Update from Tom Stowe

New news from Tom Stowe:

http://stowe.wordpress.com/

Chris Zurbach's Novemer/December Update

Greetings from Chernihiv, Ukraine


Happy December!!! I am excited to write and let you know about some things that happened this past November and all that we are looking forward to this coming December. It is a busy time of year filled with New Years and Christmas programs. It seems that God is continuing to open doors for us to go into different areas of the city to share the love of God.

I think I shared with you before that I joined a fellow missionary here, Tracy, in going to one of the schools in the city to help out with their English class. We have a great relationship with the teacher and she is such an encouragement to see as she is very passionate about her students learning English. She has invited us to come and teach English through Bible stories or Christian ethics to her students. We go every week and are amazed to see God working in these children’s lives as they have so much fun learning English through hearing about God’s great love for them. Many of the children also come to our kids club, Krepost, that we are doing every other Saturday. God is blessing the club and we are seeing the kids grow in their knowledge of God as they come every time. Many of the kids are memorizing Bible verses that they recite at the the club. Our church is learning and growing too as they serve these kids and learn about ministering to children.

Another door that is opening is also in the same school that we are going to every week. The English teachers invited Tracy and I to come and meet with them every two weeks to get together and talk about women’s issues from a Christian point of view. To say the least we were fairly surprised by the invitation. The female teachers want it to be a sort of club or “sisterhood” as she described it. We don’t really know what to expect but are excited to get to know these women and share with them about the Bible.

Christmas Programs – We are pretty much doing Christmas parties and programs everywhere as there is quite the demand. We will be doing a Christmas party in the school sharing about Jesus’ birth and singing Christmas songs in English as requested by the teachers. We will also be doing a Christmas program for our kid's club. We are planning to invite all the kid’s parents to come and see the club. The children will be performing some Christmas songs and we will be performing a skit about Jesus’ birth with people from the church. We plan on sharing the skit with the children in the mental hospital and boarding schools/internaughts. We are also planning a Christmas day service as a church and want to rent a larger building to accommodate larger numbers as we are beginning to grow out of our little building. Christmas in Ukraine is on January 7th, which is a Sunday, so we are hoping many people will come.

Our church is doing really well and we continue to see God maturing the young believers here and challenge them to seek Him first in all things. We are meeting as a church this coming weekend to discuss all that has happened this past year and discuss our vision for this coming year. We are very excited for this coming year and expect God to do great things. Please pray for all these things mentioned above that God would pour our His Holy Spirit upon us and that many would come to know Him through all that we do. Merry Christmas to all of you – May the Lord bless you so much as you know Him. Thank you for your prayers and support - I am so thankful for you all.

Peace,
Chris

Please Pray for:
* Kids Club, Krepost, that many kids would come and learn to love Jesus
* God to bless our Christmas programs
* Wisdom and time for me to plan music and worship for all the Christmas celebrations
* Wisdom and provision in seeking to meet in a larger building

Pécs, Hungary Missions Update

Balázs & Leah & Joelle Stanzel November, 2006

Our Family
We went for our 37 week check-up for the baby, and the doctor said okay- everything is good- no baby for a while. We scheduled an ultra-sound and a non-stress test for the next week. The ultrasound showed our baby was still side-ways so we thought we had a while… On Friday the 24th at 9am we took our car in for repairs before our non-stress test. As we were leaving Leah felt something weird but wasn’t sure so just went on to the test. The test went fine and as we were about to leave we thought maybe we should ask about this. The doctor was called came and checked and sure enough Leah’s water had broken.

The night before at bible study Leah, thought she had turned and sure enough she had. The doctor induced labor because nothing had begun (an option we would not like to repeat). The Lord faithfully carried us through the intense 12 hours of labor before Leah progressed from 0 to 2. A good friend from the bible college came to help with the labor and was truly a huge blessing for us. At 2 centimeters the doctor gave an epidural which didn’t work but took the edge off, and 10 minutes later we were fully dilated and able to begin pushing.

Ten minutes later at just after midnight on her daddy’s birthday (the 25th) Joelle (Ellie) Stanzel was born. She was just under 6 pounds and 19 ½ inches. She had to be taken to the intensive care for 12 hours for observation because if being early and under weight. A couple of days later in the hospital, results showed she had intense jaundice and had to be taken to the incubator- this was very hard for Leah to hear her cry and see her but not be able to take care of her- God was faithful to encourage us about His love for us during this time. Another blood test on Wednesday showed Ellie had a bacterial infection (Leah had again been hospitalized a week before this for another food poising which passed to the baby). So after 5 more days of antibiotic treatment and 10 days total in the hospital, Ellie and Leah were able to go home! Ellie needs to return to the hospital on Tuesday for her jaundice levels- please pray God would rid her little body of this before the test. She is so amazing and truly a gift from God.

