Chris Zurbach's May update from Ukraine

Greetings!!!
I really was hoping to get this out a bit earlier but I have a good reason for being delayed. We’ve had many guests this past month and a few hours ago I just sent off the last crew. I’ll get to that
towards the end but before that I just want to catch you all up on what has been going on here this past month. I ask that you pray for our church as many of the young people have been going through a really hard time. One gal in our church just lost her Dad as he pretty much
died from alcoholism and got sick suddenly and died. It has been a hard time for her so I ask that you would pray for Marina as she is home most of the time taking care of her Grandma who just had a stroke and now needs 24 hour care. Yesterday we were also informed that a very close friend to everybody in the church just lost her mom. We all knew her mom as she came to church sometimes. It was very unexpected and related to kidney stones. All to say it is a difficult time for many and it would be great if you could be praying forthe young believers here that they would continue to grow in trusting God in all things.

May means holidays here in Ukraine. Last week we celebrated May Day which is a big holiday here and then yesterday was Victory Day. Everything kind of shuts down in Ukraine when there are holidays so it was a bit complicated getting things done but the flip side is that everybody had some days off and we were able to get away as a church and spend the night at a camp in the forest 20 minutes outside of Chernihiv. It was a lot of fun to get together a build a bon-fire that would set California a flame in 2 seconds. No rules here means - Big Big Camp Fires made up of entire trees that the guys cut down. Not too many environmentalist in this
part of the world. Anyways it was a great time for us to be together and eat borsch.

Visitors
I was really blessed to be visited by 3 ladies from California whom I’ve known for a long time. Sherry Stupar, Karen Stump, and Jenny Schlenker came out to visit to just hang out, see what is happening here in Ukraine, and bring me lots of presents. The present part was pretty overwhelming as I didn’t expect the Women’s Group at my church to come through with Costco size amounts of everything. I think I have 8 pounds of Craisins and enough heavy duty aluminum foil to make my own space station. It was a huge blessing to share my life here with them and for them to meet the people and see what we get to do. We laughed a lot and ate a lot.

They were bearers of huge blessings for Reenie and myself. Because of some generous people that sent over money we are now able to buy a new djembe for the church and some more needed sound equipment. We were also able to visit Priluki to goto a church service and visit Luba and her grandson, Anton (check picture above). Luba was so thrilled to have guests and
just fellowship as she pretty much does not leave the house anymore having become completely blind because of the brain tumor. We also visited Halavin (Children’s Mental hospital), the internaught, our Kid’s Club, and the school where Tracy and I teach English to show the ladies some of the different ministries we’ve involved in and give them a chance to meet people. God really blessed our time with the teachers in the local school as we talked about life, God, and Ukraine.

Up and Coming Events
Please be praying as we have many events in these next couple weeks. We will be traveling down to the National Conference for Calvary Chapels in Kiev then heading over again to Priluki for a wedding of two young people in our church. We also will be finalizing plans for beginning our summer Kids’ Outreaches so please be praying that will be allowed to meet in one of the local parks. We also are planning a conference for singles at the end of July. It will be for all the churches in our region but we will be having it in Priluki since they are centrally located and have the biggest building. Please pray for wisdom as I plan that with Conor and Reenie.

I am also getting ready to go to America for a few weeks to go to a family wedding. I am really excited that my parents bought me a ticket to come back for the wedding as I was not planning on going back till next November/December to visit and touch base with churches. I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I was last back there. I will only be there for a short time so I will most likely not see a lot of people but I am excited to be with my family at my cousins wedding in Tennessee. I think of so many of you often and do pray that God is blessing you and I hope you know how thankful I am for your prayers and support.

Thanks again - Until next month...
Chris

Balázs & Leah & Joelle Stanzel May, 2007

Our Family
The Lord is good to us! We are so blessed to have each other and to have our little girl; each of these relationships make us more fully understand our relationships with and the character of God. Ellie is so much fun to watch as she explores the world (mostly with her mouth!) She, like her mom and dad, loves to be outside and is having a great time now that it is spring. As a family we have had some great hiking adventures as we are so blessed to live in the part of the country where there are hills and trees. We have also enjoyed the outdoors with some of the families in the church- playing soccer in back yards and taking the kids to a farm near us. We are really happy that we have such great friends in the church body.

Church
We had our annual sunrise service for Easter on a mountain top over looking the city. It was cold but very fun to meet together to worship the resurrection of Jesus. We went to one of the families in the church and had a traditional Hungarian Easter food, it was very tasty.

