Been busy around these parts. Earlier this month I took Deb away for a week to the mountains, a wonderful time of rest and enjoying God’s creation. We returned to receive my parents for a week, their 4th visit (I think). This weekend I plan to take some more pictures of the Cafe, to show you all progress.
Noah goes to the "Haircut Store"
Alyosha and Vitalik have been working every day pouring concrete, we dug up the existing floor as it was not level and poorly done. I wanted to make special note of how God provided today. This week we officially ran out of money. Up until this point all funds have been coming from two sources, and my family was one of them. We are at the point of needing larger amounts for material purchases, and for the first time I had to say ‘no, we don’t have the money’ to Alyosha as he wanted to go to Kiev for some more stuff. We prayed Wednesday morning, and then again this morning I enjoyed a brief time of ‘laying it at God’s feet.’ To be honest, it was sort of nice, I look forward to needing God now come and show Himself, for my own faith, and the faith of the church/others that are witnessing this project come together. Well, this morning a brother stopped in and blessed the project with money, funds from a garage sale at his home church. It was just enough for us to continue on our plan, and get the materials to keep us going another 2 weeks!
My heart rejoices in the way God works. Pray with us that we would be patient and trust God through this, this cafe is ‘unto the Lord’ from the construction to the operation once it opens. He is putting the pieces together now, literally! In total, we need probably another $20-30k to complete the cafe for opening in August, we could spend a lot more on things, but that is a conservative guess. If you believe God wants you to step up and pitch in, don’t neglect being a part of it, every dollar will help we’ll be praising God for it!
Look for some more updates and pictures soon. We’ll also be updating you on prison ministry and our upcoming men’s retreat, some neat things happening there as well we’d like prayer for.
Bruce & Deb