Tag: Bible

First trip to the east since 2022

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David recently got back from a short trip to the front lines. This is the first time that he’s had an opportunity to go with the church’s chaplain, and he wants to continue this kind of ministry in the future. There are not many who can travel and share the Gospel with soldiers or encourage our brothers and sisters who are fighting, so it’s a huge privilege to be able to do this. We can’t share a lot of photos, because we want to protect the faces and identities of those that are protecting us, but here are a few shots that will give you an idea of the atmosphere near the front.

David got to pray with several groups of soldiers as they were going through boot camp just miles from the front lines. Please pray for those men to know that God is with them and the He loves them, that Christ died so that they could have eternal life in Him.

The rifles of the soldiers that we served in the previous picture—David washed their clothes, another church member made them tea or coffee, and the two chaplains with us took care of their other needs.

This is a bridge that was destroyed during the fighting in 2022 in one of the cities we ministered in.

This is an apartment building that is damaged by the fighting and constant russian shelling and drone attacks—this is from Izium, where russia massacred civilians and buried them in mass graves. The closer you get to russia in Ukraine, the fewer civilian buildings are left that have not been destroyed or at least damaged in some way. It’s almost funny that we can actually be thankful for the ugly, brutalist architecture of the early Soviet Union, as it seems to hold up the best against shakhed and missile attacks, especially in cities like Kharkiv and Sumy.

This church was hit by a medium-range missile in the first few days of the russian attack—the pastor was on the second floor in the same room where the missile hit; however, it pass through the wall and then the floor miraculously without exploding.

The civilian highways closest to the front are outfitted with anti-FPV-drone nets, which made it especially unnerving when we had to stop and wait to meet one soldier just by the road on one of our waypoints.

One of the main purposes of our trip was to encourage believers that are fighting on the front lines, so we brought “mobile communion” to them, prayed with them, sang worship songs, and read passages from the Bible, having “mini church services” in David’s car, on road sides, and even in cafes over coffee. Please pray that God would continue to give us opportunities to minister in this way. This is just the first trip that David took, but we are hoping for several more (if the war continues that long).

Testimony: Why it’s important to talk to your friends about missionaries

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Katya and I support a local missionary named Oleksandra Andriyashyna, who is pretty well-known among Calvary folks that have been to Ukraine or have some connection with missions in Eastern Europe (she’s the one on the left in the photo). She often writes to us to let us know when she has some kind of need; however, we cannot always meet that need, because we have been having some financial difficulties ourselves—some of our supporters have had to either cut back or stop giving in the past few months, and we have had unexpected or emergency expenses (please pray for those).

One of the cool things, though, is that, when we cannot support and give to her ourselves, we will take the request to our small group Bible study (the picture above), and they have often raised money for her to be able to travel to the front lines in Ukraine to minister from town to town and on military bases. It’s really cool to be the bridge, to see God use someone else to meet a friend’s need and to be the one that He used to connect those two dots.

I say that because we have a need—like I said, we have had some financial difficulties these past few months, and, at least at the time of my writing this post, things are getting worse. Over the past fifteen years as a missionary, I’ve never been in debt for an any extended period of time—we try to be as fiscally responsible as we possibly can; however, there are things outside of our control.

If you would like to help, there are four different ways you can do that:

  • Praying for us—please always do this first!
  • A fast, friendly gift via PayPal (contact us for info on that)
  • Giving online (this will get to us about a month later)
  • Telling others about us (“Testimony”)

If you would like to get my (David’s) personal contact info to pass on to someone else, please click here and send me a quick message—I’ll give you an intro letter and other information that you can pass on very easily.

God bless y’all!