On April 15th, the head of Calvary Chapel Reaching Europe came to Pécs to hand the church over to Balázs. He encouraged the church through Moses and Joshua’s lives about how to respond to this change and he challenged Balázs in his new role. After church, we had a big Mexican food celebration (the day before several of us from the church got together to hand-make 120 tortillas!), it was a great afternoon.

The college group continues to be a great joy and challenge to us. The group is made up of people from a very diverse church background but everyone comes together for the single purpose of knowing God, it is amazing. The group is weekly bringing new people, roommates, classmates, workmates, and we are encouraged by their excitement. Please pray for Balázs and Leah as they individually disciple these students to be full of wisdom and love. Pray for Balázs as he teaches this group and encourages the students to be men and women after God’s own heart. As we have said before, we really see a need to have another building to meet in as the toddlers and babies have no where to be during service causing the parents to have to watch them in the halls and miss the studies every week. We are planning on meeting with the landlord of our current location to ask if we can have a third room each week. Please pray for them to agree to this and for a new contract to be signed.

We met with the girl who is currently serving as the children’s ministry teacher and addressed the needs in the children’s ministry. She and her fiancé will continue to lead the ministry but they need more helpers to come alongside of them to teach the kids. Also, once we have a third room, we would like to be able to offer child care to the parents during service. Please pray that the Lord would raise up people to serve in these areas.

Outreach
Balázs continues ministering at the prison, he has been burdened for these youth not just now but especially once they are released. Please pray for these boys salvation, and for Balázs as he tries to love them and show them who Christ is for them. Also, please pray for Balázs as he seeks to build relationships with the pastors of other churches so that after-care may be provided to these teens as a unified effort in the city. Balázs was asked to share at one of the university’s Christian clubs. After he shared his testimony, he stayed for almost two hours answering their questions about our lives and faith in the Lord. Some of the students expressed interest in wanting to come to college group for teachings, please pray that they would be encouraged by the Word to follow Christ fully.

Balázs was able to visit a gentleman who used to come to the church but is now in an old folk’s home. He was able to encourage the man and he asked for us to come and read the bible to him whenever we could. Please pray for this man to remain strong in the Lord and for some in the church to have a burden to minister in that place. Leah was able to continue ministering to a woman who is struggling in her walk with the Lord and who is afraid to come to church. Please pray for Viktoria to love Jesus and welcome the body He provides.

Other
Praise the Lord for the elders in the church who are completely behind and desiring to labor with Balázs in leading the church. Please pray for wisdom as they define roles in the leadership and for these men as they seek the Lord for the direction the church should go in. Balázs continues to be challenged as he teaches at the Catholic school weekly. He has a great time but desires to remain faithful in preparation for this time each week. Please pray for his faithfulness. God has been faithful to provide a teacher who can meet weekly with Leah for Hungarian lessons. Please pray that this time would be fruitful, for the Holy Spirit to enable Leah to learn quickly, and for her to be faithful to study and use what she learns.

Upcoming month
We have another team coming from the bible college this weekend. Please pray that they would encourage the church and that the women would be blessed and fed during our girl’s day. There is a youth conference this month that we are sending a couple of our youth to, please pray for them to be challenged in their walks and encouraged by the teachings.

Chris Zurbach's April update from Ukraine

Happy Belated Easter!

We have just finished a very busy week of pre- Easter Sunday activities and are really thankful to the Lord for how much He blessed us in all that we did. First of all I hope you enjoy the pictures that are scattered about that include a couple of this weeks activities of our Easter service, Easter sunrise gathering at the park at the edge of the city, “Krepost” Kids Club, and egg decorating.

“Miracle Maker” film showing

We were able this past week to show the film, “Miracle Maker” in an elderly living center, a school, the children’s mental hospital, local internaught, and the museum where we have our Sunday service. I was so excited to be able to go to the Elderly living facility where there are about 650 residents. It is an enormous territory that is very reminiscent of Soviet times as the buildings are large gray brick structures and it is decorated just as it had been 30 years ago. We were pleased to see that it was clean and people seemed to be well taken care of. About 80 people came to watch the film and we were able to talk with them and share about how much Jesus loves them.

Some of them were very touched by the film as I think seeing what Christ did, even in clay-mation, is so powerful. Some of the women came up after with tears and said, “thank you”, even though it was hard for many of them to speak. There are also about 20 residents who
are physically/mentally challenged as there is no facility in the Chernihiv State to care for them. After 18 years old this is where they are sent. We are praying that God would open more doors for us to be able to help out there.

