16 Feb
Yes, another successful workshop

PRAISE Yes, another successful workshop as people were taught, and practiced how to hold a Discovery Bible study with seekers and new born Christians. Many of them thanked Abe for giving them such an excellent tool, although Abe did not do the actual teaching. He had a man lead it who has already quite a few experiences with Abe’s training and with starting a church and leading these Bible studies. Delegate, delegate! Pass it on! Pass it on!! Praise for regular reports of people finding salvation through the Centers of Hope—which are only starting to function. Praise for the many people who are supporting this ministry. We see names cycling through and feel helpless to be acknowledge all these gifts. But we praise God often for you! We are so very grateful. We are not “campaigners”. At some point I hope we can give each person a personal acknowledgement. But please know that the Lord sees those gifts and honors you as you share His resources in this way. Practicing Discovery Bible method of Bible study. Not just listening!!!   PRAYER Abe is going over the details of the next “workshop” which will be a Celebration of Prayer—Feb 28-Mar 1. People all over the country will be invited to attend—superintendents, pastors, evangelists, as well as our “established” people. This will be an actual prayer time for a day and a half. Dynamic prayer. Interacting with God and His Word. Abe will lead it hour by hour. Pray for him to be sensitive to the Lord’s leading as he prepares the schedule, power points, pass outs, etc. that it would come together in a beautiful and inspirational way as people focus on our Powerful God Who DOES want to answer our prayers as we honor Him. Pray that people would respond as invitations go out. The whole Baptist leadership is behind it and is helping to spread the word. Praise God! Pray that the Holy Spirit would move mightily in the hearts of each one. A more personal prayer request. Priscilla (our daughter) discovered that her passport will expire in 4 months. Unfortunately some airlines require that your passport be valid at least for 6 months, and they are flying to Australia with one of those airlines. She submitted her application in the American embassy in Kyiv last week, but that has to be processed in Poland, and it can take a month! There are no guarantees of when it will come in. but they did give her hope in that they said the last time they sent applications out, the passports came back in 10 days. All of the travel arrangements will become very awkward if Priscilla cannot travel with the family. We cannot fly in and out of Ukraine so you have long hours of travel to another country, as well as the fact it will take them more than two days to get to Australia just with the flying and layovers! It would be so gracious of the Lord to answer with her passport being processed rapidly so she can be with Dan and Ellie on this long journey. Dan and Priscilla have received more refugees again. Only 6. More were scheduled but despite the fact that the battle front is only 25 miles away people are reluctant to leave, for fear that their homes/apartments will be destroyed by theft or army forces. If you are there—the thought is you can protect your place. So, so difficult. And it is thought that come spring there will be a new offensive thrust from Russia on the frontlines where Ukraine has managed to hold them at bay, sometimes reclaiming territory. Pray for these new people. None of them are believers so they don’t know the comfort of Christ in the midst of this chaos. Pray that the Lord would draw them. That the church there would open their hearts to them and show the love of Christ. There were missile strikes during last night. More infrastructure hits across Ukraine. And now they are using weapons that Ukraine cannot detect. 36 were launched and 16 shot down. But 20 getting to their targets is 20 too many. And they expect a much larger missile attack Feb 23-24. That is the anniversary of the start of the war. And so we pray on. A year is a long time to be at war. To live in uncertainty. To see thousands of people killed. It’s a long time for the world to stay tuned into the evil that is happening. We live in a time of short attention spans. A time of compromise. But there is no compromising with Russia. Whatever promises they might make, they will never keep if they don’t feel like it. And so we come before our mighty Warrior God and pray that He will fight for Ukraine, that He will unleash His mighty hosts in defense of Ukraine, even that He will pour out His wrath on Russia. But our greatest desire is that through all of this suffering and destruction He would receive glory and honor, that His Church would embrace His love and share it with their communities, and that His Kingdom would grow. Amen and amen  

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06 Feb
A few special days with our daughter Priscilla

