Update from Tom Stowe

Hey everyone, I just updated the blog with some new information about our
building search. Check it our and please pray for us as we search. And
while you are all enjoying a beautiful summer, we are pretty cold here in
our Curitiba Winter. So, I put a couple of pics of us here.

In Christ,

Tom

The Blog:
http://stowe.wordpress.com/

News from Kagarlyk

Hi everyone!

Summer is in full swing here in Ukraine with the thunderstorms, humidity, heat, bugs, and bright wonderful sunshine. This summer is different though because it is not packed crazy full of a million things to do. It is kind of weird.

I've been spending a lot of time studying and meeting with people these last few weeks. With Wayne in Australia I teach each Sunday and we've been having bible studies/discussions every other Sunday evening. We've been going through the Gospel of Luke on Sunday mornings and talking about what a church is and does in the evenings.

Liese has been leading worship quite a bit, but it's been easier now that she is in a support role as others are able to lead.

This weekend (6th-8th) there will be a Franklin Graham festival in Kiev. They have been planning it for three years and it will be huge. A group from our church is going to help in whatever way they can, and the youtha group is going to go on Saturday. Please join with us and Christians all over Ukraine in praying that God would use this event to draw many to Himself.

Next week just about all the young people in our church are going to "Camp 120" a Christian camp on an island in the Dnipro river. It is a 5 day camp hosted by some missionaries in the town of Rzhyshchiv which is about 10 miles away from us. This is the third year they've been doing it and it has been a great thing for the youth. The youth group decided that the camp would be a good thing to invite their friends to, so out of about 30 people that are going to the camp from Kagarlyk 17 don't come to church. We are praying that at the camp they see more than just a bunch of Christians having fun - that they see Jesus alive in each person.

In a couple days we are going to take a trip up to Chernigov to visit the missionaries up there. While there I hope to spend some time with Jake Knotts talking about book publishing and possibilities for producing short Christian videos for TV.

That's the news from Kagarlyk, Ukraine. Hope you all have a great Independence Day,

Daniel and Annaliese Foote

June update from Leah and Belazs

Our Family
We have had a great time this month as it is summer and that means lots of hiking, free concerts in the city, bar-b-ques, and swimming! As a family, we were definitely made for the outdoors and God has blessed us beyond measure with the city He has called us to. We love it here! Ellie is seriously on the move now…crawling everywhere, getting into everything, she is even standing up on things and taking steps! She loves to eat and gets very upset if someone is eating food in front of her and won’t share. Swimming is by far her favorite activity, in the lake or at the pool, she was definitely made for the water.

Praise the Lord and thank you for your prayers for Balázs’ sister and sister in law. They are both past the first half of their pregnancies and both babies are doing well. Both girls are off of bed rest but are still not allowed to work. The Lord is faithful indeed. Please continue to pray for them and the babies. Also, we will be celebrating our 2 year anniversary at the end of this month.

Church
The Lord is continuously showing us and defining for us the new roles we are in…it is good and
challenging at the same time. We are almost daily realizing how absolutely unable we are to do this ministry but we are at the same time encouraged that God is able and He gives us strength, wisdom and help as we need. Please pray for us to cling to Him for all we need each day.

This past month has been defined by nearly daily meeting with different people from the college group or the church. It is cool to see how God is using these times of discipleship to minister to the individual needs and questions of our body. Please pray that we would have discernment, wisdom, and offer the Word as the answer for all to stand upon and hold to.

The college group is doing well, even though many have left for the summer, many remain and we are continuing to study David’s life, now in 2 Samuel. During the final exam period we had the students over for a “study break” with brownie sundaes and we watched End of the Spear, the movie about the Indian tribe in Ecuador where 5 missionaries were killed some years ago. It was a great film and a great night.

Please pray for the students who have gone home for the summer, most to unbelieving families, that they would be remain close to the Lord and shine His love to their families and friends at home.

Outreach
Balázs is weekly ministering in a youth prison and teaching the Word to the boys there. He is having a great time but is very burdened for these boys, as apart from placing their trust in Jesus their lives truly have no hope. Please pray for these boys salvation, their futures and for Balázs as he needs wisdom and love to reach these youth. Also, please pray for the church to be involved with the boys through prayer.