Besides showing the film in all those different places we also prepared an Easter puppet show to perform at “Krepost” and the internaught. Two girls in our church, Oksana and Mira, wrote a little scenario and did a great job performing it for the kids.

Easter Sunday
As Chernihiv Church tradition goes we met at the “stronghold” of the city at sunrise to celebrate Easter, drink tea, and eat special “Pasxu” (Easter) bread that people only bake and eat on Easter. There were many people out eating “Pasxu”, eggs, and sausages at 6:00am as
many Ukrainians gather outside the churches there to eat the food they just had blessed by the Orthodox priests.

Our service was later in the day and we were so excited to see neighbors and family of people in our church come. We are now meeting in the larger hall of the museum which is much nicer as it is much lighter than in the movie hall we were in. The lady that works there is now able to see the service from where she sits on the second floor and she was so excited to hear the music and the sermon. She shared with us how amazed she is to see young people that love God and one another. We also had two other women in their 60’s who came and loved hearing the Bible read and taught. We so want older people to be a part of the church as we know that is God’s desire for there to be older and younger people.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about Easter here. We have much to do this coming month as many guests are coming and we are helping house 7 refugees from India as the police have asked for our help in that. Please take note of my new email at the top.

Thanks and Blessings to all of you.
-Chris

chriszurbach@gmail.com

Stowe's Update for March

Hey everyone, I just updated our blog with pictures and info about our recent retreat for Carnaval. It was a great weekend! Our church had a great time together and really deepened some relationships with each other. It was a blessing. Please pray for more maturity, humility, and intimacy with Jesus for our church, especially for our young people.
Check out and blog and don't forget to make comments for us. We really value hearing what you have to say.

In Christ,
Tom and Luciana

stowe.wordpress.com

March update from Balázs and Leah

Our Family

This month has been a very difficult month for us but we can sit back as we reflect with joy and peace knowing that our God is a good Father, He is gracious and so faithful and blesses our lives in more ways than we can number. The delay in the newsletter and lack of photos is due to our computer dying this month. Please pray that somehow we can retrieve all of the data from the hard drive as there was many very important things including all of Ellie’s baby pictures. Please also pray that the Lord would provide a new computer as is it a great need at this time.

Praise God! We were able to get the paperwork we needed and the American Embassy granted Ellie her citizenship. She now has dual Hungarian-American citizenship. We visited Balázs’ mom and step-father this month and had a great time seeing them with her as she is the first grandchild. She is of course continuing to amaze us each day as we realize what a gift she is. One of Balázs’ brothers and sister-in-law is pregnant after trying unsuccessfully for years! Please pray that the Lord would protect her womb and the baby as she has lost three previous pregnancies.

Church

On April 15^th, the head of Calvary Chapel Reaching Europe as well as the regional overseeing pastor will be coming to Pécs to pray for us as Balázs will be taking over the church that day. Please continue to pray for us as we walk on this new path. Also please pray for the pastor and his wife as they pack and prepare for their next steps. The church has had some great times of fellowship this month at our regular potluck and at several other times of meeting.

The Lord is continuing to build friendships and offer healing to those who have been wounded before. Tracy, Leah’s former roommate in Ukraine came to visit and shared with the ladies one afternoon. All of the women were encouraged by her sharing with them and enjoyed the time together.

The college group continues to be a huge joy for us as we see these students desiring to be in fellowship and to study the Word together. Please pray for Balázs and Leah as they individually disciple these students to be ull of wisdom and love. Pray for Balázs as he teaches this group.

We really see a need to have another building to meet in as the toddlers and babies have no where to be during service causing the parents to have to watch them in the halls and miss the studies every week. Please pray for God to provide a place for us to use for church that meets the needs of the body. We also would like to see the church burdened with hearts to pray both individually and corporately at our weekly prayer meetings. Please pray that God would move hearts to pray for each other and beyond.

Outreach

This month Balázs continued ministering at the prison. He is weekly burdened by the depravity of the youth there as well as their seemingly hopeless situations. Please pray for these boys to find hope in our Savior and for Balázs as he tries to show them the way to Him. We were asked to share our testimonies at a coffee shop this month in a sort of forum type setting. We were blessed to see people so attentive and stay after to talk with us. The night was made into a DVD which is now being distributed in Hungary for free! Please pray that God would use this for His glory.

