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Month: June 2010 (Page 2 of 2)

Leaving Kharkov

June 15, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Yes, yes, I know how awful I am. I wanted so badly to post something here every day of our trip. I know. You can’t believe how busy we’ve been and how little time I’ve had. I’m sorry. I have tons of pictures and dozens and dozens of amazing stories about the great people here in Ukraine. And I can’t wait to share them all.

Carrie-Anne and I are waking up at 5:15 in the morning (it’s 2:45am right now; yes, that’s how crazy everything’s been!) to head out to the airport for the first leg of our return home to Texas. We take about a 65-minute plane ride to Kiev where we have about a seven hour layover before our ten hour flight to London. Yuk. Words can’t describe the misery of the Kiev airport. Maybe during the seven hours I’ll post a longer blog with a bunch of pics. No promises.

Pray for God’s blessings as we hit the skies.

Our Father is so powerfully great and so wonderfully good. Oh, yes, he is.

Peace,

Allan

Few More Pics

June 11, 2010 / / 1 Comment

“A Common Love” in our Russian songbooks.Wanted to upload a few more quick pictures before we head out for the day. Awesome small group worship and study last night at Mike & Lucy’s. Singing — OK, mainly listening — to “A Common Love” sung in Russian in a 4th floor apartment in Kharkov with Christian brothers and sisters is incredible. I thank God for the experiences he’s allowing Carrie-Anne and me to have here.

More later. These are just pics.

Small Group Thursday nightLiv visiting with Vlad after small group. He’s helping her with Russian grammar. She’s helping him with the Gospel. Praise God. Vlad’s such a great guy. So sweet in spirit. So open-hearted. Always smiling. Praise God.Mike & Rob & David discussing the day’s events and making plans for the rest of the week and w/end.

Great group at the park: Robert & Vlad and Denyce and David and usC-A & Denyce & Lucy riding the MetroC-A at the market checking out the cherries

We pray God is blessing you back home with his great mercy and grace.

Mir,

Allan

Community in Kharkov

June 10, 2010 / / 0 Comments

By the way, it’s HAR-kov. The EM-phasis is on the first SYL-lable.

Good news first. No, it’s great news! The specialists checked out Olivia’s eyes yesterday and determined that 1) yes, she’s blind as a bat (we already knew that) and 2) her retinas are strong enough to allow her to have their baby naturally. What a burden is lifted for this young missionary couple and their family and friends. Praise to God for providing for her and for answering our prayers in this wonderful way.

The Kharkov soccer team, FC Metalist, just opened this new stadium last year. It’s about six blocks from the Nelsons’ apartment. The state is in the middle of renovating this part of town for the Eurocup which is being held in Ukraine in 2012. Metalist Stadium is one of the four locations for the games.These kinds of banners can be seen on a couple dozen different big buildings around the stadiumThe Kharkov soccer (futbol) team is called the Metalist to honor the iron-workers heritage in this part of Ukraine. Kinda like the steelers in Pittsburgh and the meatpackers in Green Bay

Our mighty God is really doing something here in Kharkov. He’s building a community here, a sacred community, a group of people set apart for his redeeming purposes in this region of Ukraine. You can’t believe all the friends and contacts God is giving the Nelsons here. And it’s such a thrill to be right in the middle of it this week. We all gathered at a huge city park last night to celebrate Lucy’s birthday. And we spent a couple of hours talking to and listening to these super-friendly and eager and open people.

 I flew all the way to Ukraine to throw an American football with a kid from China named Kevin. He had never thrown one before. I taught him how to grip the laces and throw, not shotput, a downfield pass. Kevin’s here from China getting a Masters degree in some kind of youth coaching studies. He was so thrilled to be able to throw a spiral “like on TV.” He kept calling me coach. Olivia met him a couple of months ago in a coffee shop. And he’s been with this group ever since. He goes back to China in August. Pray for our new friend, Kevin.Mike & Lucy’s youngest, Max, enjoying ice-cream in the parkOlivia & Lucy

There were probably 30 of us total, maybe a little more. Half of us Christians, the other half not. Not yet, I keep reminding David. And it’s so inspiring to hear all the stories about how God has put them all together. They come from all over, at least four or five different countries, at least four or five different languages being spoken. Different backgrounds. Different religious experiences. Different worldviews. Smiling. Laughing. Serving. Helping. Poking fun at David’s translations. Asking me about Texas and the Dallas Cowboys. Assisting with all the babies. Talking about preaching and ministry and God’s Church. Landlords and construction workers and ballroom dancers and students and doctors and retail salesmen. It’s really incredible how they’ve all come together in David and Olivia’s circle.

