Keep On Keeping On

Philippians 3:12-15
12 Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Every day is a choice to become more Christ like through the ups and downs of life. Another verse that has stayed in my heart and mind lately is Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Just some notes of some good things that have been going on here.

Ø  Our Sunday Bible Classes and Worship have gone well. We have been encouraged over the last few weeks. We’ve had a low of 8, with an average of 12 and a high this last Sunday with 16! Normally we have had a 25-minute Bible Class followed by our worship. This last Sunday we changed things up a bit with more songs in our worship. Then we had a farewell fellowship our dear Sister Sasha as she and her husband, who won a Green Card, will move to the US on May 31^st. Sasha Revakin and I were the only men present, so we took care of everything in the worship.

Ø  I’ve had the opportunity to reach out to our local Teacher’s College (there is another name for the teacher’s college, but I can’t pronounce it!) and they have reached out to me. I’m excited to be involved with them! A couple of weeks ago I was invited to go and speak to an 8^th grade and 11^th grade English classes. Then on Saturday, I was invited to go to a resort close by with them and taught a couple of English classes of 8^th graders. It was fun and a blessing! I believe this is opening great things for the future!

Ø  I’ve had opportunities to make re-acquaintances again with several people that God is already blessing! This too is opening more doors for the future! Along with this, I’ve been having more people over for home cooked meals and this is a lot of fun too. It is joy doing the work of the Lord!

Ø  On June 4^th, Artur will arrive in Kremenchuk to begin his ministry here. God has brought us together for His purpose to carry out His work in all we do!

 Thank you for your love and support through thick and thin! It’s like a marriage isn’t it? “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part!”

ARTUR COMES TO JOIN US!

The Kremenchuk church of Christ would like to announce the hiring of Артур Литвиненко or in English Artur Litvinenko to serve as the Ukrainian preacher alongside Doug Berry, Michael Braswell and the Church in the work of the Lord in Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Artur will be joining us in Kremenchuk in early June. He is a graduate of the Bear Valley Bible Institute in Ukraine and has been working alongside 3 gospel preachers in L’viv, Ukraine this last year. We are excited to have him come and join us in this work!

The young lady in the picture is Artur's Christian girlfriend, Mariana Medvid and she also will be moving to Kremenchuk in the near future.

We are very excited to have them both come and be a part of the Church!

What Do You Do with Disappointment?

Many times, and sometimes with me, disappointment leads to discouragement and discouragement leads to quitting. Are we going to face disappointment in life? Of course! Everyone does! At one point in John 6 Jesus had a large crowd of disciples following Him and they all left except for the 12 and Jesus asked them if they would go too. Peter answered, “Where shall we go? You have the Words of Eternal Life.” What about the Garden and Jesus said, “Let this cup pass from me! But not my will but Yours be done!”

 It’s always good to report successes. I like to tell successes and I’m guessing you like to hear them. We’ve had some successes. 2 Sundays ago, we had 14 in attendance but last Sunday we had 5 – a lot of people gone for various reasons. Our Bible Club’s attendance has been disappointing for me. We’ve now gone through 2 weeks of “starting” our Bible Clubs with very small or no attendance. I’m not exactly sure why but I tend to spend time thinking about it. Even in these situations I have to decide how to respond or react. We’ve had some positives even with this – we’ve had some new people to come! We’ve had 1 good beginners Bible Club after Sunday worship where we had 7 in attendance!

What do I choose? First and foremost, I’ve been praying about all of this and the work here. Please continue to join me in prayer! I don’t have the answers, but God does! I’m striving to look at new ways to meet people and reach out to them. I refuse to go down the negative road!

We’ve had one young preacher come and spend the weekend with us and he did a nice job. Pray for Ivan. This weekend Artur L. and his fiancé Mariana from L’viv comes in today and leave Sunday night. Pray for Artur L. Next weekend we have Artur M. come in from Dnipro. Please pray for Artur M and our decision making about a Ukrainian Preacher to work with us here.

There is a LOT to be encouraged about! Satan will NOT win for “If God for us, who is against us!?” Romans 8:31.