We had an outreach team come from the bible college in Vajta this past weekend and were very blessed to have five Hungarians and two Americans stay with our church body. The team helped in practical ministry as well as building up and encouraging our church as we spent a great deal of time together. What a true blessing the greater body of Christ is!

Other

Balázs continues to lead worship a couple of nights a week and is working with other musicians to raise them up to lead as well. Please pray that God would stir up these people as well as the church as a whole in worship and praise. We and the elders in the church have a vision for pouring our lives into the lives of those in our church, discipling them and allowing them to then disciple others. Please pray for wisdom, direction, and most importantly the Holy Spirit to fill us as we see to do this.

Balázs continues to be challenged as he teaches at the Catholic school weekly. He has a great time but desires to remain faithful in preparation for this time each week. Please pray for his faithfulness. God has been faithful to provide a teacher who can meet weekly with Leah for Hungarian lessons. Please pray that this time would be fruitful, for the Holy Spirit to enable Leah to learn quickly, and for her to be faithful to study and use what she learns.

Update from the Footes

Hello everyone!

We've been in Kagarlyk for a little more than a month now and are back into the swing of things. We've been leading worship together which has been nice. I've been teaching every other Sunday which has been a little rough after being out of practice speaking Russian.

After we got back from America we started looking for a car to buy and finally a couple weeks ago we found one. In what seemed like a whirlwind. We bought it and got all the papers and documents done in about a week. That alone is a small miracle but the fact that we have a car now is a huge miracle. God answered our prayers that we had been praying for about a year now because we would like to be more mobile and be able to visit the churches in Priluki, Nezhyn, Chernigov, and others more often. (we posted pictures on our blog: http://footesinukraine.blogspot.com/ )

Next week is Easter and this year it falls on the same day as the West celebrates it - April 8th. Easter in Ukraine is the one time of year when almost everyone is in some way or other thinking about Jesus Christ. They greet each other all week after Easter with "Christ is risen - Truly He is risen". Our prayer is always that God would use this time to turn people's hearts to Him and that they would understand the meaning of their Easter greeting. Please join us in prayer for the lost in Ukraine this Easter.

Last year we tried to print up an Easter letter and then mail it to every house in Kagarlyk. The first part went well, but the mailing part fell victim to the soviet work ethic; therefore not very many people actually received the letters. So this year we decided to write a small article about Easter and its meaning (the death and resurrection of Christ so that we could be forgiven of our sins and receive eternal life) and buy an ad space in the local paper for it. I've been going around to the other churches in Kagarlyk asking them if they would like to be mentioned at the end of the article as a place where people can come and learn more about Jesus. So far all of them have said yes. Our prayer for this article is that people would read it and be drawn by the Holy Spirit to come to church and find out more about the life Jesus offers, and that they would see the believers of the city united behind the resurrection of our Lord and not divided over small doctrinal differences. Again, please join us in prayer for these things.

Soon we will begin to plan our summer outreaches so please pray that God would lead us as we plan and that this summer more people would know the love of their Creator. Please also keep us in your prayers that God would give us wisdom and strength as we serve, that He would protect us and guide us, and that He would use us to further His kingdom here in Ukraine.

Daniel and Annaliese Foote

Update from Tom Stowe

Tom has also updated his blog recently! Check out what's going on down in Brazil!

http://stowe.wordpress.com/

Chris Zurbach's March update from Ukraine!

Greetings

Alright – Wow this month really flew by. Thank you so much for praying for me as we did a lot of traveling this past month to various churches. God really blessed our times in the small town of Rjischiv where Reenie and I were able to go down and spend time with the ladies at their monthly gathering. It was really encouraging to see what God is doing in the ministry there and be able to share with them about being content, as that was the topic assigned to me by Cheryl, one of the missionaries down there.

So that was fun, and then we were off to Priluki later in the week to visit the church down there. We were there at the mid-week service and brought down a van-load of people where we led worship and then Jake taught from Isaiah 55. It was such a blessing to take people from our church here down there to fellowship with the church and just have fun. They are such a hospitable church and so loving. So I actually was down there again this past weekend to spend time with all the young pregnant first-time mom’s. I am so thankful that we are close enough where I am able to hop on some public transport and be there in 3 hours.

