We’re sad to inform everyone that Vlad’s appeal was rejected. Please continue to pray for Vlad’s faith, and his hurting family. It’s unclear what his next steps may be, however for now he’ll continue serving his unjust sentence.

No Christian cliches, no comfort in the wicked seemingly having their way. We grieve, and we pray for God to free Vlad, or do something even greater.

This morning I read where Mary & Martha were upset that Jesus didn’t come and heal Lazarus at the specific time they asked.. Jesus delayed, and now it was too late, Lazarus was dead. The Jews began questioning Christ too, wondering how He could open the eyes of the blind, yet not heal his friend? Faith was tested, and hearts were sad.

The story ends in victory however, the confines of the tomb did not sway the power of God. How excellent are His ways, which we can only see in part. We continue to trust in the same Father who loves Vlad.

More than ever, Vlad’s faith will be challenged, heightening the spiritual battle surrounding the situation. Now is the time to pray, trust and not loose heart. Luke 18:1

Sincerely,
Bruce & Deb

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Счастливого Рождества и Нового года, чтобы наши украинские друзья!

Our 4 oldest tackle the slopes for the first time (though we look like pros right?)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our Ukrainian friends! For the first time in 4 years, we’ve enjoyed celebrating in North America, it’s been great to see family and friends but also a bit more hectic and challenging that I anticipated. Yesterday, my company Cypress Interactive completed an 8 month project for The Brooklyn Tabernacle – their brand new website is now life if you’d like to check it out! – click here

Pretty pregnant mom couldn't ski but enjoyed some reading.

We just returned from taking the older kids skiing, it was a blast and thankfully nobody got hurt. We are all very sore. They had internet where we stayed (of course) and I ended up working on and off through it as our guys finished the final programming stages. We will be heading back to Ukraine in two weeks, I’m looking forward to completing the Cafe and working towards opening that this Spring. As well, I miss studying with our Wednesday night group of friends and believers.

The sign says it all.

A few weeks ago I put together a quick video of RZ and the Lighthouse Cafe to show our church in Texas, I’ll be showing it again tomorrow morning at First Baptist here in Canada – I’ve been asked to share the main message as well and thankful for the opportunity to share what God is doing in our Ukrainian town through His people. I hope you enjoy it, we’ll be producing more videos this year, what a great way to show you stuff right?

Thanks for checking in and for all your prayers.  Please remember to pray for Vlad, he has been transferred to Kiev prison in preparation for his Appeal Court Date on Jan 12.

Sincerely,

Bruce & Deborah Crowe
Missionaries
Rzhyschiv, Ukraine

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Merry Christmas from all of us!

On behalf of Deb and the kids, we wish all our friends, supporters and family a safe and restful holiday season. We’re currently in Canada, working feverishly to finish some Cypress ‘end of year’ projects so we can shut down and enjoy family all around us.  Tonight we gather with 75+ relatives, aunts, uncles, cousins..

Last Sunday I was able to share at Crossroads to our home church in Texas.  If you’d like to take a listen it’s available online here:

Who Jesus Is from Crossroads Community Church on Vimeo.

I’ve been asked to share next Sunday at a church where I served as the Youth Pastor here in Canada next Sunday. It’s been 14yrs I think since I spoke at this particular church, should be fun as I still know most of the congregation (i think!).

Please pray for Vlad’s court case, it’s coming up on Jan 12. Vlad will be moved from the prison on Jan 6 in preparation for this as the court case is in another city.

We’ve received some donations towards an outreach in RZ coming up in the next week or two. The donations cover the buses that will bring in young students from around the town for a Kiev led ministry play which shares the gospel. This is a wonderful opportunity for continued relationship building in the town with various believers, as well as sowing the seeds of the gospel in young hearts. Last year there were over 400 students bussed in for this event, pray for Yura and all those helping to make this happen.

Sincerely,
Bruce & Deb

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I often find pictures on my camera from one of my kids, this one is from Bronwyn, a lovely Christmas shot girl!

Today is our 17th anniversary.  What an amazing gift God gave me in Deb.  It’s neat that we’re in Texas for it, we had friends offer to watch our kids tonight and we’ll have an official date!

This week has flown by.  We’ve had several group type gatherings, seeing our dear church friends and family as well as hanging out with Bo and Beth earlier this week at their house.  Deb has enjoyed catching up with friends and the kids have been enjoying lots of play.  I’ve been working since we hit the ground in Texas with our guys at Cypress, pushing for a Jan 1 website launch for The Brooklyn Tabernacle, a project 8 months in the making and much overdue.

The hectic pace all around is not something easily adjusted to.  In our 3.5 yrs overseas we’ve become increasingly Ukrainian it’s not good or bad, it’s just a fact.  The first few days in Texas I watched in amazement at all the traffic, the sea of automobiles racing to and fro.  The orderly chaos of moving masses, some to work, others to shop, but all on schedule and strictly on it.  I was reminded again how the gospel has such a difficult task to ‘break in’ to the lives of this busy culture and what an opportunity we have in Ukraine where people aren’t in a rush, and relationships have the time to develop in meaningful and rewarding ways.  Everyone here has such isolated, modular lives, packed to the brim with 100 things each day.  The ‘conveniences’ and time saving efficiencies have only served to create more time to do 10 more things.. There’s got to be a balance between ‘some’ conveniences and not having any..