PRAISE A few special days with our daughter Priscilla here last week, joined by Daniel and Ellie on Thursday to Saturday morning. God is so good to us. Few missionaries have family nearby. It was a joy to be together, to play board games, laugh, talk, fellowship. A break from the stresses of war and ministry, although those thoughts are never far away. I am now joyfully 75 years old! (yes, that is a cake in the foreground made by a very talented friend! She “happens” to know my fondness for redbirds/cardinals.) Thank you, Lord, for these special times of joy! From the last workshop we have 15 Centers of Hope with 6 or 7 people still working on it—some deciding if they want to and some deciding how they will do it. They are learning how to present a budget, how to plan activities, how to reach out to non-Christians in more relational ways. It is exciting to see that many Centers being established in what is still a huge level of chaos in Ukraine. When God laid this on our heart, we thought the war would be over by the time Centers started opening. And so, God’s people press forward! For the salvation of many!   PRAYER   Tomorrow and Wednesday (Feb 7-8) Abe is holding a workshop focused on discipleship. Pray for the opening of understanding for those who attend. How critical that babes in Christ are nurtured, fed, strengthened, drawn into the body of Christ and into a dynamic relationship with the Lord. Pray that people would not be hindered from attending through illness or car troubles or other reasons. Pray especially that it would be a time of encouragement, even as it is training and accountability. It is a difficult work to snatch people from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the Kingdom of Light! Abe hopes to begin a whole new cycle of training in March, with a new group of people. The established group will then most likely meet only monthly while the new training will again be bi-weekly. Pray that many new contacts would be made and many more people would come on board. Workers for the harvest, dear Lord. Everyone expects intense attacks from Russia in February and March. Men daily are giving their lives for the sake of freedom. A group from our church went to the front to take supplies to soldiers from our area and to share the Gospel. They asked one soldier if he was afraid to die. He said no, he had peace with God and knew where he was going. He was prepared to give his life for the sake of his country, so there would be a future for everyone. Pray for God’s presence to be tangible with these men as they stand against evil. Pray for the many soldiers who desperately need to find a relationship with Jesus Christ and commit themselves to Him. And yes, pray for the war to end.   The Father loves to hear our prayers for His glory, His kingdom, and His will. He delights to answer such prayers. He has the ability to do what we ask. There is no way that the almighty sovereign God of the universe will ever let history come to an end without glorifying His name, establishing His glorious kingdom, and accomplishing His will fully and completely. In fact He is already doing these things, and the day will come when they will all be done on earth as perfectly as they are done in heaven. So pray them in faith; pray them with absolute confidence. You are contributing to the realization of His purposes! That’s an exciting way to pray.   Almighty Sovereign God, the hour is urgent, and the need is great! I plead with You to hallow Your name, advance Your kingdom and do Your will on this earth! Establish Your glorious kingdom as You move in power! Do it, Lord! With a voice of confidence, I ask You to rule and to reign! The enemy’s defeat is sure because You have already spoken His future! The above is quoted from Harvest Prayer Ministries    

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17 Jan
We talked to our grandson Jesse

