Dear Brethren,
Greetings from Ukraine! Finally, we are back home and “settled” in… I think! Thank you so much for your many prayers regarding our border crossing, we experienced only some minor inconveniences and very little trouble with our documents. The Ukrainian officials never mentioned our out-of-date van registration, praise the Lord!
Speaking of the van, it is now registered and all the documents current. Since it had not been necessary to register the van since our move to the village, the van was still registered in the city of L’viv. Upon our return from the States, we became aware that we needed to register it in the small town of Zhovkva, as our village is located within that region. (This would be comparable to counties in the US.) Well, every time we do something like this over here we are amazed at the red tape (hence money!) that we have to go through in order to complete what inevitably becomes a lengthy, draining process. You see, in order to register the van in Zhovkva, we had to first “unregister” the van in L’viv to the tune of $600. Yes, that’s right; we had to pick ourselves up off the floor too. And, we were told that it could have been more, but we were very fortunate to “know” someone that worked in “DMV” who was able to help us out. After an additional $500 or so in order to put the van back into registration in Zhovkva, our van is finally legal again.
Many of you already know about our heater situation that also “welcomed” us home. :>) It seems that even though Jessie very carefully drained all the piping before we left for America, there was still condensation that formed in some of the valves and our hot water heater was damaged beyond repair. To shorten what is a very long story, in the process of purchasing and installing the new water heater, we were informed that our heating system was never properly installed to begin with. We are going to have to redo our entire heating system throughout the house OR, be completely without heat this winter. The purchase of the new water heater, plus the recently incurred van expenses has very much depleted us. Praise the Lord, many of our supporting churches have responded to our need! Thank you ever so much to those churches that have already helped us with this expense and thank you in advance to those that have committed to helping. After much prayer, the Lord has directed us to a “maester” that comes highly recommended and seems to be very professional. He has given us an estimate of $6,000 to replace all the piping and add six much needed batteries in some of the rooms that are especially cold; our bedrooms upstairs average about 40 degrees in the winter. Most of the cost will be for materials as the prices here continue to skyrocket and the dollar falls. Please pray with us that everything will be done properly this time around! And please pray that those that have committed to help will be able to do so in the near future. We need to start this work in just two weeks as this will be the only time this summer that the “maester” is free. This will also ensure that everything is finished and thoroughly tested before the cold weather sets in. We have been praying for quite awhile that the Lord would show us why our house is so cold and it seems that this is a direct answer to our prayers.
CMO has officially begun and it’s off to a great start! Before the guys got here Jessie, Joshua and Nathan went on a week-end survey trip to the Sambir region. It’s a new area for us, a two-three hour drive and definitely more remote. That first weekend they were able to make contact with village heads for 38 villages, praise the Lord. This gives us a good number of villages in which we can attempt to show The Light of the World. The guys arrived a week later, at this time there are six young men, and we’re expecting one more to join us later in the summer.
Wednesday, June 18th the Steele family and friend Mindy Mullins, Nathan Day, all six guys and our chalk art instructor, Christie Ballmann “moved in” to our house for a week of chalk art training. The guys pitched their tents in our backyard (not sure what the neighbors thought of that one!), the ladies took over the upstairs and Jess and I boarded up in our room, heh, just kidding! We had a great time, LOTS of cleaning; (chalk dust gets EVERYWHERE!!!) I have a new understanding of Ecclesiastes 3:20 “…all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again…” :>) Before long the team was inhaling large amounts of chalk as they drew trees, rocks, mountains, and people, all major components of most chalk drawings. Christie did an awesome job teaching! And this year, Cassia was able to join the class. She did great for her first time at drawing; we’re excited to see how the Lord uses this in her future!
The weekend afforded everyone a break from “chalking.” Jessie and I spent Saturday stocking up on groceries for “round two” of chalk training while the team headed to the mountains on a train. They spent Saturday and Sunday distributing Good and Evil booklets and invitations to the next film showing. All in all they hiked about 15 miles. By the time Jessie met them Sunday afternoon, the van was a welcome sight!
Everyone piled in and drove to Strilki, where they were scheduled to show The Light of the World at 5 pm. They set up all the equipment in Strilki’s community center and waited for the villagers to come. There seemed to be an unusually large volume of people walking past the building, but none of them were coming in. Finally they asked someone where everyone was going. It turned out that the championship game of the local soccer league was going on, and our film showing was scheduled right in the middle of it. If you’ve ever been anywhere in Europe you know that a soccer game is pretty much like the World Series and Super Bowl rolled into one (even if it’s just the village!) so of course, no one showed up to see the film— our second no-show in three years. We plan to return to Strilki later this summer when we don’t have to compete with a soccer game!
The team was scheduled to resume chalk training at our house on Monday evening but due to a severe storm in the region, our entire village was without electricity. Of course for us, that also means no water, hence, showers, clean dishes and even “flushing” becomes quite a challenge… especially for 18 people! Needless to say, we told the team to stay put in L’viv until our electric was restored.
Praise the Lord, by Wednesday we were ready to go. We were up at 5am every morning to start the day’s cooking but it was well worth the effort. The team said they ate like kings, of course after a steady diet of Ramen noodles in the mountains young men will eat just about anything! :>) If I had to choose an overall theme for the guys this year I think it would have to be Ecclesiastes 2:25, “For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I?” :>)
Saturday, Christie Ballman was still with us so instead of heading to the mountains as usual, we decided to go downtown and do some chalk art and street preaching. Christie did three drawings and we had a good crowd for each one, at one time, there were over 50 that stopped and listened to the gospel, and many took literature.
Sunday, Jessie drove the team to the village of Ctrelbychi where they had previously scheduled to show The Light of the World. In spite of encountering another village soccer game 25 people came to see the film and all of them stayed the entire time. After the preaching, their response was very positive, everyone went forward to receive a copy of Good and Evil, and, everyone took starter packets for our correspondence course. The people were also very excited to receive Bibles for their town library.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers for our family and for CMO! Please pray especially for our van, it’s taking an exceptional beating this year up in the Sambirski region; the more remote the area, the more inaccessible the roads. And, parts are getting increasingly difficult to find for a 1991 vehicle.
Please pray also for:
-The team’s safety and protection during our time here, both on a spiritual and physical level.
-The guys will be able to put their newfound ability from the chalk art course to work for the Lord.
-The village film showings coming up, that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the people.
-Those that have heard the gospel, that God’s word would work in their hearts.
-That God will continue to open doors for us here so that all we do will bring results for the glory of God.
God bless you for your faithfulness to us! Be sure to look over our website for pictures of each village, chalk art week, and more in-depth stories at: Euroteamoutreach.org
Your missionaries for His Sake,
Jessie, Teresa, Cassia and Alexandria