Ministry
The college group has been amazing as God continuously challenges us to stand up for Him and His Word despite objections and challenges from seemingly everywhere. We have had great times of teaching, fellowship and prayer. The Lord has encouraged us to separate the prayer meeting into guys and girls, which has proved to be excellent time of deepening friendships and being able to address issues that face the youth in this city. We are able to see God move in the hearts and characters of His children through these nights. At one of our church weekly prayer meetings, Balázs was able to lead the body in worship for the entire night. The church was built up in the time of praising and seeking the Lord. We will have this type of night every three weeks.

Leah was able to meet with several girls from the church and one who is struggling in making a decision to follow the Lord. The Lord richly blessed these times of discipleship in that He made them natural and relaxed but focused on Him.
Balázs continues to teach at the Catholic school and is constantly challenged to remain faithful in the small things as he weekly prepares to teach through the
Bible.

We are still pursuing the prison ministry paperwork and plan to meet again with the director in the coming weeks. We are also still pursuing foster care and are trusting the Lord in His perfect timing.

Prayer Requests

That we would follow Jesus and obey Him at all costs individually and as a couple.

Our marriage to contiue to grow in the Lord’s love. Balancing family, ministry, and working.

Wisdom with our little girl. Health for Ellie- God to heal her body from Jaundice. Healing for Leah’s cold and protection for Balázs and Ellie. The Lord’s provision for all we need. Guidance and provision for a home to raise foster children in.

The city of Pécs to become overwhelmed with the presence of God in the lives of beleivers here and for people to be hungry to know the Lord. The students we are sharing the gospel with at the universitites to believe in the truth and be freed from lies. For our neighbors, doctors, and others we have regular contact with to see Jesus in our lives and His love for them.

The church body to grow in their depth of love for the Lord. To love the new people that are coming. For the church to increase in their commitment to the Lord and His Word. For a new place to meet. Wisdom and protection for the pastor. For Zoli to accept Jesus. For Victoria to return to church. For a friend from the Bible college who left ministry and now has left the Lord.

For current ministries. Worship leading and teaching for Balázs both in the school and for the college group. Child care, discipling women and studying Hungarian for Leah.

For upcoming ministries. For the paper work to be processed quickly for the prison work.

From Tom Stowe: NEW BLOG!

Hey everyone, check out our new blog! I wanted to make things easier for everyone to read updates; so we will see if this works. I think it will.

http://stowe.wordpress.com/

In Christ,
Tom and Luciana

News from Jake and Anya

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to let everyone know that our daughter was born earlier this morning at 1:42 am, weighing 3.5 kg (7.7 lbs) and standing 54 cm (21.25 inches) tall.

Anya and I are full of joy and thank you all for your prayers!

You can check out some photos of her at: jakeknotts.blogspot.com

News from Kagarlyk

Greetings!

Fall has turned into winter here in Ukraine. Snow has come and gone twice and the days are short and grey. But it still is not very cold and it's hard to complain after such a nice autumn.

As the ministries in our church are growing and moving forward we've seen that we need to be a lot more organized as a church. Everyone in the church has felt it over the last year but hasn't known how to go about it. Last month I started initiating some organization, much to everyone's delight, and I've been busy ever since helping the church get and stay organized.

I've also been going over all the video footages we shot over this last year to put together a dvd for our supporting churches and a dvd for Wayne that will communicate the vision of Calvary Chapel Kagarlyk and what God has been doing over the last couple years. Up till this year I've never really done anything with video but it seems to have been a good thing this year to show our church what each ministry is doing, and to show churches in America and Australia as well. Last week we had lunch with Jake and Anya Knotts (our friends who started a church in the city of Chernigov) and Jake was telling me about the possibilities of getting airtime on local TV. The TV station in Chernigov actually approached him and asked if he would like to do something for their channel. Jake asked me if I would be interested in helping him produce some short videos to air on local TV and of course I said yes. So we are praying about getting the right equipment to for everything and maybe in the next year we'll be able to produce a few short videos that can communicate the gospel on local TV. These videos would be useful not only in Chernigov but here in Kagarlyk and anywhere that we can buy or get permission to use some airtime.