Whit Sasser of Appleton, WI posted this. It spoke strongly to me and I wanted to share it with you.

THE WORK GOD HAS GIVEN US TO DO

The Lord has given every man his work. It is his business to do it, and the Devil's business to hinder him, if he can. As sure as God has given you a work to do, Satan will try to hinder you. He may present other things more promising. He may allure you by worldly prospects; he may assault you with slander; torment you with false accusations; set you to work to defend your character; employ pious persons to lie about you. You may have Pilate and Herod, Annas and Caiaphas against you, and Judas standing ready to sell you for 30 pieces of silver.

But, keep about your work. Do not flinch because the lion roars; do not stop to stone the Devil's dog. Do your work. Let liars lie, let the Devil do his worst; but see to it that nothing hinders you from fulfilling the work God has given you.

He has not sent you to make money. He has not commanded you to get rich. He has never bidden you to defend your character. He has not set you to work to contradict falsehood which Satan and his servants start to peddle. If you do these things, you will do nothing else; you will be at work for yourself, and not for the Lord.

Keep about your work. Let your aim be steady as a star. Let the world brawl and bubble. You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered, wounded and neglected; you may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends and despised and rejected of men. But see to it with steadfast determination, with unfaltering zeal, that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being, until at last you can say, "I have finished the work you gave me to do."   

Author Unknown

One Month Today!

 Yes, I’ve been in Kremenchuk one month today! Sometimes it feels like I never left and other times I realize that this first month has flown by!! Rather than try to tell you lots of events, I thought I would share a day – Wednesday to be exact. My days differ a lot, but this last Wednesday was rather busy!

 A Day in My Life

I started with the normal stuff of cleaning up and eating – can’t leave those out. I’m getting ready to go with Sasha R., he’s my translator and fellow worker here, to reach out to at least 3-4 schools and ask if I can be involved with their English programs and also invite pupils (anyone in school of 1-11 grades is a pupil) to come to my Bible Clubs starting April 13 at my apartment.

After breakfast, I’m printing 12 full page advertisement/invitations to the Bible Clubs. I met Sasha and we went just across the street to School #19 (there are about 35 schools in Kremenchuk). The director (directors have a lot of authority in their individual schools) was not available, so we made an appointment to talk to him on Thursday. We walked about a mile to school #11 (this is the school that I had worked with the most when I was in Kremenchuk before). We were able to meet with the director and she remembered me from when I was here in 2008. She was the new director then at School #11 who had told me that we couldn’t teach Bible in the school anymore. She was very polite to me and asked me if I was angry at her. I told her of course not. She was very kind and encouraging! On the way to see her as we walked through the school, I met Tonya, who had been a 9^th grade pupil when I first came to Kremenchuk in the summer of 2000. We had kept in touch on Facebook, but I didn’t know she was now teaching at the school! It was a joy and a surprise to both of us. After talking to the director, I met Natalie an old friend and English teacher at the school. She was a 2^nd year teacher when I started there in 2002 and I went to her wedding. What a joyous surprise! Such a joy to renew old acquaintances. 

Then we got on a bus (Marshutka – like a large van bus) and went to the north central part of town to school #27. I had met a few pupils from this school at an English school and I had promised them I would come to their school. The director here was very nice and friendly! She, along with the director of school #11 said that there was nothing they could do about letting me teach at all in their schools unless I got the permission from the Minister of Education in the city.

By now it’s about 10:30am and we are a “short walk” by Sasha’s standards – a long one by me to McDonalds. Sasha was hungry since he hadn’t eaten breakfast, so I took him there and fed him. I had a McFlury! Sasha helped buy time for my phone (another story for another time). We parted ways. He went home and I got on another Marshutka and went to Yulya and Sasha’s house (yes another Sasha!) We had a great home cooked meal and a very nice first Bible Study with Sasha. He’s a very smart man and is also very open.