Anyways – Please continue praying for our young gals up here as we continue to meet every Friday this month to discuss various topics and see what the Bible says about these issues. It has been a lot of fun and challenging. One of the teachers came from the school that we visit and really enjoyed it. We also celebrated the 8th of March which is International Women’s Day. It is probably the second biggest holiday here in Ukraine, second only to New Year’s. The guys rented a Russian “Banya” for us, also know as a sauna (but different then your perception of a sauna), and we spent the morning sweating in 130 degree Celsius heat then jumping into cold water.

Do it about 5 times and woo…you feel like a new person. It was quite the experience for me but a lot of fun. Later we gathered at Jake and Anya’s to hang out.

Please pray as we continue going to one of the schools to teach English and share Bible stories, that the kids would come to know the Lord and have fun. They freak out every week when we come so I’m pretty positive they’re having fun. We have permission to show, “Miracle Maker” the week before Easter so please pray that that would go through without any hindrances. We will also be showing that film in the children’s mental hospital, internaught’s, and in a theatre. So you can pray for that.

“Krepost” Kid’s Club – We’re planning a special “Krepost” Kid’s Club the day before Easter so we’re praying that many parents will come and have a good time with their kids and see God’s love through what we do at “Krepost”. Pray that we would plan and prepare well for that and that God would give us wisdom as we plan for summer.

We are also looking to start reaching out to college kids that live in the dorms here through multi-media. There are a few college students in the church that really want to start something so pray that God would provide in renting a space for that.

So that’s a brief update on a few things. Please take note that my email changed to chriszurbach@gmail.com. Sorry for that but just had to. Hope you are all doing well. Thank you so much for everything.

Chris

info update

Hi folks,

Please check out jakeknotts.blogspot.com to check out some recent posts on what we are up to.

Thanks,
Jake

Balázs and Leah Stanzel

Our Family
Ellie continues to be a great source of joy for us as we watch her grow more and more beautiful each day. She is a big girl for sure! She weighs over 14 pounds already. Smiling and laughing take up most of her time and she loves to chew on her hands (she tries to get the whole thing in there). Please pray for us to have wisdom with balancing our marriage and family and for guidance as parents.

Our trip to Budapest was very fun as we shared Ellie with Great Grandparents, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles who had never seen her. We also spent time with friends and took care of business. Ellie was not granted American citizenship as we could not prove the time Leah spent in America but are waiting for some documents and will submit those. Please pray for the paperwork to come and for the embassy to accept the documents and provide her citizenship. We were also able to share Ellie with some of the doctors and nurses who told Balázs he would not be able to have children. They rejoiced in what a miracle God has performed. It was a great encouragement to these people who see death daily that God is so good and loving towards His children. We are still awaiting the blood and CT results from Balázs cancer check but the doctor feels everything continues to be completely healthy after 3 years…Praise the Lord!


Ministry
The Lord certainly does work in mysterious ways! A little over 9 months ago we finished bible college, moved to Pécs, and began to minister alongside the pastor and his wife. This past month, the Lord has called them on to pastor at the bible college and from there their hearts are to begin a work in Bosnia. The pastor asked Balázs to accept the pastorate of the church beginning in May. We sought the Lord and felt that this was His hand moving us to accept and our decision was confirmed by the church elders who agreed this was the Lord moving. The pastor informed the church and everyone was very supportive of us. Please pray for us as we embark on this new road, for the church as we transition, and for the pastor and his wife as they close doors here and move on.

We held the evangelism concert at the coffee shop and were amazed once again at the Lord’s faithfulness. The song writing and rehearsals went well for the band but the day of the concert two of the guys were sick and yet the Lord gave them strength to play and the concert was great. Leah shared the gospel and her testimony and the coffee shop was filled twice surprising even the owner. The church body invited people they would not normally invite to church and we were blessed to see them step in faith. We would like to continue these events in the coming months. Please pray for the church body to lead these events in the future and for continued evangelism opportunities within the city.

Balázs began to minister at the prison this month and was very blessed to find out that the prison will allow him to be both an individual and a group counselor. His first sessions went well as he began to form relationships with the inmates and staff. Please pray for wisdom and Spirit-filled teaching, for the salvation of the adults and kids he comes in contact with, and for relationships to grow.

Prayer has been on our hearts a lot this month and the Lord is moving in this area also. Balázs was able to attend a prayer meeting at the University campus to pray for the unsaved students in the city. These prayer meetings will continue weekly. On March 14th there will be a city wide prayer meeting with all of the Christian churches in the city to unite and pray for the lost and hurting in this city. Please pray for unity among the leaders, for one heart and for love to transcend at these meetings.

