Sparks Ministry

I am enjoying the unexpected pleasure of getting to stay home and work instead of going out in the cold, rainy weather today.  I will be leaving Kiev on February 16, so it is nice to have an unexpected afternoon to enjoy my cosy apartment! 

Thank you for your prayers for our church plant (SPRC) and their desire for a church building.  They raised most of the funds they planned to raise, but prices went up faster than expected so they will need to raise additional funds.  The good news is that they were able to find a piece of land in a good location for the funds that they have.  So, the land purchase will be closed on within the next month.  Praise the Lord for this provision!  Even if they need to wait to begin building, it is a great blessing to own some land at this time of skyrocketing real estate prices.

I recently finished a project I’ve been working on for about a year.  You may remember that I brought a couple of Ukrainian women to the Presbyterian Church in America’s national women’s conference in September 2006.  I purchased a set of DVDs from the main teaching sessions with the plan of getting them translated with Russian and Ukrainian subtitles and getting a set out to each of our Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine (EPCU) churches.  It turned out to be a more complex project than I expected (doesn’t that always seem to happen?), but I am very happy to have it completed now.  I hope that these DVDs will be a useful resource for our churches here and that they will encourage and challenge the Ukrainian women in their faith and life.  It is nice to have something that is concrete that I can leave as part of my “legacy” here! 

As I mentioned earlier, I will be leaving Kiev on February 16 to move to Austin, Texas.  I’ll be visiting a couple of my supporting churches as I prepare for the wedding on April 26, then I’ll continue on my Home Ministry Assignment (HMA) after the wedding until the end of the year.  The next few months will hold a lot of transitions both for me and for the team here.

Please pray this month for the following things:

• Pray for me and for the Kiev team as we all adjust to new things.  Continue to pray that they would find someone to take over my job as the team administrator.  Pray for me as I continue to do some of my tasks from the U.S. during this transition time.
• Pray for the Ukrainian pastors of the EPCU (Max, Ivan, Vladimir, Alexei, Sergei N., Sergei B., Andrei, Valeri Z., Valeri B., and George).  Pray for their spiritual growth, for wisdom as they seek to lead their churches, and for encouragement as they face various difficulties.
• Pray for the women of the EPCU.  Pray that God would use the DVDs to strengthen them and pray that they would be able to minister well to one another within the churches.
• Pray for Steve and me as we prepare for marriage and as we think and pray about the possibility of returning to Ukraine together.  Pray that God would make His will clear to us.
• Praise the Lord for those who gave generously for SPRC’s purchase of land! 

Thanks, as always, for your continued faithful support.  I look forward to seeing many of you in person over the next few months!