Today we put on a Christmas program at our kids school for the entire student body (75 kids) along with their teachers and director. Together with Vova & Natasha (puppets), Roma and the choral singers from Obuhkiv, Masha the translating queen and my two oldest it went really well.
Roma leads this great group of young singers who love God.
Thank you to all that gave from Crossroads and Facebook for the Bibles and other gifts we blessed the students and teachers with today.
I was able to share a few times about the incredible gift of God’s love in His Son. I believe we brought attractive attention and praise to God. The communist culture was to highlight ‘New Year’s’ as the biggest celebration of the year while attempting to relegate any Christ centered meaning to the folklore of old crusty, boring, religion. So to most kids here, Christmas is just one of many religious holidays on their Calendar that passes without much notice. We aren’t trying to convince them to become western commercial crazies but simply taking advantage of the natural orthodox holiday to share the gospel message in various forms – and that we did!
Putting together the gift bags complete with chocolates, candles and a children’s bible.
My favorite part of the day was hearing that after the event, some of the teachers required of their students to read 2 chapters from their new Ukrainian storybook bibles as homework over the weekend! How cool is that? Not only did they embrace the gift, they are promoting it and God’s Word is being read and contemplated by many young hearts, and even some of their parents now.
Kids patiently wait for their turn to receive their present.
Thankful for the opportunity. Glad we put our kids in this school. It’s not been an easy road for them, but I have a feeling it’s only the beginning of some neat opportunities to be salt and light for the Lord as a family.
Sincerely,
Bruce & Deborah CroweMissionaries – Rzyshchiv, Ukraine