We continue to see the college students growing as we study 1 Samuel and are weekly challenged to spur the students to follow Christ with complete abandon. During the prayer times and individual discipleship, we are encountering more and more difficult concerns from the students. Please pray that we would have wisdom as we meet with these students, and for the Holy Spirit to guide us as we counsel them and for Balázs as he teaches.

We are becoming increasingly aware of the need for the church to have a permanent facility for church services and mid-week activities. Please pray for the Lord to lead us to the right place and for financial provision.

Also, as the Lord is directing us to be foster parents, we need to purchase a home in order to have foster kids. Through some crazy circumstances and relationships, the Lord lead us to a village outside of Pécs where housing is quite cheap and the mayor is very supportive and helpful. Please pray for guidance, timing, and provision from the Lord and help as we seek housing loans and government resources. This next month, we will be hosting an outreach team from the Bible college for the weekend. We are thinking of having some nights with just the guys and girls for fellowship and encouragement but we are unsure at this point. Please pray for wisdom with how to best utilize this team as well as for the practical details like housing, etc. Also next month there is an evangelism conference hosted by the Baptist church that we will be a part of. Please pray for our relationships with this church.

Please keep our other ongoing ministries in prayer:
-Monthly church fellowship potluck
-Balázs as he leads the worship twice a week and his teaching at the Catholic school and teaching guitar lessons.
-For Leah as she studies the language (we are praying for a teacher or course for her).

Chris Zurbach's February update from Ukraine

Greetings!!!

Did the ground hog see his shadow or not? I missed catching that bit of information on the news and am wondering how long winter is going to last because it finally arrived to Ukraine and the word on the Babuska corner is that it’s going to be a long one… virtually no spring. Hoping that they’re wrong but experience proves that they are probably not.

Well there is a lot happening here in Chernihiv as we prepared this past month to move our Sunday services to a museum located not far from our church building. We held our first Sunday service there this past Sunday and it went really well as our church body was really excited to take this step forward in renting a larger space. Along with having more space for adults we are able to also have a Sunday School as there is a large hall that the museum said we could use for children’s ministry. We are very excited to be able to have a place for kids to be a part of the church on Sunday’s. Please pray for us as we begin developing a Sunday School and raising up teachers to teach the kids. Pray that the kids from Krepost kids club would come with their families to church as parents have expressed interest in coming.

Kids Club – God is truly blessing our kids club as we have a group of about 15 kids that come on a continual basis. It is amazing to see them beginning to understand more about the love of God. Please pray for our group that serves there that God would continue to unite us and give us wisdom as we begin preparing for summer and all the different festivals/camps that we want to do.

School Outreach - We truly have an amazing open door at one of the local schools here as we teach English there every week through Bible lessons. We are seeking to get permission to show the movie from a few years back, “Miracle Maker”. We want to show it in Ukrainian the week before Easter at the school. We also continue to meet with the teachers and some advanced English students helping prepare them for the English Olympics. Woohoo

Church Prayer Needs – We are planning on meeting together with the gals in the church every Friday in the month of March to get together and do some topical Bible Studies regarding issues that they deal with everyday. The guys will be meeting together simultaneously too. One interesting fact about Chernihiv is that it is known as the city with the most women. In the 70’s it is said that women outnumbered men 10:1. Now the figure is about 6:1. Our church demographically represents the city as we pretty much have a church of young women. All to say the girls are very excited to get together and discuss women’s issues. Please pray that God would give us wisdom in planning and preparing.

Thank you again for praying for this ministry here. I ask that you would also pray for me as I will be going to another city, Rjischiv, at the end of the month to do a Bible Study for their women’s group. Please pray that I would be able to prepare well in Ukrainian and speak clearly. I’ll also be taking a group of gals to go down and do worship in Priluki which will be fun. So please pray for safe travels and encouraging times with the other churches.

Tom Stowe Update for February!

Tom Stowe has updated his blog. Make sure to read up on God's work down in Brazil.

http://stowe.wordpress.com/

Pécs, Hungary Missions Update

Balázs & Leah & Joelle Stanzel January 2007

Our Family
This month we experienced the peaks of amazing joy as parents as well as the valleys of utter frustration as we learn how to love and care for our little girl. She continues to do well, gaining lots of weight, loving to eat, smile and roll over. She loves to hear Balázs play the mandolin and definitely prefers that to the guitar or banjo. We are learning the new balance of marriage and parenting and are enjoying seeing how God enables us to continue to put our marriage as a priority. It certainly is not as easy as before Ellie was born. Please pray for us to have wisdom with balancing our marriage and family and for guidance as parents.