Over this last month Liese and I were able to visit the churches in Priluki and Chernigov. I got to share a few minutes at the church service in Priluki and I taught the midweek bible study in Chernigov. We had a really good time in both churches and it was really good to "catch up" with all our old friends in Priluki. We want to continue to visit these churches to encourage them, foster relationships between the churches, and to keep the relationships that we have built with them over the last 5 years.

We are planning our yearly trip to America and we got our tickets last week. We will be in Arroyo Grande from December 14th until the beginning of January when we'll go to to Calvary Chapel Missions Conference in Murrieta. Then we'll go up to Yuba City and spend about 3 weeks up there and then a couple more weeks in Arroyo Grande. We are still not sure about when we will be at which church but we'll write again to let you know. We hope to see as many of you as we can. Write us or call us or something and we'll make sure that we get together. See you soon,

Daniel and Annaliese Foote


--
http://footesinukraine.blogspot.com/

dannliesefoote@gmail.com

www.calvarychapel.com/kagarlyk
_

Mandy's Blog

Mandy Stewart, who is serving as a campus missionary in Texas, has a blog!

Check it out:
http://www.xanga.com/MandyStewart

Updates 11/07/06 (Tom Stowe)

Hello to everyone back in the states. I hope everything is well. Life in Brazil is good. It has gotten much more routine here which is both good and bad. Routine is good because it allows you to anticpate things during your week and prepare better for them. But you never want to be completely into a routine, because you can get lazy and too comfortable.

Our church is doing pretty well here. We (Pastor David and I) are just praying that the believers that we have right now in our church will be strengthened and grow up more in the Lord; we want to see Pastors and missionaries raised up from our church. But we feel that for that to happen, we really need to focus our attention on the lives our members and give them all we have to offer, as little as it may be. If we are faithful in this, we believe the Lord will raise up leaders to be sent out and spread Bible teaching churches and ministries all over the country. That is my goal, hope and vision for my life down here in Brazil: to see leaders raised up and send out all over the country, multipling disciples everywhere.

So here's the question to you: what are you doing to help raiase up disciples where you live? Pray and ask the Lord for wisdom in this, for both you and us here!

In Christ,
Tom

Fall in Texas (Mandy and Eli update)

Greetings Friends and Family:

We hope you are doing well & are enjoying your fall wherever this may find you.

This fall has been wonderful. In a sense you can say we have truly experienced a Fall Harvest. We’ve had many wonderful friends come share and speak to our group. It was started off with Winkey Pratney, in October, and then we had a traveling missions team to come share with us at our annual missions summit for three days. Last week, one our dear friends, John Koeshall, who has served as a missionary for almost thirty years to European students and all over the world, came to be with us. It was a sweet, encouraging time for our students as well as for me personally. I felt incredibly affirmed and encouraged in all that the Lord has called us to here and in our lives.

Now the testing……begins. We’ve had such an incredible and challenging time of teaching and encouragement this past month, please pray that over these next weeks, our students would walk forward and take to heart all that we’ve been taught and heard. Pray specifically for a deep inward walk, that they would shore up deep roots in the Lord, that when testing comes they would endure, and character would be strengthened!

This past week, we have had our wonderful friends and supporters, Mark & Gwen, here visiting. We have had a good time together, and it's been neat for them to see all that they support and pray for each month.

My family is coming for Thanksgiving; please pray for our time and fellowship together. I am eager to have a taste of home here in Texas.

Eli & I are doing well. We will have lived here for one year December 15th, and we can hardly believe all that the Lord has let us be apart of here.

Pray for:

* Continued favor and time with our friends here that true discipleship would happen daily.

* Pray for the guys and girls that Eli & I spend time with each week, that we would have wisdom and favor with them and that our friendships would continue to grow in great ways.

Love,
Mandy & Eli

October/November news

Greetings everybody,

Sorry for the delayed newsletter. I have spent most of the past month without my computer due to some repairs that had to be done and my many travels. The good news is things are going well and although it is already below freezing outside, our apartment is warm!!! I've yet to live in a warm apartment in Ukraine, so I'm very excited. This will be a quick note to fill you guys in on the past month and let you know what is happening this coming month.

Conference: Thank you for praying for the regional conference that we hosted. God really blessed our time together as we were able to just spend time together as friends and churches hearing from God's word, worshiping, playing games, and just hanging out. Everybody was greatly encouraged to gather together and catch up. It was so much fun to be with the Priluki church again as I miss them so much. Reenie and I are planning on going down this next month to spend a couple days with them and be encouraged by what God is doing in the church down there.

