Bila Tserkva on Ice

Freezing rain caused everything to be covered by ice.

This evening as we headed home from English Club, we were met with an interesting phenomenon. Even though it was well below freezing outside, it was raining. The rain was immediately freezing on the ground causing an unusually slippery surface. I know this often happens in lots of other places, but being from the Central Coast of California, we've never seen anything like this.

We left English Club as a group, laughing and clinging to each other for support as we made our way to the bus. It probably would have been a bit more fun, had I not had our computer strapped to my back. We had to shuffle along to keep from slamming on to the ice as did all the people around us. Most people made good progress by just sliding across the ice as though they were ice skating.

Ira, a girl from our English Club, lives in a building close to ours so she walked, I mean slid, most of the way home with us. Normally this would be about a five minute walk, but it ended up taking us about twenty minutes. The fact that it was mostly downhill and we were laughing hysterically didn't do anything to expedite our trek home. I guess there's just something inherently funny about seeing women slipping, sliding, and falling in high heels on the ice.

As the three of us prepared to descend a particularly slippery slope, we had to wait (and laugh with) two girls who were struggling to climb the slight incline in their high heels. They would walk arm in arm for about five feet and then slide backwards to where they had started. They were being good sports and laughing too. What else can you do? Amazingly, each of us slid the twenty feet or so with out falling. The rest of the way home consisted of controlled slides of about ten to fifteen feet each. I think each of us went down at least once. Edna saved her fall until we were in sight of our building. She went flat on her back in a frozen pot hole. Thankfully it was dark and her pride remained intact with no one to see her squirming on the ice trying to stand up.

We eventually made it to our building with only our sides sore from laughing. It was definitely an interesting evening for us. There's never a dull moment in Bila Tserkva.

University English Club

Monday Evening English Club at the University

We held our third meeting this evening of our English Club at the city University here in Bila Tserkva. We have been blessed to have been given free use of the room for two hours with the full backing of the University. Edna and I are working with Ruslan and Anya Samohlebov, a local Christian couple, to run this latest English Club. Ruslan uses the first hour to teach English grammar while I use the second hour as a practical application of English in discussing moral dilemmas and ethical behavior. (Dominic and Joshua had the privilege of babysitting Nikita while we were gone.)

While we can't openly teach about the Bible, these moral discussions can often lead to relevant Biblical references. As Edna moves around the class helping out the students, we've noticed how she seems to be bonding with these young and impressionable girls (there's only one guy for now). They've already exchanged phone numbers and are talking about how they can all get together outside of the class room. Our prayer is that these young people will be won for Christ through the sincere building of relationships. God has been faithful in granting us another open door for reaching the youth of this city through English and we are grateful.

Edna helping Marina translate some sentences into English while Anya helps another girl in the foreground.

God Can Open Doors (Literally)

English Club last night: Edna, Oksana, Yana, Nastya, Tanya, Inna, and Serhiy

In December of last year, we began praying that God would open doors for us at the university here in Bila Tserkva so that we might reach out to people through our English Club. (Currently we are using the TV series LOST as a way to introduce Biblical truths and English language discussions.) We were also praying that at least one guy who spoke English would start coming to our English Club. It had so far been all girls and we had jokingly called it "Girls Club". It had also been in our prayers to have a permanent translator at church since Maria, who usually translates, has to come from Kyiv on Sundays and can't always be here. God has been faithful in answering all these prayers beyond what we could imagine.

First, I'll start with Tanya. She moved to Bila Tserkva with her husband Kolya so that they could both teach at the university here. Tanya has been coming to our church for a few months now and we are blessed to have her. She has offered to act as a translator whenever we need her to. Definitely an answer to prayer. Tanya is also very active in our English club and has introduced us to several English speakers from the university. One of those people is a guy named Serhiy who also teaches at the university.

Through Tanya and Serhiy, we have learned that there is a satellite campus for the university that is even bigger than the main campus and includes student and faculty housing. Last Friday, we met for English Club at the Rosava Palace of Culture (where we always meet and also have church on Sundays). We had the largest group of people show up so far. Unfortunately, there happened to be an event going on that was taking up all the rooms in the building. Undaunted, Serhiy suggested that we use one of the classrooms at the university. A few of the girls couldn't make the trip across town, but the rest of us piled into a marshrutka (shuttle van) and headed for the university.