The weather here has finally decided to act like winter after weeks of warmth we are seeing snow and cold. It is still fun for a California girl like Leah to see snow falling and covering everything. Please pray as we travel to Budapest in February for some rest and time with family & friends as well as having Balázs’ cancer check and Ellie’s citizenship appointment at the American embassy.

Ministry
The Lord has worked in astounding ways this month bringing together things that have been in prayer for this church for the past seven years. We stand in awe of how He works in His timing to accomplish what He wills.

The Lord opened a radical door this month as we have been praying for evangelism opportunities for both the church and the college group. We met with a gypsy man who is a fellow believer that just opened the first Christian coffee shop in the city. He was open to allowing us full use of his coffee shop for any evangelical event or really anything the Lord leads us in. We are very excited to see the ways the Lord will use this both in the church body and to reach the community. Our first event will be a concert with Balázs and three other guys from the church on the 24th of February. Please pray for the church to be a part of the evangelism through sharing during the evening and passing out fliers ahead of time to invite the community. Please pray for Balázs as he writes music for the concert and for he and the other band members as they practice. Also, please pray for our relationship with the owner and for the future opportunities here.

The college group had some great times of fellowship and growth this month as we continued through 1 Samuel. The Lord continues to be faithful with His Word as Balázs teaches and is challenging the group in their personal walks with Him. We had a fellowship dinner before one of the studies and had a great time eating and just hanging out with each other. Please pray that more students would come to the prayer meetings as we feel it is critical to spend time in prayer before taking these students out who are eager to evangelize.

Balázs was able to teach for three weeks this month as the pastor was away. He was challenged as there were many difficult topics in the passages he taught but was amazed at the Lord’s grace in making clear His message for the church. Every 3rd Thursday home group Balázs leads the group in a night of prayer and worship. This last time was very special as the Lord led His church closer to Himself. Please pray for this next Thursday as we seek the Holy Spirit as a group. Please also pray for Balázs as he continues to lead the worship twice a week as well as for him as he teaches at the Catholic school.

Please pray for him to be enabled as he teaches guitar lessons weekly. Leah was able to meet with some of the girls this month for discipleship. She is encouraged as the girls are more and more honest but challenged as she is ever aware of her not being able to help but needing the Lord to give wisdom for how to handle the various things that come up. Please pray for her to have wisdom in dealing with these women and for them to grow in Jesus and be more aware of His love and grace for them.

Also, please pray for Leah to resume studying and to be diligent in learning the language.

Chris Zurbach: Ukraine

Christine Zurbach Jan 06

Greetings and Happy New Year!!

Sorry for the delayed letter but it has been very busy as we just finished our holiday season. I want to thank you guys so much for praying for all of our Christmas and New Year’s events. God truly answered our prayers and blessed everything. As you might remember Ukrainian Christmas was just celebrated this past weekend on the 6th and 7th of January. We hosted our first “Krepost”

kids club Christmas gathering. We invited the kids to bring their parents and we were so excited them actually come. We had been practicing Christmas songs with the kids prior to the party and it was so much fun to see them get up and sing for their parents. The parents really enjoyed themselves and had a great time watching our Christmas skit, eating cookies, and doing crafts with their kids.

The Christmas skit that one of the gals, Mira, in the church wrote turned out to be quite the hit as almost half the church took part in some role. I of course continued my tradition of being a sheep and really felt like I hit it this year thanks to help from my fellow sheep, Olya. We did the play not only for the kids at “Krepost” but also for the children at the local internaught where our church visits every Sunday, and also the children’s mental hospital. It was awesome having such a large group from the church go to be with these kids and share God’s love. We were able to hand out Christmas presents to all the kids too. Our Christmas service was held also on the 7th of January and we were able to rent the youth theatre in town to meet at. We filled the hall with friends and

family that were eager to come to our Christmas celebration. It was just amazing to see God bless our church and see everyone working together to put this on. Thank you so much for praying that God would provide a place and bless us. He did!!

