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
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
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http://footesinukraine.blogspot.com/
dannliesefoote@gmail.com
www.calvarychapel.com/kagarlyk
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Mandy Stewart, who is serving as a campus missionary in Texas, has a blog!
Check it out:
http://www.xanga.com/MandyStewart
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
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
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
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
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
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.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...
Greetings from Ukraine!
Life has been moving along at its usual pace here in Kagarlyk, Ukraine. The church has been growing as more people who are working at the mushroom farm are coming to church and beginning to seek God. A few have given their lives to Jesus and are learning to live in Him. Nearly all have seen such a difference in the people around them who are believers that they are bringing their friends and family to the job site to ask if they can come and work. Please pray for salvation for all who are coming to work at the mushroom farm.
A few weeks ago the guitar player in the worship team broke his finger and is out for six weeks. So I've been playing guitar more for worship. Another girl (her name is Tanya) who I've been having play with me once in a while, has decided to help and she and I are switching off this month playing every other Sunday. God is answering our prayers for the worship team that they would begin to have a desire to do more than sing and play, that they would desire to lead. Tanya is not that great of a guitar player but is is a talented musician and she is seeing that God will use her if she is willing to step up and be used.
We are planning our yearly trip to America. We've got our dates set and our plane tickets bought. We will be in America from January 10th - February 25th. We will spend the first bit of time up in Yuba City and we will be most likely be sharing in Calvary Gridley on Sunday the 15th. Then we'll head down to the central coast around the 1st of February. Our only confirmed speaking date is February 12th at Calvary SLO. Thank you for your prayers we hope to see you while we are in America,
Daniel and Annaliese Foote
Hi folks, just wanted to let you all know that I am getting married. Anya has been one of my best friends for over 5 years now and it just so happened that we fell in love. I met her on my first trip to Ukraine back in 99 back when I spent a summer here. She of course didn’t want anything to do with me back then, I was a loud American teenager. After I returned to Ukraine in 2000 Anya became a good friend as she would come out on the weekends to Priluki to help out in the church (she is a great translator, speaks better English than I do). Then she moved to Priluki after finishing school and not too long after we moved to Chernigov together with a few others. So, I guess you can say that we have spent a lot of time together and know each other well.She is a great girl, I am a happy guy! We are planning on getting married sometime in January and then coming to the States for a month or two as soon as we can get a visa. I know there are a handful of ladies back home that have been praying faithfully for me to get a wife for a long time now. Well, your prayers have been answered.
Thanks.Take care,Jake (and now Anya)
This Sunday we drove up to Chernigov with a group from our Church. Jake had asked me to come and teach the Sunday morning bible study as he was going to be out of town so I thought it would be fun to bring some people from Kagarlyk to fellowship with the church in Chernigov. I think it was encouraging for the crew from Kagy and I hope that we were an encouragment to the Chernigov church.
After the service we went over to the house of one of the missionaries and had a big lunch with everyone who wanted to come. It was really good to see the church there and see how much people have grown in the last couple years. We all enjoyed the fellowship.
Before heading home we went on a little tour of the city and took some pictures. Here we are in Chernigov's main park.
When you are waiting in line to board the plane you are about to jump out of it really isn't all that comforting to see someone do engine work on the plane. Welcome to Ukraine.
When we showed up (Chris Mahar, an old bible college buddy and myself) to go skydiving we should have known that it was going to be sketchy. It was. The veteran who fought in the Afghan war from the 80's gave us 3 hours of instruction. Us and 80 other lucky youngsters. He liked the fact that we were Yankees, he kept telling us how the USSR stuff was way better than NATO stuff. Yeah right.
We were using WWII era equipment that some guys had used fighting Germans. I liked to imagine that the Russian wearing my gear lived through the jump because I didn't think I was going to.
The plane looked like a tin can with some wings, it sounded like a popcorn machine falling through the sky.
I was the first one to jump and let's just say I was standing at the door of the plane for what seemed like an eternity waiting for the guy to hit me on the back and say "your gone!"
Once I fell out I was doing summersaults and flipping like a gymnast. My chute took and then peace, that is all I can say. From the tin can, guys yelling, falling, wind, freaking out, to total peace and quiet. I took a photo while in the air and then started thinking about how to land.
They said that you could control the chute, they weren't being all that truthful. You land wherever the wind wants you to land.
I forgot to disable my safety chute and had to land with two chute open, which made for difficulties. Once I hit the ground I was drug about 2 miles before being able to knock the wind out of my chutes.