We love visiting our friends, but trying to spend quality time together seems like a daunting task, and simply inserting ourselves into the fray for a week doesn’t produce all that our hearts long for.  The answer?  They need to come and visit us!

Last week we were in Canada, here are some pictures from the Picton Parade.  My parents church had a float with live music and kids on the back.  This is the town where I grew up, driving in the truck with my dad I was able to see a number of school friends, old neighbors and relatives.  It was an odd experience as well, talk about time warp.

The marching band was always a favorite to listen to as a kid

View from the truck pulling the float, smile and wave boys, smile and wave.

We head back to Canada this coming week, where’ we’ll spend Christmas and New Year’s with my family.

This Sunday I’ll be sharing at Crossroads Community Church, our home church.  I’m excited about that, to try and encapsulate what the Lord has been doing in my own heart, as well as in Ukraine.  I don’t have as much desire to share about Ukraine or ‘ministry’ per say, but to encourage those that are hurting, or struggling in their faith.. and to do it in english without a translator will be fun again.  If you read this before Sunday, please pray for me!

Quick few updates:

A) pray for Vlad’s appeal date: Jan 12!!!

B) we received over $12k toward the finishing of the cafe!!  Thank you to all that gave, it was a timely encouragement as we’ve been out of $ for about 2 months and continuing to finish it in faith.  When we return we’ll order and finish the kitchen Lord willing, and then final stage is chairs, tables, and documentation.. we’re almost there!

C) We’re going skiing Jan 4-8th, this may sound trivial but would you pray for our family that this would be a relaxing/refreshing time?   This trip hasn’t been anything close to restful yet, especially since coming to Texas.  I want to be ‘all there’ for my wife and kids during this trip, it’s really a special thing for my older kids who’ve never been skiing.  Anyway, please pray that this would be a great time of family bonding.. and that nobody breaks anything!! 

Thanks for checking in, we appreciate your prayer and support.  Please remember to pray with us for Vlad, and the church in Ukraine.  God prepare us all for what He wants to see happen this new year.

Bruce & Deb

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Lake Ontario, Prince Edward County

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”  Psalm 19:1-2

Our favorite place in The County, West Lake

Rodge loses his hat and Brent enjoys the moment!

This morning our family (minus Bronwyn!) enjoyed some brisk Canadian air and powerful scenery.  Remembering our grand Creator, who with the stroke of His hand painted the sky and set the earth in it’s place.  The grandeur of God comes into more accurate focus when we get out of our houses, out of our familiar places and consider the work of His hands!

Clark wanders around the massive slabs of rock looking for ice to smash.

We’ve been slowly adjusting to the Eastern Time Zone, we’re still all getting up at 5-6am, and zonked by 9pm.  It’s been a nice change.  Tomorrow at church we’ll be joining dozens of relatives for worship, then directly off to sitting on a float in the Santa Clause parade.  The weather is much like Ukraine, one more week then we’ll be off to Texas and shedding the fluffy winter coats.

The beautiful Deb enjoying her kids

What is the glory of God?  We hear this so much that I think it takes on various meanings.  I think God’s glory is the radiating nature of God that we experience.   God has revealed His glory through creation.  We learn about ‘who’ God is in part through the work of His hands.  How else do we experience the glory of God?  The person of Jesus Christ!  I think too often our theology gets in the way of God’s revealed nature in Christ.  When we think about “glory”, we often think about God’s power, His sovereignty and other attributes that distance the Creator from His creation.  While no-one doubts God is not made in man’s image, we shouldn’t deny the opposite.  God has poured out His nature in us, we enjoy the things that God made because we are made in His image.  We appreciate beauty, we despise injustice, we are moved by kindness and appalled by wicked acts.  We have been designed for God, to know Him in the beauty of genuine relationship.  We are given the mind of Christ to enjoy Him, and the Spirit of God to experience His very presence.

The next time you think about the glory of God, think about how God has chosen to reveal Himself to mankind.  A manger, the Son of God made flesh, walking among us, ministering to man and offering up His life for sin.  The next time you think about God’s glory, think about love, divine love exegeted in the person of Christ, the exact representation of His nature (Heb 1:3).  When we study Jesus, we study God’s revealed nature, the Word become flesh, beholding His glory (John 1:18).  Jesus was the demonstration of God for us, not Zeus, or some abstract, unknowable, superior being, but Jesus!

Sometimes when I listen to fellow believers, they sound more caught up in overly repeated quotes from popular authors than the person of Christ as revealed in our Bibles.   We relate to Jesus, because God wants and chose to be related to.  Jesus declared the Glory of God, the true nature and character of God.  Do you believe this?  It’s taken me years to wrap my tiny head around this simple fact.  It seems we want God to be different than the clearly revealed nature in Christ, we find it impossible to believe that God thinks and would act JUST LIKE CHRIST!  Once we accept that it was OUR GOD, IN CHRIST, reconciling the world to HIMSELF, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob incarnate, wow, the glory of God becomes amazing, because the nature of God is revealed..

He loves, He cares, He pursues, He is moved, He waits, He longs, He sees, He knows.  How can you be sure?  Study Jesus!  The next time you look up to the heavens, or gaze upon the setting sun, think about the God who has shown Himself not only all-powerful, but all loving.  Consider not only the hands that stretched the sky, but the hands that fed the poor and healed the sick.  He’s not left us abandoned in our sinful state, He’s entered our world and promises new life to all that will surrender.

I enjoyed creation today, it reminded me of the gracious King who became man.

Bruce & Deb

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