Along the lines of that we are continuing to move forward in renting a bigger space for Sunday gatherings. We have found a museum that is willing to rent us their large hall with 30 foot ceilings for a price we can afford. We are praying and seeking God to know if this is His will. Please pray for our church that God would lead us. Also pray as we continue to serve in the internaught and mental hospital that God would call people and equip them to serve the kids there.

Please continue to pray for our kids club that God would give us wisdom with these kids and raising up teachers. Thank you so much for your prayers . I’m excited to see what is going to happen in this coming year.

Love,

Chris

Tom Stowe Update

Tom Stowe has updated his blog!

Check it out here and keep him in your prayers!

Pécs, Hungary Missions Update

Our Family

As we were scheduling Balázs’ yearly cancer check, we were reminded of why we named our daughter Joelle. At last year’s exam, we were told by two doctors that we would be unable to have children but, as our daughters name demonstrates, “the Lord is willing.” Despite situations and circumstances, our Father moves to demonstrate His willingness to bless His children for His glory! Not only does He forgive, heal, restore, discipline, guide and strengthen us, He pours out such amazing blessings because He is willing. We enjoyed a quiet Christmas with just the three of us, eating way too many traditional Hungarian Christmas treats that people blessed us with. Balázs’ mom, step-dad, and younger brother came to visit after Christmas and we all enjoyed spending time together.

Ellie is doing well. She’s still battling a little cold, but her jaundice has cleared up. She loves to eat, and in just four weeks, she gained over three pounds and now weighs around nine. She certainly is a lot chunkier than the tiny little girl she emerged as, but she is amazingly cute with all that baby fat.

Ministry

Despite the new challenges of balancing ministry with family, the Lord continued to work despite us. After being in Pécs for just over 7 months the Lord reminded us of and clarified for us the vision He has given to us for ministry. Both of us have known that the Lord wanted to use us for a purpose, and He showed us that it is to lead people to Himself for healing and restoration. Coming together, the Lord has given us clear vision that He wants us to continue in this ministry of restoration and healing and is opening opportunities for that in the things we do here in Hungary. Clear teaching of the Word to the college group allows healing for many of these students who have experienced hurts from false teachings. Working with prisoners truly allows captives to be set free. Taking foster kids into a home and showing them Christ’s love allows healing unlike any other. Balázs’ gift of music continues to be used to bring people to Jesus, the only one who can heal and restore. It has been a great time of reflection and clarification that the Lord has given to us this past month. We look forward to how He continues to work this out in our lives.

The Lord did some unexpected things this month with respect to the foster care and prison ministries. Balázs met with the minister in charge of the prison ministries here in Pécs who was skeptical of our church but not long into their conversation said, “you guys are our brothers.” He is excited to work with us and has passed along the paperwork to the warden of the prison. Shortly after this, a man whom Balázs met at the job center called him and gave him the number of the person in charge of the prisons in this city who was excited to have our help. There may be other opportunities such as teaching English, music, etc. Balázs will be meeting with her in a couple of weeks. Please pray for our relationships with these people and for the Lord to open doors and direct us as He wants in this area.

Also this month, Balázs was contacted by a person who has a similar heart and vision for foster children in this country. He was asked to be on a board for a new foundation that is developing to help these kids in this country. We are unsure of what role this foundation will take in our foster program but are excited for the similar hearts and work of fellow saints. Please pray for this relationship and for our mutual support of one another as we work toward reaching these kids through loving families. The college group chose not to take a break despite the holidays and final exams, and we have been shocked at these students’ dedication to and hunger for the Word. Please pray that more students would come to the prayer meetings as we feel it is critical to spend time in prayer before taking these students out who are eager to evangelize.

The pastor is away for some weeks, and Balázs will be teaching the Sunday service for a couple weeks. Please pray that God would speak through Him to build up His body. He also continues to lead worship and is challenged weekly in bringing people before a holy God in worship. Please pray that the Lord would move in this church to become true worshippers of the Lord. At the Catholic school where Balázs teaches, there is conflict with the Bishop in charge and the teachers at the school. Please pray that God would work to resolve this and love for Him would reign in the hearts of all involved.

Prayer Requests

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

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

-Wisdom with our little girl, filtering all of the advice we are given. Health for Ellie, God to heal her cold. 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 believers here and for people to be hungry to know the Lord. The students we are sharing the gospel with at the

universities 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 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 current ministries. For Balazs to be faithful in preparing for teachings and worship, for the Spirit to lead these times completely. For Leah to learn the new balance of taking care of the family and doing ministry. For continued opportunities of discipleship and language study.

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

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