Maybe this isn't all that missionary but I definitely learned a lot about the Soviet mind. I think my little trip outside of town to jump out of a plane taught me more about the USSR than all of the books I have ever read.
I highly recommend it. In the last 25 years no one has died.
Blessings,
Jake
What does that mean? It is Latin for "in the light".
Where did it come from? I searched through the Latin vulgate for a few hours looking for a cool sounding phrase.
Why? I needed a name for our newspaper. I wanted something strange to get peoples attention.
It has evolved a bit since then. Now it is the name of our Publishing house. After bellyaching for a few years that there are no good books in Russian I decided to try to get some printed up. After reading "the passion of Jesus Christ" by Piper I thought that it would be a good book to start off with.
Since then we secured rights to two other books by Piper through Crossway books - "God is the gospel" and "seeing and savoring Jesus Christ" should be in hand by Christmas.
I am convinced that this is something God really wants me to put effort into because I have been so blessed by reading quality books like those above and I know that He will bless others as well, namely, those that I don't know and will never meet on this little earth who live in Russia and Ukraine. Printing books will build their faith and further the kingdom of God.
I guess you can say that I love reading and have grown to love God more through reading. I highly recommend good Christian reading. It wasn't an accident that God spoke to mankind through a book and I know that it wasn't another accident that he appointed teachers in the church and books to be the means teachers equip!
I am shooting for 6 books in 06'. Lord willing it will happen.
Please pray that the Lord will provide the amount still needed to print 7,000 books next month.
Blessings,
Jake
Hello,
Here is an update I sent out a few days back on what is happening here in Chernigov. Hope it helps!
Hi folks,
We have started up our English club again and would appreciate your prayers. A handful of believers in our church have come to know the Lord through our previous club and I really believe that God wants to use this event again to make himself known. Pray that the unbelievers would see that knowing God and having a right relationship with him (as seen in us) is much better than life apart from him. I pray that we would be a powerful testimony of the goodness and value of following Christ.
Conor and Koren, who recently moved up to Chernigov to join the mission team, have had to take an unexpected emergency trip back to the states. Their little girl Emma was very sick and not getting better. Turns out she has Celiac disease, which means she can't eat anything with wheat in it. Thankfully, she is getting better now that they know what the problem is and they are planning on returning as soon as her health is restored. Pray for them to be strengthened by God and for the health of Emma.
The church is doing well. It seems that many have taken certain responsibilities upon themselves and we are functioning a lot more like a body. I am blessed and hope to see God give more direction and vision to the individuals in church. Pray for greater faith to go forward as a body in the purposes God has for us.
I am planning on taking a trip to St. Petersburg to the annual Christian Publishers book exhibition in early December. I really believe that God wants me to continue pursuing translating quality literature into Russian. We are working on two more books and hoping to have them in hand by the end of the year. I hope to shoot for 6 books in '06. Please pray for open doors, relationships to be built with others who are publishing here, and the Lord's guidance and provision.
I am currently writing new articles for our newspaper and hoping to have a larger print run with more material to reach the whole city this time. Pray that it would be an instrument of truth confronting the 300,000 people living in total ignorance of the things of God.
I personally am doing well and appreciate your prayers and support. I really believe that God wants to save many souls in Chernigov and would ask that you pray for a spiritual reformation to take place here.
Oh, that these people would regard God's name as holy and honor Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior! Pray for God's light to shine into the darkened hearts and that it would bring the spiritually blind to see and deaf to hear their maker calling them to come!
Sincerely,
Jake
Greetings from Ukraine!
It's been a beautiful fall this year here in Ukraine. The weather has been abnormally warm and sunny and we've been enjoying the fall colors.
Usually in these updates I just write about how we are doing and the things we are involved in, but I would like to give you a little bigger picture this time so that you can know what God is doing here in Kagarlyk.
This summer a small group from the church started visiting the children in the local hospital once a week. The hospital system here in Ukraine is quite different from the American hospital system. Here it is a place where you go to be treated for any sickness you have. If you have a bad cold you check into the hospital for a week. So in the hospital there are generally people with anything from bronchitis to the flu to kidney problems. And they just sit in the hospital doing nothing all day. It is a great time to share God's love, to pray for people, and visit bored and lonely kids. So the group of two or three ladies go each week and share about Jesus, bring the kids a snack, and color or read a Bible story with the kids. It is great to see the church going out to people with God's love.
