Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Shall your countrymen go to war while you sit here? (Numbers 32:6 NIV)
Our Dear Heavenly Father ~ Thank you for the blessings that overflow from your endless supply on this new day. Give us wisdom and courage so that we will rise up and fight and not sit idly by while new ideas and old sins destroy the church of Christ that we read about in the Bible. We offer this prayer in Christ name. Amen.
We spent Wednesday wearing out our shoes while making new blisters, in search of a semi-permanent meeting place for the church. We investigated a building that served as the House of Culture for a specific trade group during the Soviet years. It is in a location where many people reside and is convenient to various means of transportation. We barely made it back to our present meeting place in time for our meeting at 6.30. We received a nice boost for our weekday meetings when the first person to arrive was a lady carrying a letter with our address and time of meeting. A few weeks ago, some brothers at North Atlanta Church of Christ suggested that I make contact with Alexander Prokopchuk in Donetsk. Sasha conducts a TV program that is aired throughout the country of Ukraine on Sunday mornings at 7.45. This highly successful broadcast attracts many regular viewers. Thousands of these people write in requesting information about the Churches of Christ. There is a response center in Donetsk that handles the thousands of letters that arrive regularly from the program. I contacted Sasha’s office and spoke with Dasha who handles much of the office work. Sasha agreed to send out a letter giving the time and place of our special evangelistic meetings. Lyudmila was the first person to come in carrying one of the letters. She has been a resident of Nikolaev most of her life except for a period when she moved away. We were able to have a nice conversation with her before our meeting began. We expect to see more of Luda and will be getting her a Bible and more information that she requested. A little later two of the Nigerian students who regularly attend our meetings showed up with a new student. We were very happy to meet ‘Patrick’ and observe his note taking, along with good questions at the end. He also has a good singing voice and loves to participate in singing. Not long after they arrived, three more people showed up. Two of these folks were Ukrainians who had received the letter from Sasha’s office. Uri does some preaching while trying to establish a small house church in the city where they live. We hope to have opportunity to show him the way more perfectly. His mother Ekaterina was with him. The other was a young man from Portland, OR who had ridden with them to our meeting. They live about a twenty minute drive from where we presently meet. (Over an hour by bus) We had a wonderful discussion with all these people and it made for a lively meeting. Matthew was very surprised to see the Nigerian students here in Ukraine. He is on leave from his job and spending time working here with some ‘ministry’ in Portland. God richly blessed us just when we needed a dose of encouragement. We were a mite exhausted from all the walking around this large city, and almost – not quite allowing ourselves to be a little discouraged at the small amount of people who were coming to our meetings. Galina keeps reminding me of how we prayed in Magadan for just one more person, and people began to show up at our meetings on a regular basis and conversions began to occur with frequency. We are praying the same here in Nikolaev for one more person, and we believe that God will lead us in the right direction so that His church will be planted here and thriving for people in whatever future God has in mind. We have an appointment at 9.00 this morning with the director of the local Children’s Home that cares for babies until they are three years old at which time the ones who have not been adopted are transferred to an orphan’s home. Based upon experiences in Magadan and other places, we expect to find some needs here. Thank you for the many prayers!
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