A New Van!!!

As you know, for some time now we have desired to get a van...one that would work regularly.  We have been saving and started looking around.  A neighbor, who knew we were looking, found out about the perfect van and shared the information with us.  Today, we finalized the purchase.  What a blessing and answer to our prayers!  This will make transporting people to and from services much easier as it will reduce the amount of trips I need to make.  Thank you all for your prayers for this over the years and your generous love offerings when we were stateside as much of that was used in the purchase of this van.

Prayer Letter

October 27, 2012

Church

“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” 1 Corinthians 3:6  What a blessing it is to be able to be used of God!  He definitely does not need us, but chooses to let us take part in His plan.  Over the past few weeks, multiple people have come forward acknowledging their need of salvation.  We are unsure how many have prayed, but among those were Valodia (the man we did Bible lessons with and who came faithfully for years), Ruselan (the man we did Bible lessons with in the prison) and Baba Maroosa!  Slavic has grown abundantly over the past year and the others who came forward were a result of his witnessing.  One lady in particular seemed to be greatly burdened over her need of salvation and Slavic himself had the opportunity to lead her to the Lord!  Her name is Olya.  Although we had met her and given her tracts a few times, she did not start coming to church until recently.  She has been quite faithful during the time the Whites were there and appeared 

greatly convicted after every sermon as Mike White clearly presented the Gospel each week.  The others that came forward were Olya’s sister, Nastia and her daughter Naomi, Tonya, Olya’s friend, and Arteum and Sergay, friend’s of Slavic.  We are excited to get back and talk with these people.  Since the Whites were required to leave the country, the church is without a Pastor for two more weeks.  We praise the Lord that He allowed Brother Mike to stay there two weeks longer than expected!  Do remember to pray for our little church.  Especially with so many newly saved, we know that Satan will try to hinder their growth.  Even with no one there, the church is continuing to see around 20 people in attendance.

We also ask for you to pray for Slavic as Yuri has sent his nephew to persecute him, trying to get money from him, threatening to beat him and throw him in prison.  Satan does not like Slavic’s witness and we are praying for God’s protection on him during this time.  They will think that without a missionary there, Slavic will be more vulnerable, but God is still there!

 Family

We have our passports, visas and plane tickets and are ready to be home.  We fly out of Washington, D.C. November 8th at 5 pm!  We have said goodbye to our family and friends, though Jessica’s parents may be making one last trip up to see the kids before we fly out.  You all have been a blessing and encouragement to us.  Some of you knew about Daniel’s ER visit due to 3 days of fevers around 105 and we greatly appreciate the gifts you sent in for that.  We also appreciate the money sent in to replace our transmission.  I don’t know if we could begin to express our gratitude for the blessings you all showered over us during our furlough.  We came, intending to be a blessing to you and leave overwhelmed by your love.  Thank you all for your prayers and support over the years!

“Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you.” 2 Thessalonians 3:1

Visa Update

We received our visas!!!  They only issue 45 day visas now, but that can be extended up to 2 years (a year at a time) depending on the registration office.  We ask that you be praying even now about our registration process as they can sometimes be difficult.  Thank you all for your prayers concerning our visas.  We know you are rejoicing with us.

Visa Update

We received a call yesterday concerning our visas from the postal service.  The lady said if we checked online, it would say that they were returned then AGAIN delivered to the Pakistan embassy.  She said the man who typed it in said that he knew it went to the correct embassy, and it was just a 'typo'.  All we could do was wait and see (she said 2 weeks).  Today we received a call saying that we had a package from the embassy waiting for us in VA.  We had our pastor pick it up and waited anxiously to see if we had gotten approved.  We are excited to say, WE HAVE OUR VISA!!!  Thank you all for your prayers!  We do ask that you continue to pray as they only give out 45 day visas now.  If we are able to get registered, we can stay a full year.  We ask that you be praying about this even now.  Again, thank you for your prayers!!!

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!

