singapore

Last week we took a break from our global mission mondays as we were on vacation. Today we will be praying for the country of Singapore.

"Singapore" is the name of both the city and country, which are the same entity. The entire country constitutes a single municipality.

Singapore is the world's top logistics hub and is one of the most globalized countries in the world with a diverse populace of 5 million people made up of Chinese, Malays, Indians, Asians and Caucasians of various ethnic origins. The population of Singapore has the sixth-highest percentage of foreigners globally. 42% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. It is also the second most densely populated in the world after Monaco.

Singapore has a very high standard of living and is ranked as having the best quality of life in Asia and eleventh overall in the world. Singapore has consistently been rated as one of the least corrupt countries in the world

English is the first and most dominant language in Singapore. The Singapore government recognizes four official languages: English, Malay, Chinese (Mandarin), and Tamil.

There is religious diversity in Singapore though some perceived cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses are banned. Of the entire population 42% are Buddhist, 15% are Muslim, 15% have no religious affiliation, 15% are Christian, 8% are Taoist, and 4% are Hindu.

[information from wikipedia and the cia world factbook. map from the cia world factbook.]