Monday, June 04, 2007

News from Kagarlyk

Hi everyone!

I'll just jump right in and try to bring you up to date with everything that has been going on.

In the end of May we went to a conference for all the Calvary Chapels in Ukraine. The conference is always a good time to see people that we don't get to see very often and just hang out and fellowship. It was good for our church to go and relax, fellowship, and seek God. One young lady that just started coming to our church decided at the conference that she was going to follow God and she went and got baptized during the baptism time.

Last Thursday Liese and I made another trip to Priluki. This trip we were able to see some old friends that we hadn't seen in quite a while. It is good to keep in touch with the church there. Our next trip to Priluki will probably be in July for a purity conference that some of the missionaries in Chernigov are putting on and the Priluki church is hosting. We want to bring a bunch of our youth to it so we'll try to fill up our car and our church van and drive out for a day.

Last week I met with our summer ministry team about what our summer will look like. We feel this year that it is a time to move away from big organized events that are meant to draw people to the church and move toward doing things on a personal level in order to build friendships with people and shine the light of Christ into our city. With that in mind we want to spend time hanging out at the popular hang outs, playing volleyball and soccer, playing music on the street in the evenings, and perhaps starting a home bible study with the goal of having a place to invite people to hang out and study God's word together. Some of the team want to go visit the elderly in the city and either help them in their yards or just sit and talk with them and love them.

So we are not planning any large scale youth activities, vacation bible schools, or anything like that. We will organize a soccer tournament or two but that is about all. This year is not the end of those type of ministries it is just a pause while we do the things that the church should be doing - that is being out in the city and involved in peoples' lives.

Wayne and his family flew to Australia today. They will be gone for two months and during that time I will be pastoring. Please pray for me that God would give me wisdom to lead this church and strength as it looks like there will be a lot to do this summer even though we are not planning any big events.

Liese will be in charge of the worship ministry while Olya is gone. It is a whole different situation than two and a half years ago when we first came. We now have 9 people involved in worship ministry and 3 of them are leaders. So Liese will mainly just be organizing and filling in for people which in and of itself is an answer to our prayers. Please pray for her and please continue to pray for the church here that it would grow closer to Jesus, deeper in its relationship with Jesus, and closer as a body of believers.

That's the news from Kagarlyk, Ukraine. Thank you for your prayers,


Daniel and Annaliese Foote

No comments: