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.

Church Neighbors

The Lord has given us many opportunities to talk and witness to those living around the church.  Many of them are interested, but too superstitious to step foot in our church doors.

A lady named Valentina lives directly across from the church.  After talking with me for a little while, she accepted the Bible I offered her but said she would not come to church because she would be cursed by the Orthodox if she did.  She is also very afraid of the gossip which might be spread about her if she attended.

Tatiana lives next door and has stopped in occasionally.  She dislikes the orthodox priests and wanted another place to go.  When she enters she does a cross over her chest and one time she left some canned goods.  She usually only stays a few minutes to fulfill some religious duty, then leaves.  She has a desire to be religious but is not concerned with the state of her soul.

Last Friday while putting tracts on doors, we met Maria.  She was very excited about our church being here, especially since it was so close to her house.  She had been attending a protestant or charismatic church in the city, but it was hard for her to get to.  She appeared to be sincerely interested in coming but was having some memory loss problems.

Pray that God will defeat the religious superstitions of these people that they might be saved.  Pray for this one woman that God will give her the memory to come out. 

Salvation of Slavic!

Thank you all for your prayers concerning this man.  We are thrilled to be able to share with you the news of his salvation. On Friday evening we had our last Bible study.  As we came to the end of the lesson, I asked Slavic if there had ever been a time in his life when he had truly been born again.  He explained that he had gone forward in a charismatic service some years ago.  But as I questioned him concerning his salvation it seemed evident that what he was calling salvation was not what the Bible calls salvation.  As we continued talking he admittedly said even though he claimed this experience as salvation his life never changed.  He still continued in sin and drunkenness and he was even put in jail for stealing.  I then asked him if he wanted to sincerely repent of his sins to turn away from his alcohol and other sins and totally by faith trust Christ as his Savior and follow him the rest of his days. He said that he did.  Then in his own words he asked the Lord to forgive Him of his sins and told the Lord that He would now sincerely try to live for him and serve Him according to His word.

This man has been very quiet through all the lessons, but he seemed sincere in his decision of faith to forsake all and trust in Jesus.  Please pray that he would grow in his faith as we continue to disciple him.  When we all finished praying I went and shook his hand and said now you are my brother.  He lit right up with a big smile.  

God really worked miracles Friday to see this man saved.  Earlier in the day he had attended a party in a nearby village celebrating it's birthday.  He explained how he was offered alcohol many times but refused it because he was taking Bible lessons.  How like Satan it is to present temptations on the day of salvation!  Again, thank you for your prayers.  They do make a difference.

Baba Maroosa

 

This week I'd like to share with you a woman who calls herself Baba Maroosa.  As I was walking one day I met her, talked with her and gave her a tract.  She was surprisingly friendly and open to the gospel.  We did not come in contact with her again until one Sunday morning.  Because our van has been in the shop, we have been walking to church.  On our way, we pass out tracts to those we come in contact with.  Baba Maroosa was on the road and stopped to talk with us because of all of the kids.  When we gave her a tract and invited her to church, she said she would be there.  We continued on our way wondering if she really would come or not.  Church services were almost over and she still had not shown up.  Because Sammy was acting up, Jess took him out for a minute and there sitting on the doorstep was Baba Maroosa!  Jessica told her to come in and sit down.  After that, Baba Maroosa faithfully attended our services.  Jess has also had her over for tea (you can read about that visit here).

Baba Maroosa grew up in a very hard time and is part of the generation known as "a child of war".  She witnessed many things, including the death of her mother.  Because both of her parents were victims of the war, she was raised by her grandmother.  In her eyes, if Christ hadn't already "saved" her she would either be dead or an alcoholic like most of the other children of war.  She also says that she has seen Jesus and Mary, which she claims as proof of salvation.  At the moment, she is not interested in doing Bible lessons.  We are greatly burdened for this woman and pray that God will save her before it is too late.  She is in her 80s.  We recently saw her sitting at a friend's house.  Her face was all bruised and bloody.  They said it just happened because of an illness and she was living with her friend now.  We believe that her drunken son beat her.  She kept telling us that she was just going to die.  Please pray that God will save this woman.  Because of her "condition" she is not coming to church nor does she want us to visit.  We have found that many times when Ukrainians have something wrong with their faces they do not want to be seen and hide themselves away until they are healed.  Pray that God will either quickly heal her or that she will allow us to visit her.  How sad it would be if a bruise kept her from salvation!