We have further tracked our visa applications and passports and have discovered that they were delivered to the Embassy in Washington...but not to the Ukrainian Embassy.  Instead, they were delivered to the Embassy of Pakistan.  Pray as we try to get everything worked out.

Link to Update

Jessica made an update talking about our visas and the White's registration.  You can read that here.  Thank you for your prayers!

Visas and Church Fines

Just a quick update to ask you to be praying for the White's and also our little church in Ukraine.  We received news that the White's were told they had broken the law and would be required to go to court and pay a fine.  The church would have to do this as well.  Lina said the fine could be anywhere from $300 - $1,000.  The reason?  When you go into Ukraine, you are required to register. When they went to re-register this time, they were told they had broken the law because they had not UN-registered before their last registration expired.  This is something new and we ask that you will be praying for them and also pray that it will not cause problems for us when we go to register.

Concerning our visas, we have sent in the paperwork and are just waiting to see if they will be accepted.  Pray that God allows everything to work out as we have been hearing of other missionaries who have had their request for visas denied.

Bible Camp Update

Jessica just posted an email from Joyce White updating us on the first day of Bible Camp (VBS).  If you'd like to read the excitement, click here.  Thank you for your prayers!

Prayer Letter & Update

July 25, 2012

Family

The past few months have been busy ones for us.  We have traveled from Virginia to Florida, from Georgia to Maryland and will soon be heading to New England for the remainder of our time here in the states.  It has been a blessing to visit with old friends and meet new ones.  During our 2 week stay in Georgia we had a chance to spend time with Jessica’s family and the kids enjoyed getting a chance to know their grandparents.  On our way up from Georgia we stopped in North Carolina to help pass out tracts for the 4th of July and stayed to watch the fireworks.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed their first celebration of the 4th of July and probably got out more tracts than the adults!  We also just finished helping with the VBS here at our Mission’s church in Maryland.  We feel like we have been going steady, but there’s no complaining from our kids—they are loving it all and the new friends they are making.  Still, we are anxious to get back and have started preparing to leave.  We have applied for passports for Anna and Daniel and should be receiving those by sometime next week.  We will then work towards receiving our visas.  Pray that we receive those without problems.

 Ukrainian Church

As some of you may know, Brother White had to come home for the month of July to have a small operation.  Everything went well and he is doing much better.  They are getting ready to fly out and will be in Ukraine by Friday evening. 

The church has still been seeing about 5 unsaved people attend each service.  Baba Maroosa is one of them and she has started bring one of her friends.  Also, Tamara and her mom have started coming and bring her grandsons with her.   Valodia is still attending and sometimes a new lady (one of Slavic’s friends), Olya.  A few other ladies who are working for Slavic are coming as well.

They have started doing weekly Bible clubs and had 14 kids come out the first day.  Some kids have since not been allowed to attend again, which I know has been discouraging.  Our neighbors have even been allowing their daughters, Nastia and Masha, to come.  Nastia was allowed to go to church once, but her father doesn’t let her go any longer.  Please be praying for this young family.   They seem to be opening up slowly to the Gospel and the White’s will be talking with them more soon.  They  also have been using the Bible lessons as punishments/rewards with Nastia so she has not been allowed to attend lately.  In the beginning of August they will be having a VBS and would appreciate your prayers during this time.

And we are excited to announce that almost exactly one year after moving into it, THE CHURCH BUILDING HAS BEEN COMPLETELY PAID OFF, thanks to the many generous love offerings we have been given.   What a blessing it is to have this taken care of!  Thank you!

The following is a little bit of an update from the White's about the ministry there in Ukraine:

 On the Bible Club

We praise the Lord for the weekly summer Bible Clubs. Our neighbors         

      have allowed their children to come.  Pray they will also be able to come

to the Bible Camp the week of August 20^th.  Some children were not

allowed to return when the parents realized we were not just playing

games, singing songs, and doing crafts but teaching from the Bible.