While at their home, I got a call from Serge and he asked me to teach 2 of his classes in the evening. I agreed. I got home about 2:45pm, took a short nap and then left at 5 to go to Serge’s office and classroom to teach. I had 7 11and 12-year old boys and girls, including a set of twin girls for the first hour which was a lot of fun! I don’t think they had ever met an American before! Then I had an adult class of 8 mature adults wanting to learn English. It was a lot of fun and the class lasted for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It was all a blast but by now, around 8pm, I’m hungry and tired. I stopped and ate at a restaurant close by and got home about 9pm. Sleep was very welcome! 

P.S. Sasha R. and I went to the Ministry of Education this morning and he gave us his blessing to do what we had planned to do if the directors of the schools agreed!! Wow, what a great blessing!

Catching Up & Looking Forward  

Catching Up:

The last time I wrote was on March 11^th. Michael left on the 12^th and got home yesterday after a few days in England and France. We all miss him! He did a great job of starting things up!

On Saturday, the 16^th, we had a fun night at my place and we had 19 people – including 6 kids I think! It was a lot of fun!!

On Sunday, the 17^th we had 13 for Class and Worship.

I decided to have my Bible Class – Series on Growing A Christian Family and my sermon – Series of Growing In Christ – translated and handed out. It was well received! I also started a new newsletter/bulletin. The newsletter was kind of rough but I think this weeks will be better!

On Monday morning I left with my friend and translator Sergey for Krakow, Poland to get my Visa. This is so I can get my Temporary Residency which is good for one year. Then I can get my Permanent Residency, which sounds a whole lot better to me! With some trials and extra costs, which we didn’t expect, we got the Visa! We returned to Kremenchuk around 4pm on Thursday. The last day and half have been real busy working on lessons, bulletin, add for future Bible Clubs and now this!

Looking Forward:

Sunday we will have a new look bulletin and outlines (you can have copies for the request!) for Sunday.

Next Sunday the 31^st, will be election day for President and many people will work extra for extra income on that day.

Saturday and Sunday, April 6-7 we will have our first young single Ukrainian man, come and be considered for the Lord’s work with us. His name is Ivan. Please pray for him and for us.  We may have a 2^nd man ready to come on the 21^st. We’ll see.

April 13^th and 14^th we will begin our Bible Clubs!! I have been working on an advertisement to take to the schools and distribute other places. 

One step at a time, right? Things are going pretty good but the busy level is about to escalate! 

God bless you always!

Love in Christ,

Doug

Busy First Week!

My flight arrived into Ukraine on time without my luggage! We had been delayed over an hour in leaving from Atlanta to Paris and so my luggage did not make it the last leg of my flight to Ukraine. Nickoli, a friend and brother met me at the airport and drove me to Kremenchuk. I hadn’t slept but an hour on the plane, so I was really tired and slept about 1 ½ hours in his back seat as we made the trip to Kremenchuk in about 4 hours.

We were greeted by 19 people over the next couple of hours at my flat! It was so wonderful to meet so many great friends again! The next couple of days are kind of a blur as I was getting over jetlag. I changed some money, did some food shopping and a few other needed things. On Thursday night we had our first singing night and had 10 people present, which is a nice start! On Friday, we met with the owners of the flat and it went great! They support us using their flat (apartment) for how we want to use it. It was a very friendly and encouraging meeting!

Sunday was a very good day but different. With our services not starting until 12:30, it was a morning of preparations and rest. We had 17 people present all together, even though 5 had to leave early for different reasons. Our neighbors across the hall, who we know, came over mid-day for a few minutes of nice visiting. Then 2 ladies, who are sisters also stopped by for about an hour. They also are old, great friends!

The hardest thing to adjust to is the money. With such a large difference in the value of the money, it’s hard to figure out how much I’m actually spending. It will be ok, I’m sure. It seems like I’m spending so much, when in fact it’s not so much at all!

I’m really never on my own because of 3 things. One, God’s great presence with Jesus and the Spirit are always with me. Second, I have so many Ukrainian friends that lovingly support me. Third, I have such easy access to my family and friends in the USA.

If you want to dial me direct, you can call +380 66 481 4586. You need all of that to call. You can download the app, Viber and contact me that way or you can use Facebook Messenger to reach me too.

God bless! I’ll talk to you soon!

Doug