We are ready to fight!

Our country has been in a state of war for more than 6 months now and it seems to get only worse from day to day. Here and there we hear the news from the battle field, appeals to participate and help on the east in whatever way we can. We constantly pray for our country and support our troops. And we are also “having shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace" (Eph 6)

Our students need the Gospel. We do not know what the next day will bring us, we do not know where our young guys will be and we do not know what their eternity will be like. As never before I realize my personal responsibility to bring the Gospel of peace to students of Odessa. 

This is our team of staff this year. Our former student, Katya Kornienko, joined the ministry full-time. God has been faithful and gave her both the calling and finances so that she could do evangelism and discipleship ministry. 

Alyona Ivanova was invited to participate in the Expedition Program. She will devote this year of her life to work with local churches in Poltava, Zhytomyr (Ukraine),Romania and Bulgaria to train young people from churches to share the Gospel and launch spiritual movements. We are pleased to know that Ukraine is not only receiving missionaries but we are also sending them right now! 

We also sent our brother, our new staff to serve in the east of Ukraine in the army. Roma went on staff this year. He was sent to minister to students in Dnepropetrovsk. But in July he was called to Ukrainian army and he decided to answer the call. Right mow he is being trained and he has 27 young soldiers under his command (what a mission filed!!!!). From day to day, they will be sent to the battle field. For Roma this is the ability not only to defend the homeland but also to witness to the guys who are going to fight alongside him. 

This semester we have put the emphasis on evangelism. Our vision: "By the end of this semester we want to share the Gospel with 300 students from Odessa universities. And we want every staff and student leader to have new disciples”. 

 

This semester, God gave me three lovely gifts - Alyona, Katya and Alina for mentoring. I want to help these girls grow in God, conformed to His image, and to grow in their skills of ministry. We will be praying and sharing the Gospel so that each of them has new disciples this year. 

Please pray for: 

1. Roma and his safety in the war zone. May God open the hearts of those soldiers who will hear the Word of God.

2. For those 300 students who we will share the Gospel with this semester. May they receive and repent. 

3. For Alyona Ivanova, may God bless her year of service in the Expedition. 

4. Alyona, Katya and Alina to have new girls to disciple.

News from the Ukrainian mission field

 I received this letter from Denis, a student leader in Odessa. It gives my heart so much joy to see how they are working  to expand God’s kingdom!

"This summer our leadership team has grown – instead of Katya and Alyona who decided to become full-time missionaries, Nastya, Vadim and Valentin joined us in reaching out Odessa students. We have a goal – to give students who are interested in God and the Gospel an opportunity to spend time with true followers of Christ and grow in faith. 

Prayer has always been a priority in our ministry, so we continued to meet every week to pray for God's blessings and repentance of Ukrainian students.

After the English Club and the hiking trip in the mountains we had some students who are interested in God and spiritual growth. For example, Max - is a student, studying to be a sailor. At our meetings he realized that he needed to study the Word of God and be discipled. Max attended our discussion Bible study groups where we read the parables from the scripture together. We were all meditating on it and thinking about application in our lives.

We continued to organize events for students - discussing spiritual parallels in the movies we watched together, scavenger hunt game in the center of Odessa and the talent show for students. At many of these events we were able to build relationship with students, talk about spiritual things  and learn more about their needs.

I was very glad to see that students were eager to participate in the movement, even in the difficult period of the passing the exams they felt that the time spent with Christians was unique.

I want you to meet the 2nd year student - Vika! Vika came to us for the first time to the English club this spring and was very surprised and interested, because it was the first time surrounded by Christian peers. She immediately felt that they were different from all her friends. She wanted to learn more about the cause of this and started going to a Bible study discussion groups where she could hear and read the Bible. Now her life is changing and it is getting closer to the main decision in her life.