Other
We attended the Eastern European Mission’s conference this past week and were beyond blessed by our time there. The teachings were great, with the theme of “We would see Jesus.” Personally, we were reminded of the centrality of love to the gospel and to our lives as believers. We were challenged to abide in Jesus as many of the speakers referred to John 15:5 where Jesus reminds us that without Him we can do nothing. The fellowship with friends from many Eastern European countries was also a great joy for us. Overall, we left feeling refreshed and encouraged.

Upcoming month
This month is the Southern Hungary conference for all of the Calvary Chapels in Southern Hungary. Balázs is responsible for coordinating all of the worship. Please pray for him to have wisdom and to be able to organize this before next week. Balázs was asked to speak at Hungary’s university ministry’s (similar to Campus Crusade) summer conference. Please pray that the Lord would give him a clear message to share.

Check out our blog for current updates, prayer requests, and pictures… http://www.leahstanzel.vox.com/

whose reading?

we just revamped the "look" of this site and are in the process of adding a lot more. At this point I'm just curious whose reading this thing.
so, could you just leave a very fast "I am" post...along with your name...thats it!!
no email address
no request for your mother maiden name
no need for your home address

JUST YOUR NAME! (we're just interested in whose reading this!)

Balázs & Leah & Joelle Stanzel in Pécs, Hungary

Our Family

The Lord continues to pour out His love on us as we daily experience His gentleness as He guides us through many changes. Ellie is doing great! She is 6 months now and is ready to be on the move! She rolls everywhere and is beginning to crawl. She takes a lot more watching now and continues to bring a tremendous amount of joy to us daily. We ask for your prayers as we are daily humbled by the responsibility God has entrusted us with in this little girl. Please pray for us to have wisdom with each new stage that comes. We had a couple of friends from Germany as well as a family of 5 staying with us this month, and were encouraged by their fellowship. We traveled to Budapest to share with the church there about what God is doing in Pécs as were very blessed by their reception and love for us. We also spent time with friends and family while there and enjoyed our time greatly.

Please pray for both Balazs’ sister and sister-in-law as they are both in the hospital with high-risk pregnancies. They are both in the second trimester and have both been trying to conceive for many years. Please pray the Lord would protect these babies and keep both girls healthy.

Church
Praise the Lord for hearing your prayers! The Lord has allowed us to get another room for toddler/baby care and we have began that ministry this past month. The mother’s have been more than blessed as they are able to hear the teachings now, some for the first time in almost 3 years!! The Lord has also stirred up many in the church to serve in this ministry as well as teachers for the older children…it is amazing to see the Lord move people in response to His desires. Also, we have been seeking a new place to have the church as we have need for a different location. The Lord has now closed the door where we are currently meeting to push us to really pursue this. Of course, as He closes one door He opens an even better one.

We are currently working out a contract to be able to use a kindergarten to have the church in. It is downtown, has the space and rooms we need and will even allow us to have our monthly fellowship potlucks there. We are very excited but please pray for the contract to be worked out as well as for the church in general as these are a lot of changes all at one time.

We are weekly amazed at how the college group continues to grow and mature. The students are hungry for the Word and for living it out in their lives. They come with questions and challenge us as they seek to know how to submit their lives wholly to being obedient to Christ. There are many conferences this summer that we are sending students to, Please pray the Lord would use these conferences to draw the students closer to Himself. 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. in these areas.

We have a couple of teenage boys who do not really have any covering in the church, they are too old for the kid’s ministry and a bit too young for the adult services. Praise God! One of the guys in the church has a desire to meet with these guys and pour in to their lives. Please pray for him to have time to meet with them and wisdom and direction for these times.

Outreach
We received another outreach team from the bible college this month and had a great time preparing for a women’s day. We had chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels (a first for these Hungarian women!), we made cards and crafts, one of the women shared and we had a great time of fellowship. The men watched the kids during this time and really, we were all very blessed by the day! As a result, we have felt led to have a women’s fellowship every 6 weeks, as many of the women are mother’s and are isolated from fellowship with other believing women. Please pray as Leah heads up this and other women’s ministry events for her to have wisdom and be sensitive to where the Lord want to take these times.