PRAISE  We talked to our grandson Jesse a few days ago. He is the one for whom we’ve asked prayer as he virtually had become an invalid. Praise God he has been steadily improving over the past few months! He figures his strength is about 80% and he managed to finish his seminary studies and will graduate in March. Meanwhile he has taken on an internship at a church in Brisbane. And God has provided reasonable and pleasant housing for them for the next year in a very tight housing market. Thank you for holding him up in prayer for these many months when he went from someone who seemed to be dying to almost fully functioning again. (No, I don’t think doctors ever knew what was going on.) The picture is Daniella(top), his wife of 3 years, his sister Miriam, who has fought a battle with an immune illness since she was 16, and is excited to be leaving for a ministry opportunity in another part of Australia soon, having finally gained enough health to stretch her wings. And then there is baby Quintus, another sister, Marie, and of course Jesse. Their smiles in this photo are representative of their joy in Jesus and how He is working in each one of their lives. And I will add a note to say his parents (Daniel and Priscilla) hope to return to Australia for his graduation—and to see their precious children and grandson. (Daniel also has a sister who is getting married. A good very family-centered break!) Over the last week Abe has received reports of at least 10 people being saved through the people he is working with now! What a joy in Heaven! And meanwhile we get regular reports from the men Abe has worked with for a number of years as they continue to reach out, hold evangelistic Bible studies, and train new believers to follow Jesus. Praise God for faithful committed people!   PRAYER Abe left today for the next workshop to be held tomorrow and Thursday (18th and 19th). He has spent hours in preparation. Pray for him as he teaches and trains. Pray for receptive hearts. And always hearts that are passionate for Jesus. In the end we are not talking about what people can do, although the Lord needs people as His instruments. But we are talking about what the Holy Spirit can do through them as they have faith to reach out and touch lives. One of their initial assignments was to prayer walk the area where they are ministering, praying for people, businesses, schools, and for open hearts. And we want the Centers of Hope to focus on prayer, in all of their people contacts whether individually or in groups, or in church services. Pray for the Lord to move. Abe feels after this workshop we will have a better idea of who exactly is committed to having a Center of Hope. And even so there will be a 3-month trial period to make sure each couple or family is on track. Sasha was not able to get his car repaired in time for this workshop so another man came to drive the team to Kyiv. Abe just called me. He found out that this man, Ihor, did not actually own the van. It belongs to someone who has emigrated and wants to sell it for what sounds like a very reasonable price. And so, the issue comes, should we buy it? It would most likely be a situation where Sasha would actually buy it with money we loan to him and which he would repay to us over a period of several years. Evidently several people have counseled him to get rid of his own van. This is just a thought. Please pray for Abe to know whether it has merit, and if so, that all of the pieces would fall into place. We are still living in our house. We still don’t have a lease. We had not had any word from our lawyer at all. But this has been a holiday time so… Well, today one of the ladies who represents our landlady (who lives in Russia!) showed up at the door after Abe left. She asked if we actually wanted to continue living here, which I confirmed. So she said Abe should contact our lawyer. Abe won’t do that until he gets back. When he is doing ministry he is singularly focused on that. So, continue to pray that the Lord would work this out to His glory. Final prayer request. I go into Kyiv myself tomorrow to the eye clinic where I had surgery for a detached retina a couple years ago. I had a few disturbing symptoms in my other eye a couple weeks ago. They have settled down somewhat, but I will go and see if anything is happening. Eye sight is precious isn’t it? I still have distorted and somewhat limited vision in my right eye. Which of course increases my desire to be careful about my left eye. At the same time, I know full well I’m in the Lord’s hands. Russia You may know there was another attack across Ukraine last Saturday. Many electrical stations were damaged. And more horrendous, an apartment building was hit in the city of Dnipro, and 45 people were killed. Civilians, some of them children. Ukraine is braced for ongoing attacks, and ongoing devastation and attacks on power stations. The roar of generators was very loud yesterday when Abe and I went downtown as more and more businesses have them. The Ukrainian people, led by Zelensky, stand strong with no intention of backing down. “We are free, we are strong, we are together,” is a recorded message I hear on the phone when a call does not go through. People consider freedom worth fighting for. Today I also saw a message that our province has received equipment to protect against the destructive killer drones Russia sends and to enforce our border with Belarus. This equipment is from Poroshenko, our former Ukrainian president. Ukraine is not just waiting on western help. Many wealthy Ukrainians are contributing to the cause. This has become rather long. I’m hoping that as I get some of the paperwork and communications under control I can write a bit more frequently again, and less in length. I’m very aware of how limited we are as human beings in what we can effectively pray for. I always hope that when you read these messages, rather than saying a “blanket” prayer over them all, that the Spirit will give you one or two items to focus on, even to pour your heart into. I will leave this message for you, posted by our church a couple weeks ago. We have men from our area, from our church, who are on the frontlines. Lord, bless the 64th brigade and all the running of missile defense, air defense systems!  🙏🙏 They want to plunge us into darkness and chaos again!God will help us get through these attacks!We went through almost a year of war, resisted, got stronger, grew!The Lord continues to build His Kingdom even under fire! Ps.  17:8-10: "And protect me,like the apple of His eye!Hide me under Your wings from those people who want to destroy me,from mortal enemies who surrounded me.  They close their hearts to pity;with their mouths they speak arrogantly.” Church, we continue to stand in prayer for our cities, for our army, for our government! Peace and tranquility to all!

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12 Dec
Abe had a great workshop

PRAISE Abe had a great workshop with about 70 people on Thursday and Friday. The theme was “Renewing the Mind” because they need a fresh approach to ministry with non-Christians. People were very responsive, very receptive. The next workshop will be held Dec 27-28 and they expect between 25-30 couples to come. This basically means they are committed to starting a Center of Hope. It is an overwhelming response!! Abe said it is going to run the gamut from working with university students to working in small villages. Right now he is not turning anyone away. Thanks for your prayers!

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