Tag: Ukraine

Happy (?) new year!

Explosions in Lviv are not the fireworks we wanted for New Years

DavidLeave a comment

I’m actually really excited about 2024—God is growing us and changing us in many different ways. There has been so much shift and change in the past 365 days that I know He is doing something good, new, and possibly big. However, this year started out already pretty rough for us. Russia began the new year celebrations by bombing all of Ukraine constantly from about December 29th until yesterday (January 3rd). Moreover, that’s just what we experienced in Western Ukraine—Eastern Ukraine, closer to the front, has had no break whatsoever, regardless of the holidays. Here are a couple of pictures I took or friends took from an explosion that happened in the neighborhood of our old church in southern Lviv:

A view of the blast crater from above
I took a selfie from a distance, showing how far away the blast affected other buildings—I’m standing right next to the kindergarten where we replaced windows.
This apartment building was most affected by the blast. Other organizations were helping with the cleanup there, and our church was advised to help with other affected areas.
Inside a classroom in a school that was hurt by the blast

As you can imagine, explosions from rocket attacks in Lviv are not the fireworks we wanted for New Years. However, God used even this! Just a few hours after the attacks, when the coast was clear, our new church, Ukrainian Bible Church, jumped right in with the cleanup. One of the buildings that was damaged by this explosion was a kindergarten where a girl from our church works—we went there and helped to repair windows, clean up glass, and make the place ready to serve kids in the neighborhood again.

I’m really proud to be a part of a church that’s ready in a moment’s notice on a weekday in the middle of the workday to just drop everything and help the community. Katya and I live on the other side of town (we drove more than an hour to get to the neighborhood where the cleanup was happening), and by the time we got there, the work was basically finished! Ukrainians are amazing—please keep praying for them, for their spirits to be high, and for God to bring revival here.

Our church has organized a round–the–clock, year–long fast in 2024 for a “just peace” and for Ukraine in general. For this to happen, each of our church members has agreed to fast for two full days out of the year. However, anyone can take part in the fasting and praying for Ukraine—if you would like to, please contact us, and I (David) will get you more information.

God is working in Ukraine; we can feel it and see it around us. He is opening up opportunities to talk with neighbors and build relationships with unbelievers, He is growing our local churches, and He is bringing outsiders into His flock. Please pray for us to have the boldness and the words we need to share with our friends and neighbors the great news of the hope we have in Christ (Ephesians 6:19).

God bless you all! Happy new year!

2023 coming to a close

DavidLeave a comment

This year has been a good year, though with a lot of transition. From moving back to Lviv from Czechia at the end of last year, to moving our family from there in late–summer this year, to joining a new church in Lviv, to Katya starting a new study program at the seminary–backed school of leadership, to myself (David) switching seminary programs—saying that there have been a few changes in 2023 is an understatement. However, this past month has been a good one, and we are thankful to feel at home with friends in our new church.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Thanksgiving meal with family
Turkey!

Katya and I had a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving with family here in Lviv. We went all–out on American traditions from my childhood, even though I was the only American in the group! We had turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade pumpkin pie, homemade egg nog, and a few other family favorites.

One of the coolest parts was something my family did at the beginning of every Thanksgiving meal in Texas: we would take five corn kernels and separate them, remembering the famine that the pilgrims endured at the beginning of their time in America (Ukrainians had their own famine caused by the USSR in the 1930’s, so the tradition carries over well) and thanked God for the abundance He has given since then. After that, we went around the table and shared what we are thankful for over the past year while everyone was getting their food. Lastly, we sang Christmas carols, as Thanksgiving was always the official start of the Christmas season for my family back in the USA.

It was really cool to feel connected to my roots and to share these American Christian traditions with my family here. We will do a completely Ukrainian Christmas celebration on the 25th, having twelve different dishes for our “Holy Night” dinner the evening before. (If you would like to learn more about Ukrainian Christmas traditions, you can click here to check out my book about that.)

Katya and the Leadership Course “Beyond Suffering”

Katya began studying this year at a local leadership school. The course she is taking is called “Beyond Suffering” and teaches how to serve wounded and disabled veterans coming back from the war. It has been interesting to get to know the teachers, as some of them are former SF operatives from the United States.

One of the more recent teachers is a Paralympic athlete that has the Ukrainian record for lifting the most weight with one arm. He and his wife have ten foster children, and they are a living example that disabilities do not have to stop your development as a person.

The Paralympic athlete and teacher answering questions in class

David’s Seminary Studies

I (David) am in the process of moving from one seminary program to another, switching from a masters in local church growth to a masters in theological studies. This will better equip me to teach local, indigenous ministers, giving them the tools they need to serve in a wartime and postbellum context. They need teachers that can both speak their language and be in their context, but most of the materials needed to teach those things are in English—very little is written or translated into Ukrainian. This means that Katya and I are uniquely placed to help them and to be a bridge between the English–speaking world (where are the materials are) and everyday Ukrainian life (where we live, work, go to church, etc.). If you would like to see more about how we serve indigenous ministers here in Ukraine, please click here to read our vision statement.

David leading worship at the seminary
David leading worship at the seminary

The main reason I’m switching programs is because I’m seeing my calling as a teacher more and more—in the spring, I’m going to teach a class at seminary about worship. I’ll be talking about four different types of worship in that class…

  1. Life worship (Romans 12:1–2)
  2. Gathered worship (Hebrews 10:25, 1 Timothy 4:13)
  3. Musical worship (Colossians 3:16–17, Ephesians 5:17–21)
  4. Inner worship (Psalm 42:11)

Please pray for my students, as they prepare for the class (they actually do most of the homework before coming to Lviv and listening to my lectures). Please also pray for me as their teacher—that I could truly lead them to worship from the heart in a way that honors God and glorifies Him, both inwardly and outwardly.

David’s previous class where he taught about worship

Even though I’m really excited about moving on to a new masters degree program, I’m still really going to miss my old seminary group (see the picture below). Several of those men have been with me in the same classes since 2018—we’ve been through a lot together, and I will continue to pray for them, their ministries, and their families.

David’s M23 seminary group

Conclusion

Thank you all again for praying for us and being there for us as we continue this adventure in Lviv, Ukraine. If any of you would like to connect with us more often, we try to send out a newsletter about every 1-2 months, and you can sign up for that here. Also, you can become a regular supporter or do a special gift for the end of the year on this page. However, please be sure to send us a message once you get that set up, as we like to send out weekly iMessage and SMS updates with pictures and prayer requests to our regular supporters.

God bless you all! Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Links:

Videos that we’ve made!

DavidLeave a comment

One of our ministries here in Ukraine is making videos for the church. We thought you guys would like to see a few of the ones that we’ve made so far. This is actually all done with free or open-source software, and we’ve often needed to borrow equipment. Please pray that we’ll be able to buy more equipment (microphones, booms, camera dollies, etc.), software, and upgrades for David’s computer. The computer memory we want to buy is only $150, and that would make a huge difference in the size of the projects we would be able to complete; however, it’s outside of our budget right now.

This is a promotional video for our social media and web ministries. It basically encourages people to get involved in the web ministry and to share our content as a ministry. This was our first really big video project. Most of the animations were done in Inkscape (an open-source SVG editor), and the music is from a royalty-free music site (we’ve even heard the same song used on TV in commercials and stuff).

This is a video that celebrates the time we went and played baseball with our church. The text says “To play baseball, you need to know the rules and practice… but most importantly, you need a team! Play ball!!! New Horizons L’viv church – we love to play together! Next time, play with us! Baseball! New Horizons L’viv Baseball!”

This video was one of the harder ones to produce because of the emotions involved. Please keep praying for the situation here in Ukraine. This video commemorates those that died fighting for their freedom in Kyiv. It says “We remember. New Horizons L’viv.” The black background at the end with the Ukrainian ribbon on the corner symbolizes mourning for the people that died.

If you would like information on how to support the Sneads financially, please click here.

The Prayer Meeting was Great

DavidLeave a comment

2014-04-12 17.37.30Well… This is our last weekend in America for a while. We do hope to come back in about two years just to visit. Thanks a lot to all that have made our stay in the U.S.A. so awesome! We really enjoyed visiting all of you all over the States.

We had a great prayer meeting today at Horizon Christian Fellowship (see picture left). Thanks to all that came. We really appreciate all of you that are praying for us and helping us in so many ways.

Please keep praying for us as we prepare to take off on Tuesday. We actually won’t be home until Saturday night, because we couldn’t find train tickets from Kyiv to L’viv until then.

Some stuff you can pray about for us:

  • Safe travels
  • Luggage problems (we are still negotiating with the airline as to how many bags we can take – they are supposed to give us an extra bag)
  • Vision for web-ministry (David is working on a strategy to help the social media team in L’viv really take off)
  • Wisdom with our studies and work (Katya is considering two jobs, and David is studying in seminary)
  • The general situation in Ukraine (separatists, Russian instigation, armies at the border, and an economic currency crash are all there waiting for us)
  • Pastors and Christians in Eastern Ukraine (they are the closest to the border and the most affected by the Russian invasion)
  • Revival in Ukraine

 

Tomorrow there will be a “referendum”…

DavidLeave a comment

voteTomorrow in Crimea, there will be a “referendum” to the people of Crimea. Basically that means that everyone in Crimea will be able to vote on whether or not they want to be a part of Russia; however, no one is really expecting a fair count, either, especially with Russian troops prowling the streets of Crimea and other parts of Southern Ukraine.

Please pray for this situation. Please pray that God would convict the men and women involved in this sham that they are sinning against God and their own people. Pray that God-fearing men and women would stand up against this unconstitutional vote tomorrow and that God would somehow foil Putin’s plans to annex parts of Ukraine.

Picture Credit – by liz west on Flickr.com, some rights reserved.

What are we doing next?

There are many people that are asking, “What are you doing next? Are you still going back?” Our answer is, “Yes.” God has called us to Ukraine. We know that He hasn’t changed that calling, so we are going back as planned on April 15th. Please pray for safe travels and that we would be able get the things we need to bring back to Ukraine. Also, please pray for favor with Lufthansa Airlines. They normally only allow one bag per person, but our travel agent said that they may allow us one extra bag because we are missionaries, but she won’t be able to know for a couple more weeks.

Click here to contact us if you would like to help.