Apartment Repairs update video

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Hey, everyone! Thank you all for praying for our different ministries over the summer. One of the things that we haven’t talked about much that also affects ministry a lot is where we live—for the past several months, Katya and I have been renting an apartment, because our home is under MAJOR repairs (basically a full remodel). The apartment is in a solid building, but it needs major work, as the place was built in the 80’s at the end of the Soviet Union. We started the process at the end of last year, and we’d hoped to be moved in by this month; however, because of delays and lack of funds, we have been set back several months. Here’s a video about where we are now:

Please pray for us, as this process will give us a better place to work, minister, live, record worship songs, have guests over, create ministry materials, etc. Every decision we made about where to put this or that thing had all of that in mind. Please also consider becoming a regular supporter to help us finish, as we have lost some support recently. Here are a couple of links, just in case you’re considering that:

P.S. – We also have a private Telegram group specifically for supporters that we will add you to once you become a regular supporter, so that you can be updated with prayer requests weekly—we try to keep in close contact with everyone that is on our Support Team.

Thank you guys for watching and for praying for us!

Ministries to Pray For

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Recently a friend of mine that’s on the missions committee of a church that supports us asked for a basic rundown of the ministries we are involved in to pray for and understand what we’re doing right now. Sometimes I don’t think I do enough to keep you guys informed on what we do everyday! Here’s the list that I gave to her:

  1. Katya is translating curriculum for biblical counseling.
  2. I am adapting a book called “The Whole Story of the Bible in 16 Verses” by Chris Bruno for our small group at church—it’s a great tool for a group like ours, which has unbelievers, new believers, and strong believers all at the same time.
  3. We are both studying at the local seminary, which takes up a lot of our time—right now we are studying Hebrew Exegesis via Ruth, Koine Greek, and Philosophy in Theology. All of those subjects are challenging and exciting in one way or another.
  4. I’m working on witnessing to local JW’s, as they are very prevalent in Ukraine (there are more JW’s than Baptists and Pentecostals combined in Ukraine).
  5. The worship team I lead is growing by leaps and bounds—we are playing our own arrangements of worship songs, and I’m hoping to start writing our own worship songs with them soon (something VERY needed in the Ukrainian context).
  6. We have a worship retreat coming up in June where we may have an opportunity to try to write a new song—I will be one of the leaders at that retreat.
  7. I am part of the preaching team at church, though I only preach a few times a year (not including invitations to preach or teach at other churches from time to time).
  8. I am teaching a class on prayer and worship this month at the local seminary.

I recently read Deuteronomy 6 in my devotions and was reminded about the importance of passing on our faith well to the next generation—most of what we do is involved in that somehow. Please pray for these ministries, that God would help us to be good ministers of the Gospel and His truth!

– David

P.S. Here is the last livestream from our worship team…

A note from my homework…

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I’m taking a seminary class on Homiletics (which is just a fancy way of saying “How to give a sermon”). In my textbook, one of the paragraphs really struck a chord with me, and my thoughts were much longer than a Facebook post should ever be:

A preacher who wants to infuse his sermons with freshness
and vigor must also see to it that his discussion contains
variety. He will not draw all his quotations from
Shakespeare or all his illustrations from his own children.
He will take pains to gather his material from every
available source, new and old, and use them wherever they
may be effectively applied. While he must aim for variety,
at the same time a preacher must make sure that the
material he uses holds human interest. Anecdotes and
factual material that relate to the circumstances men and
women find themselves in or that appeal to human emotions
and sympathies are certain to arouse attention. But the
preacher does not have to tell sob stories just to make
people weep. Instead, whatever material he brings into
the discussion should connect with people’s hearts.
– James Braga

I think this is one of the advantages for me as a missionary to having a Ukrainian wife, speaking Ukrainian, and really living among the people. I get to experience the culture in Ukraine and allow myself to become Ukrainian.

On the other hand, I’ve taught and heard sermons delivered that used examples from films that many Ukrainians have never watched or English songs they may or may not fully understand, and the preacher has to take 3-4 minutes of time to explain his own illustration… which takes away the purpose of an illustration. I also don’t think this is a pitfall that only applies to missionaries – we as American teachers can also lose our hearers to illustrations that make no sense to them. Describing the beauty of a ballet and its intricacies may be completely a lost cause at a biker church (or it may not!), or describing the passion of a metal concert will only get you cross looks at some Baptist churches.

Like Paul said, we need to “be all things to all people” as pastors, as teachers, and as Christians in general.