This is what Vika wrote about our ministry: "I am convinced that every time I'm with you it’s the right place for me to be”. It’s true. When I leave any kind of a CRU event (discussion club on Wednesday or a baseball game on Thursday) I feel so inspired ... maybe even happy. It seems to me that this week's immersion in a positive environment of your movement gives me more spiritual strength. Anyway, you play a very important role in my life and I want to spend more time with you! "

Despite the fact that Vika came to us just recently, she already takes the initiative not only in spiritual study but even in the organization of projects! For example, she takes an active part in the preparation of our future volleyball tournament.

Sport is a good strategy to reach many students. Thanks God, we have 2 teams, football and baseball! On Saturday, June 28, we have organized the first football tournament. This is a good opportunity to meet new students and introduce them to a Christian movement.Recently we had a baseball tournament! We went to Berdyansk.  The goal for the tournament was to pass on our experience to local leaders and promote the development of CRU in Berdyansk. There were 4 teams including our own. In Berdyansk our students loved the Christian family that we stayed with. The tournament itself and the time on the road gave us a lot of opportunities to interact with students. The part of our program was  visiting the local Baptist church! It was the first time for most of our students to visit a protestant church.

Alina was also with us on this trip, and she was just thrilled to be at the tournament  and to meet Christians. Alina is a very proactive law student. She actively attends Bible study groups, trying not to miss any of our meetings and is even going to our summer project!

Dasha was on this trip with us as well. She met with us through baseball.  She herself contacted us and after the first meeting she decided that CRU company is a company for her.=)

We had a great time in Berdyansk. Students  once again realized that Christian life and atmosphere is unique. We thank God for such a trip, where we could break down stereotypes about Christians and learn more about the students to share with them about the Gospel.

Now many students are passing  final exams. Soon we will have a summer project with a goal to start a new student ministry in Cherkasy." 

Please join us in prayer during this time:

-          For all the students who come to Bible studies. May the Word of God leads them to repentance and life changing relationships with God

-          For our summer project in Cherkasy where we will help the local church to reach out to students and start a student ministry.

-          For Alyona, Elena and Kate who are raising support as new staff. May God meets all their needs and they are able to join the ministry in August. They are still 75-100$ short for monthly givings.

God promotes courage

Despite the dangerous situation in the country a group of Americans still decided to come and help us with   English clubs. It was a true miracle as other groups have refused to enter the country in such a dangerous time. And God blessed them for their courage and faithfulness. We had 280 students registered for our Clubs; we accepted 100 and 80 people were coming to us every day for two weeks. This is a record number of people at English clubs for us. I'm sure that God particularly worked in and through us at this time answering our prayers and supporting us.

 Every evening we discussed a story from the Bible discussing with the students such topics as:  the meaning of life, spiritual food, eternal life and salvation in Christ. The last night we shared the Gospel with them using 4 Spiritual Laws booklet.

Randy is sharing about a life
 that is pleasing to God

 After English clubs we continued on with our strategy – Pem (Personal evangelistic meeting).  Each student was asked to meet for a cup of tea and talk about how English clubs  influenced them. For us it was another opportunity to share our testimonies and Good News in a personal conversation.  And for them it was an opportunity to talk to someone in person asking questions without fear of the big group. I had 5 personal meetings with the girls after the English Club and I particularly remember meeting with Zhenya. We have similar life situations related to the family. God gave us a beautiful heart-to-heart talk and I was able to share with Zhenya about forgiveness of my father, relationship with relatives and God’s love.

 After the English we were took a group of 30 students hiking in the Carpathian Mountains. And again we needed courage and trust in God. Before we went hiking only in Crimea and the Carpathians were like «Terra Incognita" (unknown land) for us.  But knowing how students can be impacted by the grandeur of the mountains and ongoing communication with the Christians for three days we decided to go. And the Lord blessed us in abundance. It was a very nice hike. We encourage students to pray for our country, trust God the future of our country. In the end we got great feedback from them. Some having gone hiking being atheists left with a recognition of the existence of God, some students thought about their life meaning , and someone recognized that lives " wasted “ life, which a great start to search for meaning in God.