There is a missionary here from New Zealand named Magdala. She, for the past year, has been teaching English classes for anyone in the city who wants to learn English. This fall she was joined by a young lady in the church who is finishing her teaching degree and together they are broadening their classes to teach ages 9 and up. They have kids, teenagers and adults come to the classes, some of them Christians from the church and the rest just people who want to learn to speak English. Through the lessons their goal is to build relationships with their students and show God's love and what it means to have a relationship with Him.
Over the past few years Calvary Chapel Kagarlyk has set up a computer lab and offered computer classes for kids who want to learn how to use computers (and some who just want to play computer games after the lesson). This fall some of the people who taught the classes have decided to be involved in different ministries, but there are still a couple of classes a week. The goal of this ministry is to be able to build relationships with kids, to have good wholesome environment where they can come and learn something useful as well as have fun, and to show them that God loves them.
Then there is the mushroom enterprise. What is the mushroom enterprise? It is a business enterprise of mushroom farming aimed at creating a Christian work environment for men (and women) to be able to make a living, provide for their families, and at the same time learn to live in God’s grace. The reason for such an endeavor is that it is nearly impossible to find good work in Kagarlyk; so men who are trying to provide for their families go to Kiev and work six days a week and spend the other day with their families. Or they simply just drink. Over the last month four new people began working at the mushroom farm, and one of them a lady named Natasha gave her life to God. The others have stopped drinking (a prerequisite for starting to work there) and are coming to church each week. There is a need for more workers as the enterprise expands, so please pray that God would bring people who are ready to respond to the Gospel, that they would come simply to find work and instead find eternal life! Also pray for the men who work there that they would be rooted and grounded in God, for those who have not yet given their lives to God that they receive His salvation.
Another ministry that started over the winter at our church is an aerobics ministry. Sounds funny, but there is a young lady who wants to stay fit so she invites teenage girls to come and do aerobics with her twice a week at the church. Lately there has been quite a few of them and it seems to be spiritually fruitful as they fellowship afterward.
We are praying right now about an opportunity to visit an all girls internaught (boarding school for orphans) that is in a nearby village. One of the ladies who is involved in children’s ministry wants to visit these girls so we are praying God would open the door. Please pray that if this is something that God has for the church here that He would give us favor with the director of the internaught and the teachers.
So there it is. I think I covered just about everything. There is also the worship ministry that Liese is helping lead, and I’m playing guitar in, weekly prayer meetings, women’s bible study, and youth group. But I think those will have to wait for another time. I just want to encourage you that God is working. As you pray for us, for the work here in Ukraine know that God is answering your prayers and that you are not alone. There are people all over the world who join in with you in prayer for Ukraine. God is answering those prayers and we are blessed to see those answers. Thank for your prayers, thank you for your support, may God bless you and keep you,
Daniel and Annaliese Foote
Ok folks, check this out!
No tweeking here with the photo - this is how bright it really was and uch more too!!!
For more details and to see what I got to see the morning after click here...
http://www.srn-chrislawson.blogspot.com/
Just a quick hi to you all from Chris and Jenn and the kids.
Keep reading the Word!
Found this 1776 Bible for $2.00.
Greetings from Ukraine!
Summer ended last week and the weather got cold, but the good news is that it warmed back up and is sunny and beautiful! Kids are back in school, vacations are over, and for most people here in Ukraine life is getting back into its routine.
Liese and I took a little vacation last week and went to visit friends in the cities of Nezhyn and Chernigov. We spent a couple days in each city and it was really good to spend more than just a few hours with our friends. It was also encouraging to see the churches in those places and how people are growing in the Lord.
A couple weeks ago I did my first sermon in Russian. Everyone who can translate had gone on vacation so I was left to fend for myself. Liese said it was good, but I don't know. I still need about 6 hours to prepare to teach in Russian on top of my study time, but I'm going to be trying more and more to make the time to do it. Also I'm going to be looking for a Russian tutor to help Liese and I step up to the next level of grammar.
Liese is still leading worship twice a month, and I'm helping out playing guitar once a month. I looked back over the summer and realized that I played guitar more Sundays than I didn't play, so I'm looking forward to being the "backup" guitar player again. On Saturday we are going to have kind of worship retreat day. Everyone in the church who is involved in worship is going to get together for prayer and bible study. We want it to be a time to seek God's direction for us as individuals on the worship team, for us as a team, and for us as a church as relates to worship. Please pray that it would be an encouraging time for us all, that God would speak to us and renew our zeal to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.
Thank you for your prayers, and thank you for being a part of our ministry here in Ukraine. May God bless you and keep you,
Daniel and Annaliese Foote
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