April, 2002
Greetings
from Donetsk! We are enjoying this
beautiful time of year with spring bursting out all over.
Right now, the dandelions are blooming and there are golden waves of them
everywhere.
Most of you know that we spent most of the month of March in Memphis (and
Arkansas). Four weeks have never
flown by faster. We thoroughly
enjoyed visiting with our families and friends, as well as our church family at
Woodland Hills. When we left
Memphis on April 2, we had Charles Evans traveling with us.
Those of you who helped us at the Memphis Airport probably saw our
suspected hijacker (Charles) get searched and searched (and re-searched) while
they held the plane for us. We had
a good trip over and were met with a warm welcome in Donetsk.
Charles will be spending the next several months in Donetsk working with
congregations in the Kubishev Region and also teaching at the Institute for
Artificial Intelligence (here’s hoping he can share a little genuine
intelligence!).
Ray found himself temporarily homeless as the owner of his apartment
decided to sell it, so the first order of business was to find a new place and
get moved. Gene and Mary Parker
were kind enough to allow him to stay at their place for a few days while he was
homeless. It takes a lot to slow
Gene and Mary down, but 2 surgeries for Gene proved enough to delay their return
to Ukraine. We continue to pray for
his recovery and hope to see them again soon.
Things are going well at the church with our youth group leading the way
in many respects. Last Sunday we
had 23 present in the teen class! The
young men are taking part in public worship as well as learning to teach in
youth classes. In April, we began a
Wednesday night teen class which has been well attended thus far.
On April 14, Lynn and Nikka traveled with the young people to Petrovsky,
the largest congregation in Donetsk, to get acquainted with their youth and
learn more about their work.
In the month of April, we had one baptism, Victor Nikitavich.
He is an older man who has attended services for at least 2 years and he
finally decided to commit his life to Christ.
Sometimes things don’t happen as fast as we would like for them to, but
we trust if we plant and water, God will give the increase in His own time.
On the 15th of April, Ray made a quick trip to Kiev with 2 of
our members for a hospital visit. As
a result of our time in Kiev last year, we have some friends and acquaintances
among the doctors there and we decided it might be helpful to turn to the ones
we know. We have resumed our class
schedules, both as students and teachers. We
continue to study the Russian language with Larissa Vladimirovna, who sometimes
attends worship services with us. As
for teaching, Lynn teaches English classes each Friday and a private Bible class
on Thursdays. Ray is currently
teaching a men’s class on Friday evenings and the new teen class on
Wednesdays.
We love and miss our families and friends in America and pray that God will watch closely over you. Thank you so much for your prayers and every statement of support and encouragement.
In Christian Love,
Lynn and Ray