After we walked through the front doors of one of the campus buildings and Serhiy used his keys to open the classroom door, it hit me. We had prayed for open doors at the university and God had sent someone to physically open them for us. He sent someone who also happens to speak perfect English. God is Faithful.

Our English Club, which we have moved to Fridays instead of Saturdays, is slowing growing in size, one person at a time. It is also evolving into a more fluid and more tightly knit group. Our goal is to build relationships that will allow us to share the Gospel with people on an individual basis. We have struggled with ways to make this outreach successful, but it has only been through God's leading and His provisions that we have begun to see fruit. Sadly, we have heard that some students who wanted to attend our English Club, were told by their parents that they aren't allowed to attend simply because we are Christians, but God is in control.

Sometimes it's easy to try and plan things from the world's perspective. "Things work a certain way. There are formulas and rules to be applied for success. There is a pattern and plan that must be followed in order to get results." The simple truth is that the best marketing strategy in the world can't deliver the results that God can through our earnest petitions in prayer. God is sovereign.

English Club at the university last week
Front row, left to right: Yana, Tanya, Nastya, Anya, Edna
Back row: Me, Kolya, Serhiy

See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. - Revelation 3:8

LOST Reaching the Lost

We've started using the TV series LOST in our Saturday night English Club to share the Gospel with English speakers in our community. So far, it is turning out way better than we had thought it would. We show an episode of LOST which turns out to be about 45 minutes and then spend another 45 minutes discussing it. We play the episode in English with English subtitles to help everyone through some of the more difficult dialog and then we work some life application and biblical questions in. The girls seem to love it (That's right. No guys have shown up yet, but we do have two guys who have said they would go this Saturday).

Some of the girls from English Club

We tossed around different ideas of what we could use. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) was our first thought since season one of 24 has a biblical truths study guide to go with it called, "Jack Bauer's Having a Bad Day: An Unauthorized Investigation of Faith in 24, Season One". We decided against 24 because of the amount of violence and fast pace that would make it hard for Ukrainian speakers to follow closely. We decided against Gilmore Girls because of how fast they talk and all the obscure American culture references, although Gilmore Girls is on TV here translated into Ukrainian. Walker Texas Ranger was even briefly considered but we decided Chuck Norris wasn't worthy enough to replace Jack Bauer. Sorry Chuck. Oprah is a familiar sight on Ukrainian television so we even gave her a thought, just kidding (Ukrainians have had enough of Oprah's New Age, self-improvement, do-it-without-Jesus, psycho-babble without us subjecting them to more).

In the end, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) won out. We were also pleased to find that LOST has a study guide for Christian discussion called "What Can Be Found In LOST?: Insights on GOD & the Meaning of Life from the Popular TV Series". LOST is popular on Ukrainian television under the title "Загублені".

Each meeting we have seems to go better and better. What started out kind of shaky and a bit awkward has become a lot of fun for us. About half of those who come are believers so we are blessed with fellowship each time. Please keep us in prayer as we seek to reach out to those who don't yet know Christ.

English Club

Maxime, Sasha, Greg, Yura, Sveta, Katya, Oksana, and Edna

God put it on our hearts to look into the possibility of someday starting an English club as a way of sharing the Gospel in our own language. When we showed up at the invalid center here in Bila Tserkva last Wednesday with the intention of getting a tour of the facility, we were introduced to six young people who wanted to speak English with us. We thought we were only going to see what goes on at the facility and see how we might help out in the future. We weren’t expecting to immediately begin teaching English, which we did for an hour before getting a tour.

The invalid center treats infants, children, and young adults for all types of mental and physical disabilities. We were impressed by all the different types of physical therapy that they offer and the expansions of the facility that are underway. The director invited us to have dinner at his house and asked if we would consider working with some of the other groups of children at the center. The director is a Christian and is very open to any type of Bible teaching that we might want to do with the children there. This is a huge open door that we didn’t see coming.

We had only been thinking about the possibility of an English club for a little over a week when God seems to have directed us to one. We weren’t prepared to start one, but we could hardly say no to agreeing to return each Wednesday from 10:30am to 12:00pm. We were so blessed at how eager the six young men and women were to have two native English speakers to talk to and learn from. Their ages range from 17 to 25 years old. They each suffer from some type of mental or physical disability, but that hasn’t deterred them from meeting together for the last two years. I asked them if they considered themselves an English club already and they said no, that they just meet once a week to learn and practice speaking English together. I said that sounded like an English club to me, so from now on, we are an English club. Please keep this new development in your prayers.