Abbey with her new little class – they have breakfast (soup, tea), nap in bunk beds, she’s not digging it much at the moment. Can you spot her far left, big poofy hair.
We are two weeks into the school semester here in Ukraine. We attempted to change schools for our younger boys from the nearby village they’ve attended for 3yrs, to one just down the street. Everything was going well, but then we were hit with a series of ethical and moral dilemmas that would take pages to explain.
We do have permission to transfer the kids, but only after one month – let’s just say the director and 2 teachers were extremely thankful we stuck a deal, saving two teachers jobs.
It’s been fast and furious at the Cafe, especially last week with many new students checking out the Cafe. It’s been great to see recognizable faces returning, and some Awakening shirts roaming around town 🙂
Brent has been a deck painting maniac this week – ours, then Neil’s, and today the Cafe!
We have decided to start English Club for kids in two weeks. We are going to host a separate Adult only English night – more relaxed and will experiment with formats – the main goal will be to get to know more folks in our town – hopefully families we could build bridges with. I really enjoyed the opportunity English provided this summer to be used by the Lord in new ways.
The invite says to come and taste some new coffee and dress nice 🙂
We are hosting a Coffee Night on the 20th, here’s our ticket! It’s by invitation only, as we’ll be inviting our most loyal customers to try out some new beans – and help us make some new selections. It will be semi-formal and Sveta is in charge of the evening.. I think I have to wear a tie…
Our worship night advertisement – we will seek Him and find Him together this Sunday evening.
This Sunday evening we’ll be hosting a Worship Evening on the 2nd floor. The weather has been perfect, not too hot, not too cold.. so looking forward to some events like this at our property before winter. We’re seeing more and more folks here use social media, and even Facebook (over VK the Russian version), it’s led to some interesting new dynamics with communication. I think we will see some visitors come to the prayer night that might not be church goers – we’ll keep you posted! Bronwyn is playing, and Nazar from Khargalyk leading from guitar – we also have Nika Fuga from the Pentecostal church singing – and we hear a group from Kiev is coming down too.
This is the 4th or 5th actual ‘inspector’ we’ve had to deal with. Piles of books and papers, stamps.. and each time we are ‘asked’ to pay a fee for their gas (in car for coming).
Many other things going on, including finalizing our trip to Belarus early October, and gas progress (Alyosha our cook has been furiously knocking on doors and pushing paper). He actually has traveled to 3 towns in the past week, if we could only see visually in some graphic how much effort, time, and distance traveled over the course of 2 years trying to get our gas turned on legally. It defies anything imaginable. One day, Lord willing, and soon, we may have pizza.
Today I Russian gentleman from Moscow visited the Cafe. We chatted for a bit – I was as surprised to see him in our town as he was I. It was lovely to hear pure Russian again, it makes such a difference in our understanding. We’re looking forward to hearing and speaking with Russian speaking population with our friends in Minsk. They officially have Belorussian there, which I hear is a lot more like Ukrainian, but most folks speak Russian.
Broderic is doing well. He’s farming, driving huge pea/bean harvesters in Western Ontario, Canada. Great experience, he’s working 12hr shifts now, 7 days a week. He’s anticipating college spring 2016.. amazing how quickly that is coming up.
Please pray for:
- wisdom on heating situation at Cafe – and provision.
- wisdom with our staff, a couple of them are at crossroads with the Lord, and it’s challenging because I so long to give them more responsibility spiritually, but we need to move at a pace where their faith is.
- this sunday worship night!
- for Abbey, she’s been crying as I take her to her little Nursery/Kindergarten.. we’ll give it a few more days, we really want her to pick up the language, she’s so stinking smart.
Bruce & Deb