Kids Club: "Krepast" (Castle) Kids Club is going great. Every week new kids are coming and we have even begun to bring a few of the internaught kids every week. Last week we hosted a Kids Club with an English speaking twist. We did it in English for kids that study English in schools and want to learn and practice speaking. Since we have so many college students in the church who are majoring in the English Language, there were plenty of helpers and we filled our little church with little kids speaking English. Even a couple moms came and stayed which is what we have really been hoping for. Please pray that the kids that came last week would come this week to our normal Kids Club that is done in Russian/Ukrainian. Please continue to pray for Oksana, Mira, Anya, and Vova as they take part in teaching the Bible and using their gifts to serve the kids at the club.

Internaught: God is raising up a group to go every Sunday to the internaught. There are about 15 kids that come to Bible Study and there are more people in the church who God is leading to go there and love these kids. Pray that God would give wisdom to those leading that many children would come to know and trust in Jesus.

Up and Coming: Please pray for Jake and Anya as they have headed to Kiev to have their first baby, Maya. Pray for us as we seek to have a 4 week Women's Bible Study series for the many young women in our church regarding the issues they are facing.
Travels - please pray for us as we travel to Priluki to spend time with the church there. Pray also for my language studies with my friend/teacher Tanya that I would progress in my skills. Thank you so much for your prayers. Things are going really well and I am so excited about what God is doing in and through our church here.

God bless you all.

Chris Zurbach

Update 10/21/06

Hello everyone! Well, it has been a little while since I sent out an update but I have some great things to share this week. As many of you know, a team from Calvary Chapel San Luis Obispo came down to Curitiba this week and we had a great time doing ministry with them! They came with great attitudes and a good work ethic, and totally blessed our church here.

On Tuesday we did a work day at the church to fix up some of the physical problems at our building. The team cleaned, painted, constructed and trimmed all sorts of things, making our building look so much better (no joke, our building was looking a little sorry!)! Then Wednesday day we did evangelism down town and saw about 12-14 people come forward on the streets to make decisions to follow Jesus. As always, the lasting fruit is yet to be seen, but it was exciting to see the Americans out there with our young Brazilians trying to share the Love of Jesus with Curitibanos!

That night we had special services for men and women led by James and Wendy Rey! I think the the greatest contribution of the team was not the evangelism or the work they did, but their attitudes and love for our body here. They really made an effort to connect with the church, to talk with them, to try to speak and learn Portuguese; our church saw the difference. Some of our church had gotten a little tired of Americans coming down because their attitudes were often one of superiority, or they were distant from the Brazilians. The Brazilians start to wonder why they even come if they don't want to try to get to know them. But this team really surprised them and won them over showing that not all Americans are too cool. I was stoked and proud to be from Calvary SLO!

We finished the week by sending the team off to another city down south, Florianopolis, and then going home exhausted, but satisfied by all our work! It was awesome! Now we are heading into the weekend with our normal services. Please pray for our youth, which I am leading, to grow in their intimacy in Christ and to develop a heart to seek His will at all times. The first official service last week with me in charge went really well; I couldn't have asked for a better time. I just want the Holy Spirit to teach the students and lead them to know Jesus more!

Please pray for us!

In Christ, Tom & Luciana

what we are doing in El Salvador

this is a little snapshot of what we are involved with down in El Salvador. this is a little video which Ben Potter filmed and produced.

Our new blog

Hi folks,

Anya and I are blogging at jakeknotts.blogspot.com a little more regularly.

Please check it out and you will see all that we are up to!

Blessings,
Jake

Conference in Chernigov

It's been a while since I've posted anything up here but I thought I'd post some pictures of the conference that we just had up in Chernigov (Chernigov is north from where I am in Kagarlyk). So here they are.Jake Knotts making announcements...

Chris Zurbach and Anya Knotts preparing to rock....

The Chenigov worship band doing what they do best....

Worship time, about a hundred people from 5 churches; Kagarlyk, Priluki, Nezhyn, Chernigov, Rzhyshchiv and a few people from Poltava and Kiev.

So there it is the first anual Chernigov Conference. There is more, lots more, but I'm not going to write anymore.

Coming soon... the new and improved Calvary SLO Missions blog

Hello everyone. This is Joey. I'm going to be updating this blog from now on using the prayer letters we get from our missionaries. There should be new posts here within the next few weeks.

So get excited. This site is coming back like the widow's son...