                                        Please pray:

 -  for all the students who were at the English club and in the hiking trip with us. God is actively working in their hearts, but the enemy does not sleep. Let them trust Him and follow him. After all, our country will change if God changes each student from the inside out!

 - And of course please continue to join us in prayer for peace and stability in Ukraine. May 25th is the elections. May all the riots don’t stop this event from happening. Ukraine needs some strong, godly and wise leaders to take our country from the pit.

Who will go?

This was the slogan of the Student Summit in Hungary that 40 students from Ukraine attended.

Gang from Ukraine

It was a special time to hear from great speakers, study the Word, share experience with other students from different countries of Eastern Europe and Russia. All students were called to go and make disciples.

Few high lights of the Summit

1. The second day we got to Hungary we found out that Russian troop entered Ukraine. All students and staff were desperate and worried. We prayed for our country every night and we had students from other countries joining us in this prayer. Russian students were there too, supporting and crying our t God for peace. It was wonderful to see how we were united as children of God, citizens of Heavenly Kingdom.

2. God was moving in our hearts encouraging us to fast for spiritual fruit. 90% of students shared that they made a decision to fast in different ways for their disciples.

 I believe that by the end of this semester there will be a major change in them and in those around them.

Tariku Fufa - our speaker at Summit. God was speaking to all of us through him.

This is what students from Odessa mentioned at our sharing time:

Left to the right:
Zhenya, Nastya, Me, Alyona, Vadim

Zhenya: he decided to challenge two of his friends to start a mentoring relationship. 

Nastya: decided to have one day a week that she will spend in a dorm sharing her faith and looking for disciples.

Alyona: she made a decision to spend quite time with God on daily basis without skipping. She has also signed up for the Expedition Team (one year as a stint with CRU)

Vadim: he wants to find one or two guys and help them grow spiritually. Pray for him to grow in his faith and may God bless his personal ministry.

Me: God has called me to a two months partial fast for my girls. I want to see them multiplied so much!

Please pray for our students and their decisions that were made. May they trust God and reap the fruit of their faithfulness.Pray for current situation in Ukraine. May this conflict gets solved peacefully, with no bloodshed. Ukraine needs another chance after all these years of bureaucracy and corruption.

The revolution in hearts

It has been about 2 months since the revolution started in Ukraine.

Lots of people from all over Ukraine gathered in Kiev to show the protest against the actions of our government. There were lots of events after that, good and bad, but our nation is in need of prayer support right now. Things in Odessa are peaceful enough but we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.

A man is reading the Gospel of John

This event, scary and sad on one hand, opened a lot of opportunities to share the Gospel and encourage people to pray and seek God’s guidance and comfort. A lot of people at Maydan were offered to join Christians in prayer.

Please pray for Ukraine:

- Parliament is coming to work again on Thursday, another attempt to come to any resolution. We need FAITH and HOPE pretty desperately! 

- Pray together for all the missing, that number continues to grow. Please continue to pray that each one will come home alive and that God will blanket them with his peace and protection if they are in the hands of those who desire to do evil.

- More of all pray for spiritual revival in hearts of Ukrainians

We have started the semester with a training time for our leaders’ team. God has blessed us with 10 wonderful, young and brave students who want to dedicate their time and effort to the Lords’ work.
This week our ministry is holding a big student conference in Odessa.

Please pray for all of students from all over Ukraine (200 participants) to travel safe and be able to host an event .
The name of the conference is LIFE^x 
We will be talking about discipleship and spiritual multiplication.

Belarus Mission!

A group of 8 people (three staff and 5 students) went to Belarus to help and encourage the local team in building spiritual movements.

This trip was a true blessing for us and it was a special time in many ways.

I will share with you what we did and what God did through it.

Day 1 - driving from Odessa to Minsk (took as 18 hours)

Day 2 – distributing invitations to the film festival and meeting with students from Belarus for prayer and orientation for our strategy.