Balázs continues ministering at the prison, it is a challenge every week as he meets with these boys to communicate the Word and principles of life that they have never learned. Please pray for these boys salvation, their futures and for Balázs as he needs wisdom and love to reach these youth. Also, please pray for the church to be involved with the boys through prayer.

Other
A young couple in our church is getting married at the end of the month and has asked Balázs to play the music for the wedding. Please pray that he would have time to practice and for wisdom for writing and learning new songs. Please pray for Balázs and the elders as they deal with some issues due to the transition as well as some issues regarding the worship leader. They need guidance from the Lord with how to handle these things. Balázs will be finishing at the Catholic school next week for the summer break. Please pray for him to remain faithful until the end and to have a fresh heart for this next school year. Leah continues to have a weekly Hungarian lesson but struggles to study during the week. Please pray for her to be disciplined in this and make it a priority.

Upcoming month
We are going to be attending a mission’s/leaders conference this month and will be taking a couple leaders from our church as well. Please pray for this to be a refreshing time and a time for the Lord to encourage us with fresh hearts to be able to pour into the church when we return.

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

Update from Tom Stowe

Tom Stowe has some new news on his blog. Check it out!

http://stowe.wordpress.com/

News from Kagarlyk

Hi everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since the last update. I've been updating our blog regularly and I've forgotten to send out e-mail updates.

So here is what has been going on here in Kagy and what we are planning.

Liese and I are still leading worship, I play guitar once a month or so and Liese leads once a month and sings every other week. In a few weeks pastor Wayne and Olya are going to Australia for two months and while they are gone Liese will be leading the worship ministry.

I'm still preaching every other Sunday and right now we are going through the gospel of Luke. I've also been teaching a series of bible studies about the church on Sunday nights. Last fall we started meeting every other Sunday night for fellowship and to talk about the church's vision. After a few months we thought it would be good to have a more in-depth study of what a church is and so I've been teaching those. Please pray for me as Wayne is in Australia this summer because I'll be teaching a lot. Also pray for my Russian - it seems I've been taking steps backward for a couple months now and I'm going to try to start taking lessons again. Oh, and I'm going to start a bible study this summer with a couple young men in the church to study the foundations of our faith.

We (those in our church who want to be part of our summer ministry team) have started to plan what outreaches we will do this summer. It seems like this year we have less time, less people, and less money than in other years so we are praying about how to best focus what we have. Last year's outreaches were really great and everyone who was involved has seen that the fruit that has remained from those events has been in the friendships that were built. So this year we are praying about how to encourage more relationship building and how we can go out to people instead of just inviting them to come to us. We are praying about how to combine the good things that we've done in the past with more personal outreach and it looks like we may do a lot less this year in terms of events but try to be more active in getting to know people as we play soccer, hang out at the popular hangouts, do vacation bible schools, and invite people to youth group and church. Please keep us in prayer that God would lead us.

Since getting our car we've been able to make a trip to Priluki to visit the church there. It was great to see everyone and I got to teach at their Thursday night service. We hope to go out to Priluki about once a month if we can swing it. We have also been up to visit our missionary friends in Chernigov.

This weekend is a conference for all the Calvary Chapels in Ukraine. It is always a good time to see people from other churches that we don't get to see very often and everyone is always encouraged by the fellowship.

That's what is going on with us. Check out our blog for pictures and more on what we have been doing.

Thank you for your prayers and I'll try to send out these updates more often,


Daniel and Annaliese Foote

a new book

Our third book God is the Gospel by John Piper is going to print this Monday. We had some trouble with our first translation and had to completely retranslate the book from scratch, which was a big disappointment. However, I am really pleased with the new translation and very excited about getting the book in hand.

In two weeks there will be a large international Christian book fair in Kiev that we will be taking part in. We are hoping to get the new book out and are thinking now about some marketing methods.

We also decided to print 500 out of 5000 in hard back. Our mission is to print books that are affordable and available and hard back bindings push the price of the book up a lot so we hadn't considered printing hard back. But after seeing how many of our books were wanted by Seminaries and libraries, we realized that there is a need for hard bindings and we are hoping to meet that need with one tenth of our print run. This of course increased the cost of each book by 3.5 grieven (70 cents) which is going to cost us a bit more, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

We would appreciate your prayers that the book would be ready by the 23rd, the first day of the festival.

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.