Ministry Update for August – November

This is our delayed Aug-Now newsletter. Our personal life and ministry were so full that I had to wait for a slower season to create this update.

This is the video version of the updates. I also recommend reading the text version below, since my written English is much better than my spoken English 🙂

Before I share any ministry updates, here is the biggest and happiest news, our younger daughter, Solomia, got married to a fine man called Denis!

Another exciting family news is our older daughter, Sophia is getting better. Big thanks to all who have been praying for her healing from arthritis! She is 50% better compared to how she felt this time last year. She can even take short walks to the city to run some errands. This is such a relief for us, as parents! Praise God!

Baptism

It was our second baptismal service in 2018. It was held at the lake in September. Another three people publicly announced their decision to follow Jesus.

Roman, David, and Tanya were are about to be baptized.

Roman is being congratulated right after the baptism.
I have to say a few words about Roman. We first met him during an outreach in 2012. It was a year when Football (soccer) Euro tournament was held in Ukraine. We used this as an opportunity to share the gospel by creating a Fan Zone at our church and also by offering free English Clubs.

It took him that many years to test us and to test the Message in order to make a decision to follow Christ.

All those years Roman attended our clubs, camps, rafting trips but not the church. Now he is at church every Sunday and not just attending but actively serving leading one of the asher teams.

Roman is a good example of how it is important to cultivate the relationships in our culture in order to minister the Gospel.

The Church Venue

While we have been praying for own church building we need to do something in a short term. The one we are currently using has been a blessing but we have reached 80 % of the seating capacity and wise people say it hinders the church growth. Also, the owner has reduced the number of additional rooms we can use.

Because of this, our children ministry suffers. Two different age groups have to share one room. And our older kids have to meet at a garage. It does not look good for the visitors, especially in winter time during the freezing temperature, because there is no heat at the garage.

We found a new venue to rent 24/7. It is not far from our current location and is surrounded by a school and high rise apartment buildings. It will give us the opportunity to facilitate all the projects and ministries and provide constant access to the youth as they need a place where they can feel safe and comfortable.

As you can tell from the pictures, it needs a lot of work and finances before we can move in. We have signed a 5-year rent contract with the owner. The count will start from the moment we move in. We hope to move before the summer.

Please pray for God’s provision and guidance!

Varenyky Festival – a community outreach.

We do it every autumn. Varenyky (pierogies) is one of our national foods. This time we did it in a park across from our venue. Everyone was welcome. We make varenyky from scratch together, cook them in a big pot on the open fire and then we all eat them together.

It was a great way for our neighbors to get to know us closer. Not many of them are brave enough to walk in during our Worship Services, so we created this event in the park to better connect with the community.

A Mission Work in Carpathian Mountains

We regularly go to the Carpathian region. Each time we bring different people from our church to let them experience mission work.

This time we brought students and allowed them to invite their unchurched friends. Such an environment created great open doors for the Gospel conversations inside the team.

The picture above: We made a mistake of allowing the local kids to paint each other’s faces. They obviously need more practice 🙂

Elina is giving away the gifts

Rafting Camp

Pictures of summertime may look weird in winter updates, but I sent out my summer newsletter right before the Rafting Camp, so now I have to include them here. We did two camps back to back. It was a great time of relationship building. Sometimes some of the best discipleship moments happen on a boat in the middle of nowhere.

Please become our ministry partner, it will broaden our influence in Lviv and beyond. Together, we can accomplish much more!

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Global Impact Resources
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Greenville, NC 27836

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