Minsk University

Day 3 – giving out more flyers and film festival in the evening

Day 4 – a follow up meeting after the festival with pizza and the Gospel=)

Using pictures to share the Gospel

Day 5 – witnessing in the dorms of Minsk Universities

Day 6 – sightseeing

Day 7 – driving back home

Buffalo – a symbol of Belarus Hockey team

For me this trip was an illustration of how God is leading His people and protects them from evil. Once again I experienced the power of prayer. 

1. Right after leaving home about 15 miles from Odessa we had a tire issue and thought we would need to have a major repair. We prayed – it took us 15 min to fix it at the gas station. 

2. Closer to the border with Belarus a policeman stopped us (in Ukraine it means you need to bribe him otherwise he will write you a ticket for a big amount of money). While Dima was talking to him we prayed. When he heard we were Christians (he realized there’s going to be NO bribing) he just let us go without any ticket.

3. On the border frontier guards didn’t want let one of our guys. He didn’t have a certain document on him to prove he is not AWOL from the army. We prayed. They said he could cross the border.

4. Due to a very bad snowy weather our Toll road device didn’t work. They said on the way back we will have to pay a 150$ fee. We prayed for God to do a miracle. Leaving the country they didn’t say a word to us about the fee. 

5. In Belarus law any Christian groups aren’t allowed to rent places and gather somewhere besides church. We had to do an outreach in the seminary (for non-Christians it’s a taboo place to go to) We prayed and there was a huge fog that night. You could see the building but crosses on it weren’t seen. Most people didn’t even realize at first what facility that came to. Thus they stayed and didn’t leave right away.

6. We prayed for opportunities to share the Gospel personally with people. God gave us 38 students to share the Good News with.

This trip helped our students experience what it means not to have freedom for evangelism. They said they were encouraged to use opportunities in Ukraine and not take them for granted. And we all grew in trust as we could see how God delivered us after every single prayer.

May His name be praised in all the nations!!!

Please pray:

1. For those students who heard the Gospel. May they continue their search and come to local student ministry.

2. Pray for our students to share their passion and impressions with the rest of a student team here. May this trip influence their dedication the witness in their own country.

(This video is about our trip (sorry it's in russian)

3. PLEASE PRAY FOR UKRAINE!!! If you are following the news you are probably aware of our country being on the edge and we might end up having a civil war if things don’t change. Please pray for our government not to hurt their own people. May the conflict get solved without violence.

Getting a little personal!

During these two months God has given us the opportunity to hold a large number of activities to meet new freshmen of Odessa schools. We had a Quest game for about 100 students.

They celebrate the victory=)

   We tried a new strategy to reach the guys specifically - Extreme Camp, with racing cars, elements of alpinism, zip line and paintball.

  This week we started a short film festival. A lot of students showed up to watch the short movies and discuss the topic: "Who am I? What is the reason for life? ".

   This is Lisa and Lena. We met them at the dorm distributing the weekly planners for freshmen. The girls are very open to dialogue about spiritual things and came to the festival. 

But our goal is, of course, not just an organization of large meetings. We want to get personal with students and after building relationship at our weekly meetings we want to introduce them to the One Who can change their lives and save them. In October we invited new students to meet with us for a Personal evangelistic meeting. We offer girls and boys to meet in a café for a cup of tea and talk about God. My student Oksana and I shared the Gospel with three girls sharing the same name - Anya (Ann) = )

Anya studies at Odessa National University. She participated at English Summer camp. After the camp and fellowship with Christians she started reading the Bible and thinking more about God.

And this Anya we met this fall. She is also very open to a dialogue about spiritual things. This photo is from our personal evangelistic meeting with her.

Evangelistic diagram that Oksana 
drew when she shared the Good News with Anya.

Please pray:

-for repentance and spiritual growth for Anya and Anya 

- for many more opportunities for student leaders and staff to invite non-christian students to meet personally to hear the Gospel.

- may Lisa and Lena continue coming to our meetings and may God produce a spiritual hunger in them.

   And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

(Gal.6:9)