We're going to make some changes with the way we've been delivering our blog posts--


Nothing revolutionary, but we have been making some changes to the UMW website, and we will be posting ministry related blogs here, which have a link at that site. We'll keep this blog for family pictures and stuff more private for our family and friends (i.e. pictures of Isabella).

The picture above is me standing underneath Sumy's Lenin statue. Most traces of him are gone or fading from Ukraine-- this is especially true in the western side. But here in the east, the statue may no longer have a place in the city centre, but they did preserve the legacy of Lenin for a park on the outskirts of town. Keep watching, he shows up below.

Birch tree tapping for juice

Making a taste of birch juice, a spring favorite in Ukraine

We visited a Christian camp with John Paetkau and the Teuberts, both missionary families here in Sumy. This camp was formerly a "Pioneer" camp, which were state ran (through state-run industries). This property was purchased a few years ago and has been a continuous project for the Blagodat Church here.

John, Vladimir, and Me

The sleeping quarters at the camp

The front porch of one of the four housing units at the camp

Our guided tour of the camp... and our companions.
L to R- Deborah, Martin, Jenny, Serge, and Anya.
Deborah and Jenny are German girls who are visiting Sumy to work with orphanages.
Martin and Anya, are Swiss/German missionaries to Sumy
Serge is the care-taker of the camp, and birch-juice supplier

We haven't had many updates on our blog, except for Isabella
pictures-- we're just giving family and friends what you want to see!

But we are actually here in Ukraine since November, and we are
actually still engaged in the Missio Deo here. As I wrote on a
note on Facebook that I'm doing what I've always wanted to do even
though it doesn't look like what I thought it would. Cross cultural
ministry is a long term vision and we are at the front end of this.
For some of our updates in Glad Tidings News and the Ukraine Mission
Work report, we are going to change our reporting format not to what
'we' are doing but to what we see God doing here.

I don't know if the subject of this next sentence should be Americans
or Missionaries, or America Missionaries... but "we" often enter a
work like we're going to get things done and make some changes to this
thing that we're doing. We don't calculate for the changes it's going
to make in us. This is one of the primary things God has done here.
We have not converted Ukraine, but in Ukriane, God has converted us.

Every day, we must rely upon God. Every day we pray for the people
who are around us. Daily we are faced with God's plan, which is so
much bigger than the work we can do with our hands. God has taught us
that church attendance is not the measure of one's heart's allegience,
that the daily walk is where the faith must be.

One of my favorite songlines to describe my heart is "I can't see that
you're leading me unless you've brought me here, to where I'm lost
enough to let myself be led" -Rich Mullins









By the way,
here's some links to some Bella Videos
video 1
video 2

Long Awaited Bella Pictures

We still have limited Internet service, so I wanted to post what everybody wants to see anyway... pictures of Bella. We're still praying for God to establish the works of our hands here. God bless ya'll.