Author: David

Paganism and the Church

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I forgot to post about a month ago that I got another chance to preach at church recently. Our church is going through the book of Revelation, and I got to teach on the letter to the church of Thyatira in chapter 2. It was a lot of fun, and I hope to get to do it again sometime soon. My friend Volodya is translating for me. We had a really cool dynamic with speaking and translating.

If you’d like to listen to the sermon, you’ll have to get past the podcast intro (it’s in Ukrainian) which is about a minute long.

Here’s the description from our church’s website:

Do you ever feel like you need to do God a favor before He does you a favor? Where does this idea come from? Why do we try to earn God liking us or answering our prayers? These are actually pagan practices that entered the church while John the Apostle was still alive; however, this wasn’t ok with John, and it’s not ok with Jesus. David Snead shares out of Revelation 2 on how pagan ideas a practices entered the church and how we still do these things today.

Click here to listen.

A (translated) update from Katya on how she’s doing!

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God is a great doctor! Last week began with sickness, and then continued with confusion, because we didn’t know what was wrong with me. The end of the story – a diagnosis of kidney inflammation and the ability to see God’s faithfulness! 😀 😀 😀 On Thursday, I felt SO bad! I had a fever and it hurt a lot. Friday we had an ultrasound of my kidneys, and they showed that there weren’t any kidney stones and that the inflammation had already gone down. I feel much better. I’m still taking my medicine, and I still am in pain and discomfort sometimes; however, I know that God has healed me. This is how it is with our sin – we still have those “left over” sins, but God healed the main disease!!! Thank you, Anastasia Furtak for your help and medical services, and thank you all who prayed for me! God heard your prayers!!!

Please pray for Katya…

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Please keep praying for Katya. She’s doing a little bit better now (some of you guys have been following us on Facebook, so you may already know these details…), but we’ve been going back and forth to different doctors and clinic the past few days. We are still trying to figure out what exacly is going on with her. The first diagnosis was appendicitis, the next was an intestinal infection, the third was kidney stones, and now it could be inflamation of the kidneys (possibly in addition to kidney stones).

Poor Katya’s been in a lot of pain since this all started, along with a low-grade fever. The pain has gone up and down from just annoying all the way to keeping her from being able to sleep.

Please pray for Katya that she would be healed, for the doctors to get the right diagnosis, and for David as he takes care of Katya. Please also pray for our dog – she’s also having some health issues. Our dog lives with Katya’s parents, and Katya’s mom has trouble walking because of a bad hip, so we are staying with her parents right now to be able to take care of the dog better.

Very thankful…

David4 Comments

God’s been so good to us!

We sat down today to begin an old Thanksgiving tradition that David’s family used to do when he was a kid. We talked about the founding of America and how God’s providence and hand was on that entire process, and then we talked and prayed about the things that we are thankful for this year. We even made a list chronicling the things that God has done in our lives over that time.

A lot has happened this year since last Thanksgiving. We’ve been able to see so many old friends, meet so many new ones, and we’ve been blessed so much.

We wanted you guys to know that you’re on that “Thankfulness List.” Thank you all for being a part of our lives, even though we’re overseas – for praying for us, supporting us, and for sending us encouraging messages or e-mails. Thank you for the hospitality you showed us while we were in America this spring – we’re still thanking God for that time.

To name a few things on that list:

  • God gave us time to spend with David’s family in Minnesota, Texas, and Florida
  • God gave us time to spend with our friends in Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina
  • God brought Ukraine through a very painful revolution and is using the current war to turn hearts to Himself
  • God brought us back to Ukraine
  • God brought us back to L’viv
  • God gave David the opportunity to preach at our church a couple of times this year
  • God gave Katya a job teaching English at a local preschool
  • God brought us through a very tumultuous time of being unsure where to go next while being in America
  • God blessed us with many great friends and deeper relationships with old ones, both in America and in Ukraine
  • God gave us new ministry opportunities in our church here in L’viv
  • God started a new “Biblical Counselling Training” ministry in our church that Katya is leading

One of the things that is so beautiful about this list is that many of these things were things we worried about in the moment, but God eventually took care of them! God has shown Himself so faithful to us over the past year in so many ways. Remembering His goodness in the past is really encouraging us to trust Him more now.

Yeah, the food at Thanksgiving is great, but what traditions do you guys have aside from that? (There’s a space for comments below.) What has God obviously done that you are thankful for this year?