Our summer outreach, CMO, continues to move forward! Evan Hein left for the States earlier this month, but Jessie, Josh, Bryan, Daniel and I are continuing on. This summer, instead of distributing literature in L’viv, we are focusing our efforts on the areas around L’viv. So far, we have been to about 16 villages and cities. As far as our ministry in the mountains goes, we are showing the movie Fireproof in some of the villages where we have done outreach in the past. You can keep up with the action by reading the weekly eReport and by checking the Twitter feed on the right side of our website.
The 2009 team, from left to right, Joshua Steele, Evan Hein, Bryan Shufelt, Nathan Day, Daniel Courter, Jessie Beal.
Recently the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law requiring all foreigners to be registered within a certain time after entering the country. The idea is simple enough, but unfortunately the law is vague, and different government agencies are interpreting it differently. It seems that every time we ask for information, we get a different story! Bryan was the first one in our group that had to register, and thankfully, everything went well. Denise is now in the process of registering, Jessie and Teresa are going to Poland to get Teresa a new visa on the 3rd of August, and then Jessie and I will need to be submitting our documents for registration around mid August. So please pray that everything goes well!
Josh and Kelsie will be spared the hassle of registering, because they are taking a trip to America! This will be Josh’s first “real” furlough since he came to Ukraine 8 years ago. They will be leaving on the 26th of August, and returning in April or May of 2010.
On the home front, Katelin is working on her wedding dress. It has taken two practice dresses to get everything the way she wants it, and work has finally begun on the real thing! Unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t share much more than that, as I’m purposely being kept in the dark as to the finer details! (And even if I was told the finer details, I’m afraid they wouldn’t make much sense to me.)
I put together some pictures of what I was up to in the three months before I arrived in Ukraine. You can see them here, or you can click on the “My Pictures” link in the right panel of the main page of my blog. Happy viewing!