On the Church

Continue to pray for these dear folk. (Ola, Maria or Baba Maroosa, Valodia)  They come faithfully to church but as of yet have not truly seen themselves lost and need to receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

We ask that you continue to pray for us as we serve our dear Lord and Saviour in this Satan controlled area.  In our 20 years of giving out the Gospel in this part of the world we have never faced such a satanic assault as we do here.  Pray for the Children's Bible Camp the week of August 20th.  Pray that God will send the children to us and that we will be able to reach them and their families for the Lord.  We are praying for 20 children.

This is taken from their prayer letter.  We ask that you will pray with them and us over this Bible camp and the village of Vvedenka.  They also were able to dig the well in Ukraine and build a pump house, thanks to their church who gave the rest of the needed money.  We appreciate all of you who have given towards that as well.  They are now enjoying the benefits of cold water.

Prayer Letter

April 18, 2012

“As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.”  Proverbs 25:25.  Proverbs 25:13 says, “...so is a faithful messenger to them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters.”  As we travel to those who have faithfully supported us over the past 5 years (or more), that is our goal, to refresh your souls with good news from a far country.   We know we are quite late with our update and apologize.  We do desire to keep you informed.

Family
The family is doing well and baby Daniel (born on January 10th) is growing fast!  We have been surprised by how well the kids are traveling and praise the Lord for protecting our family on the roads.   We have been sick quite a bit, but the Lord continues to give us energy.  We pray that He will revive our hearts and use us even more for His honor and glory.  We are anxious to get back to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Church

Thank  you all for praying for our little group of believers  as they were left by themselves  for a month and a half after we left until brother White arrived to fill in for us.  Thankfully in January brother White and his wife safely arrived in Vvedenka with a warm welcome from our believers.  They have  settled in well and seem to be doing a very good job.
As for the church we have good news and bad news.  The good news is that Slavic who recently got saved last fall seems to be growing in his faith.  We also have had many guests attending since we have left.  Tolic and his family,  Baba Maroosa,  Baba Vera, and Valodia, as well as some others that we havn’t mentioned in earlier prayer letters.  It is exciting for us because each of these individuals are people that we have personally witnessed to and given tracts to in the past.   Please pray for the salvation of each of these guests that have been attending the church.  The rest of the  members are faithfully attending services as well, except for  Yuri and Kristina.  Unfortunately Yuri had to be church disciplined out of the church and Kristina hasn’t been attending.  Please pray for this young couple. 
In our absence brother White and the church has continued to remodel the church property.  Just recently we received some large love offerings and we were able to send over  money for them to install a new heating system ,  which was desperately needed as they were really freezing in this past years extreme winter.  The small heaters that we had just weren’t enough to battle the extreme cold.  So we praise the Lord that the funds were provided for them to install this new system.
Since we have been on furlough we have tried to put as much of our love offerings as we can toward paying back the money our sending church gave us to purchase the church building .  We now owe only  $5,080.  Please pray with us that we can totally pay that back before we go back to Ukraine in November. 
As we get closer and closer to our departure, please pray that we will be able to get our visas without any problems.  And please pray that God would enable us to pick up the needed support before we go back.  We needed to raise $500 more of support per month but with some increase from our supporters we are down to about $400  more needed.  We know God will supply all our need.  Thank you for praying.
Pray also that we will be able to save enough to purchase a vehicle when we get back.  We rarely had the convenience of a vehicle during our first term, which made life a lot more difficult.

Chosen Frozen

An email from Mike and Joyce White in Vvedenka Ukraine:

 

  Hello to all,

We just got back from church. It is about -15F. We are not able to heat the church building, so we closed

off the large room and met in the hall way. It is about 10' x 12'. We have 3 electric wall heaters which brought the temperature up to about 38F. Even though it was freezing a lost man that has already come twice before came back again today. He seems to be truly interested in knowing more about Jesus. Please pray for him, his name is Anatoly.

