Church Remodeling & Bible Lessons

Yuri has been working very hard on the remodeling of the church.  He is doing an excellent job.  I praise the Lord for such a trustworthy worker.    The paperwork (switching our church from the city to the village) should be finished in about 2 weeks so if at least the main room is finished, we should be able to start meeting there by the end of June.  We are anxious about moving in, but we know that God's timing is perfect.  We have posted a video (above) and pictures below of all of the work that has been done.

Until recently, Valodia has been extremely faithful to both Bible lessons and church.  This week he missed both Wednesday night service and his Bible lesson on Thursday.  He says that he has work, which is very possible.  We are praying that this is not just an excuse for him to quit.  He is planning on attending services this Sunday so we will talk to him about changing the Bible lesson times to work around his schedule.  We ask that you pray about this.

Prayer Letter

Church & Bible Lessons 
The church is doing very well.  We are all excited about the new building.  So far we have received $1,000 towards the purchase, leaving us at $14,000.  We have started remodeling and the building has come a long way.  Lord willing, it will be ready to meet in by the end of June.  We have been told that the paperwork for the church will be ready in about 3 weeks.  Little by little the news is leaking out that our church will be starting in the village.  Please pray that God will prepare the hearts of these people to receive the Gospel.

Valodia is still coming every Thursday, now at 10 AM EST.  He has also been very faithful to services.  As his lessons come to an end, we pray that he will accept Christ as his Saviour.

Ruselan has moved to an in-between prison house, where he is allowed to work and have a phone.  He has also been reading the Bible on his own, along with the lessons that we are sending him.  This week I will be sending him the last lesson and will be following up shortly after.  Please pray for him to have clear understanding of the Gospel and that he also will accept Christ as his Saviour.

Visas & Paperwork
Our trip to Poland went very smoothly.  We received our visas but the embassy accidentally gave Lydia and Sammy residential visas.  There is a new law here stating that if you have a religious visa, you do not need to get registered, which was a blessing that saved us a lot of work.  But since they gave Lydia and Sammy residential visas instead, we have to work on getting them registered.  Pray that this gets taken care of quickly and smoothly.  It is always a lot of work and takes a lot more of my time than I desire.

Family & Health
While we were in Poland, we had no problems with parasites, but have had problems since returning.  We recently switched to bottled water and are praying that that takes care of the problem.

As you pray for our ministry and work here in Ukraine, we ask that you remember the salvation of our children.  It is our desire that each of our children be saved and fully surrendered to Christ.  Anna has already made a profession and still seems very sincere.  Lydia and Samuel are still too young to understand, but they are growing fast.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

The Curtis Family

Visas

We received our visas with no problem and they are good for one more year.  We will be leaving Poland tomorrow morning and are anxious to be back home in Ukraine.  Thank you for your prayers!

Visas

We have applied for our visas and everything looks good. We should be able to pick them up on Tuesday.

Prayer Letter

Church and Bible Lessons In our last prayer letter we mentioned a man named Valodia and said that he was not interested in Bible lessons. Just a few days after we sent out our letter, he came forward after services and said that he would like to meet with us weekly to do Bible lessons. This is a huge praise for us and we are excited to see what God will do in his life. He has been coming to church every time the doors are open and has also had two Bible lessons. His Bible lessons are every Thursday at 11:00 am EST. We are still keeping regular contact with Baba Nora, our elderly neighbor. She has come over for tea once with Jessica, but didn't stay very long. We are still praying that God will reach her heart before it is too late. Bible lessons with Ruselan seem to be going well. He is always very excited to have us visit as right now we are the only ones visiting him. The guards come by frequently to listen, but we think it is more to make sure he doesn't tell of the conditions they live in then out of interest for the gospel. God could still use that though. Recently God has opened the door for us to purchase a property and building here in the village for the church. This is an exciting step for us, though we know it will be hard as village people are very hard, but we know this is what God would have us to do. There is still much work to be done on the building and lots of paperwork to switch the church address before we can start meeting there. lord willing, we will be able to start meeting there by summer. Valentina recently had a skin cancer spot removed. We praise God that all went well and she is again back in church with us. Our church was recently hit with a hard virus, so we had to cancel a Wednesday and a Sunday service. Everyone seems to be recovering except for Vladamir Vonovich who just came down with it. He has missed a Sunday and will miss a Wednesday because of it. Family, Health & Visas Once again it is time for us to renew our visas. We will be gone from April 6-22. We ask that you pray that we receive our visas without complications and for our safety traveling. We are also looking forward to getting some rest and visiting with another missionary family there in Poland. We have had an up and down struggle with the parasites and it again seems like they ahve returned. We have started treatment once more and pray that we can be rid of this problem. We have had some excitement here as Jessica's sister, Brianna, is visiting with us. She flew into Kiev on January 26th and will be with us until sometime in July. She has been a big blessing and help to Jessica.

It's Ours!

Yesterday afternoon, after many hours spent at the lawyer's office, we finalized the purchase of the church building! This is a very exciting step for our church and we are anxious to get moved in, but it will still be at least a little while. Lina will be working on getting all of our documents in order to move our church to the village and we will be installing doors, windows and fixing up one room to meet in. We are planning on having many tracts ready to do a major "tracting" of the village once we get there. We ask that you continue to pray for us as we get things ready and for prepared hearts.

More pictures and videos to come!

Church building and Bible lessons

The past few weeks have brought a few answers to prayer. The first is a possible building for our church here in the village. We have made a downpayment on it and are now just waiting for them to finish the paperwork. Below are a few pictures of the property and the little building on it. I didn't take any pictures of the building we would using for the church. I did take a video inside the bigger house, but I haven' t been able to get it to upload.

The second is that Vladimir (Yuri's friend who has been coming faithfully to church) agreed to start Bible lessons. His first lesson was on Thursday evening. He was very attentive and asked many questions. He has also studied with the Jehovah Witnesses but was unsatisfied with their answers. It seems like most of the people here that we have met have studied with the Jehovah Witnesses at some point and time. Praying that he continues to be faithful to church and Bible lessons, but more importantly that he will be saved.

I also visited with Ruselan in the prison on Friday. He seemed more open and friendly than he has been. Right now he has no one coming to visit him, and his wife has said she is filing for a divorce, so he is very eager for fellowship.

Thank you for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated.