June 9 Update

June 9, 2009

Dear Partners,

There is lots of grass on the Steppe but it is not growing under our feet!!  Well, we do live in an apartment.  J  I shared last time that Steve has been working a lot in his role as Regional Coordinator for Asia.  This has not changed.  I wanted to report that all of the meetings about the building management here in Karaganda have gone extremely well.  We now have a plan that was conceived in conjunction with nationals and a group of nationals are working regularly and smoothly with our Director to implement the plan.  Needless to say, this will involve endless bureaucratic paperwork, lots more meetings and legal work.  However, everyone is working together amazingly well and all is on track for a wonderful outcome.  Please pray that this spirit of cooperation with the working relationships continues to be strong and that the work continues smoothly to the conclusion.  Then there should be a mechanism in place for all to continue into the future with the same spirit of cooperation.   It is challenging to mix business cultures and keep communication clear with all the cultural nuances and three different programs trying to work together. 

Steve did attend the “Call to All” conference in Hong Kong and came home with some very intriguing possibilities for future partnership ministries in Asia.  Some of those possibilities have been shared with staff at Norcross, Georgia – our headquarters – and we pray for God’s leading in discerning our place as an agency in the future.  If there are truly things here for our future after prayer and further investigation, you will be hearing about them.  We are excited about the possibilities but cautious as is prudent.

I spent two weeks in the village with Joyce Chellis while Steve was in Hong Kong and am including some pictures for you.  They will give you some visualizations about where we will be and the people we will interact with in July.

We have cancelled our trip to Ukraine at the last moment.  The Annual Conference that includes Ukraine was held last week and the DS whom we have worked with for the last 6 months will no longer be the DS as of July 1.  This an American and I am excited (so is he!) that the new DS will be a national!  Yeah!  Please pray for this young man that he is truly up to the job and that he will allow God to lead him in his decisions and leadership.  We have heard wonderful things about him.

In the midst of the turmoil of change in leadership this month, we feel that it is not the time for them to have to deal with hosting us around the country.  We have also received a glimpse  into how many missionaries are already working there and want to consider carefully whether or not this is truly somewhere we should be.  There is such a great need for what Steve has to offer here in Kaz.  Please pray that we may find a way for the appropriate visa to do this work if it is God’s will.  Or that He would clearly show us what His plan for us is. 

We are traveling to Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 21^st for our Annual Conference and will spend some time talking with our wonderful Bishop and exploring possibilities.  We will also be seeing friends from Far East Russia and that in itself will be a very special blessing.

On July 2^nd our youngest daughter,  Melissa, her husband Mark and their kids, Hannah – 14 and Naomi – 9, will arrive to share ministry with us.  We have a very busy schedule here in Karaganda for the first 8 days and then we are all off on the train to the village of Sergievka.   We will help with an English Camp for about 40 young people ages 10 to 14.  Our family will be very active participants.  There are a couple of university students who speak English who will be home in the village for the summer and they will get to practice their English and be interpreters.  There is also a 14 year old American missionary who will be going up with us and she speaks Russian fluently herself. 

While we are in the village we will have time to worship with the church and share their morning prayer time every weekday with them.   The following weekend will be traveling to another village 2 hours away for a big picnic and joint church service where Steve will be preaching beside a lake to about 100 nationals.  It will be an awesome day.  Two churches who are very isolated will share stories and ministry and experience the church universal in a special way.  Joyce, Melissa, some of the village women and I will be preparing a ton of American potato salad, watermelon fruit boats and American green salad with ranch dressing to take up to the picnic.  Two nationals, Tanya and Myra, have asked if we would make 2 gallons of ranch dressing!  They have shared it with Joyce before and absolutely love it.  It is not available here so we must bring the packages with us.  “Greens” here means flat leafed parsley and dill.  There is no iceberg lettuce here and very little other lettuce.  Green salads like we make all the time are almost unheard of.  Typical Russian salads, and there are a million, are mayonnaise based.  Tanya and Myra are also going to make homemade hot dog buns for us!  There will also be a very unique Kazakh cultural dinner which I will share about in a later update with pictures.

When we leave Sergievka we will head back to Karaganda and have one day to pack and then will be off to our trip home. We will be back in California the end of July.    Please pray for safe travel for us throughout all of this and that we are truly a blessing to all those whom we meet.  Pray that they will see the joy of following Jesus in us and through our actions.  Pray that we will have our eyes open to what Jesus would have us do all the time and that we will reach out with help where needed and appropriate.  Often we are tempted, as Americans, to do so much as there is so much need.  But we also know that we must show discernment and truly follow what God would have us do.  We always need them to know that no matter what their circumstances, God will stand by them and keep them strong. 

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support and once again, we are very aware that every day, every step of the way, we are also your hands and feet here in this place.  We pray that we represent you well.

Grace and Peace, Blessings and hugs,

Pastor Steve and Carol

The next email (below) will contain the pictures with explanations. 

While in the village of Sergievka, Joyce, Tanya, Myra and myself took a day
trip up to the village of Vitrovka. Here an awesome Christian couple runs a
Christian rehab center for alcoholics. It is supported partly financially
and also physically by the small church in that village and of course, some
Americans through Joyce. This village is where we will have the big picnic
Jul 19. When we just dropped in we did a lot of praying and singing of
praise songs. I know there will be a lot of that during worship at the lake
and throughout the day.

The kids at the rehab center are children of the people in the program. If
they are single parents the kids stay with them. They stay in the program
for 18 months.

The third village has a church which is part of the same rehab program. A
few very old men live in the building and take care of it and the garden as
they are too old and unable to work physically all day even though they are
sober and recovering.

The cowboys in Sergievka, as in all villages, take the horses out to the
Steppe for the summer and watch them. Some also take the cows and sheep out
separately each morning about 7:30 am and return them to the village at 8
pm. It is fun to watch them come in to be met by all their owners - some on
foot, some on bikes - most with switches broken off trees with some noisy
leaves left on the end. The cows pretty much know where to go by themselves
for the most part but there are always those "day dreamers." They just
saunter down the road. The goats are also taken out to a different place and
they are not so easy to get home. Young children are often chasing them to
get them home. It is quite an event every night. This also means that all
the Sergievka people that travel to the picnic with us must be home by 8 pm
to gather their animals and milk the cows and goats. And of course, the lake
is where we will have the picnic. I hope the grass is still green but it
could be brown by then if there is not enough rain.

3rd Village Church

Church Leaders Two Churches

Cowboy's Horse in Sergievka

Joyce's Street

Kids Rehab Center Victrovka

Rehab Center Church in 3rd Village

Talking by Joyce's Front Door

The Lake

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