 

We've attached a few pictures. In one the door way to the regular meeting room is closed off with a

blanked. We call it the Lion of Juda. One is two of the heaters. The bottle of water in front was frozen even though we keep one heater on all the time. The other is of Bro. Mike with a few of our chosen frozen men! We need heat! This is our major prayer request.

Trust you all have a good day in the house of the Lord and enjoy not only the warmth of the Word of God but the warmth you receive from the central heating system!

Christ our Saviour,

Mike and Joyce White

Your missionaries in Ukraine

We received an update that it had warmed up to around 20-30 F.  We are praying that the worst of winter is past.

Daniel Mark Curtis

Thank you Aunt Penny for putting this together for us!

Prayer Letter

As most of you probably have heard, we are now in the states on furlough.  Because of computer problems, we are just now getting around to posting this prayer letter.  We will hopefully have things fixed soon.  Thank you for your patience!

December 16,2011
Visas & Family
First, we'd like to apologize for missing a prayer letter.  We have had a lot happen since our last prayer letter.

We had mentioned that they were making some new visa laws, which we were told would not affect us.  Even so, I visited our Ovir about 2 times a week for two months with the same response...everyting would be fine, just come back next time and we will tell you what to do.  Four days before Lydia and Samuel's registration was to run up, they told us they would not renew their registration and they had 4 days to get out of the country.  The Lord worked miraculously and allowed Jessica and the kids to make it back to the states safely around the end of October.  I stayed behind to get things a little more in order.

During this time, we were contacted by a former missionary to Russia who wanted to visit us and help for a little while.  When I told him our situation, he said he would be willing to fill in for us while we were stateside.  This was a huge answer to prayer as we did not wish to leave our church without a teacher.  Brother White has applied for his visa, but it still has not been approved.  We ask that you pray with us that God will get him to Ukraine quickly.  My prayer had been that he would be able to be there before I left, but I returned the 2nd of December so that I could be here with Jessica when our baby is born.

Jessica is doing very well and the Lord has blessed us iwth a wonderful, Christian midwife.  The baby is due December 31st.  Please continue to pray for a safe deliver.

Before we left, we installed a new water filration system in our home which seemed to be greatly helping our parasite problem.  It seems like the Lord has completely cleared us of the parasites and we are praising the Lord to be through that.

Ukrainian Church
The Lord has greatly blessed the ministry the last few months we were there and we are excited to share with you the news that Slavic got saved and baptized!

Valodia is still working, but comes when he has a day off.  Zenieta, a lady who visited twice when we first moved to the village in our home, has also been visiting on Wednesday nights.  She asks a lot of questions about what we believe.  She has been attending a Baptist Union Church in a different village.  We believe that she is saved and it has been a blessing to have her when she visits.

Baba Maroosa has not been attending services an also lost her son the beginning of November.  I am not sure how much contact our church people will be able to have with her while we are away, but we are still greatly burdened for this woman.

Many of you have asked frequently for Pasha, my translator.  When I found out that we were going back to the states, I gave him his notice.  Although we are sad to say that he did not trust in Christ, I believe God is still working.  He told me when he left that I treated him better than he could have expected from any Ukrainian employer.  I would have loved to have been used to lead this man to the Lord, but I know that some plant, some water and some harvest.  I pray that one day God will save this man and use him for His honor and glory.

In our absence, the church has continued to meet.  Until Mr. and Mrs. White are able to get there, Yuri is reading sermons.  Please pray for this young group of believers that God will protect them from the many wolves that may sneak in and also that they will continue to grow strong in the faith.

Furlough Plans
We are planning on taking a ear furlough and are looking forward to visiting with some of our supporting churches.  Our plan is to be in the southern states February - June 2012 and in New England July - November.  Please contact me as soon as possible if you would like us to come in for a meeting during the time we are in the states.  You can reach me at (207) 249-0731.  Also, please send all mail to either our sending church in VA or our mission.