 Tons and tons of old cathedrals in Kharkov, some of them 500 and 600 years old. We’re going to check out some of them upclose on Saturday.Another cathedral. I can’t keep them all straight.

God’s doing something with these people. I’m not certain why he’s brought them all together in this way. But they pray together and they study the Bible together. And they talk about our Lord and his plans for the world. It’s easy to see the core of something special here. It’s really easy to see that this is a great group of loving and caring people. I can easily see God using this little group to turn Kharkov completely upside down for the Kingdom. We finished off the night with a McFlurry at Mickey-D’s!

I just don’t know time-frames and methods and strategies.

We can pray. We can keep lifting this group up to God. We can keep trusting God to do something big here with these friendly people. We can keep encouraging David and Liv by reminding them that they are doing their jobs as disciples of Christ, they are planting wonderful seeds, they are shining like stars in the universe, they are reflecting the glory of our King and showing people our Lord’s love and mercy and grace. And we can keep trusting our God to be faithful to his people, to be working in ways we can’t see yet and may never see this side of glory, in order to redeem and restore his creation to its perfect and ultimate intent.

Peace,

Allan

From Kharkov With A Diet Coke

June 8, 2010 / / 3 Comments

At the Kiev airport Monday afternoonI’ve been told there is Dr Pepper here. David and Liv have both said they can find it occasionally. Until then, it’s been all Diet Coke, or “Coca-Cola Light” as it’s labeled here. That’s the one thing I can order by myself at the little shops and kiosks around town. I’ve learned how to say “thank you” and “good morning.” And I was grateful to learn today that I did not in fact pay $45 U.S. for a can of Pringles in the Kiev airport as I believed I had five minutes after I bought them on Monday.

David & Olivia in their new kitchenIt’s been a busy first full day with the Nelsons. They have a beautiful three-bedroom apartment near the Kharkov center. It’s on the sixth floor of a brand new nine story building, far above the buzzing mosquitoes but still very much in range of the howling packs of stray dogs. Like in Texas, it gets dark at around 9:00pm, but the sun really does rise at about 4:30am local time. It certainly didn’t impact me this morning. But it might tomorrow.

I started my day by walking to the underground train station with David and hooking up with the other two men in their missions team, Mike and Rob, for a weekly meeting at a Kharkov coffee joint. Mike taught me a little bit of Russian from the story about the Lakers and Celtics in the Ukrainian newspaper. And when the cigarette smoke from everybody else in the room got to be too much, we stopped, dropped, and rolled out the door to a supermarket and then back to the Nelsons for a lunch with Mike’s family and Olivia’s mom, Nancy.

C-A, Olivia, Vida, and Vida’s daughterCarrie-Anne spent her afternoon with Liv and Vida, their first landlord here in Kharkov, and Vida’s 14-year-old daughter at a coffee shop close to the apartment. And then we met with a group of Russian-speakers that are coming to the Nelsons every week to learn English. They are all so friendly, each with his or her own story and background and worldview. David and Olivia teach the language Olivia, Julia, Andrei, C-A, me, Gene & Alexander at tonight’s English class in David & Liv’s living room. We read from Genesis 1 and talked about words like “hover” and “bug” and concepts like being made in God’s image. Wow.using the Bible as their text, very much like the Let’s Start Talking groups do around the world. It was so good to meet and hug Andrei, the young man who was baptized six or seven months ago. It was also great to meet Julia and Gene, to put faces and voices with the people we’ve been praying for.

Nelsons’ Baby BoyTomorrow is mostly a sight-seeing day. But Olivia also has a three-hour doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon, a pretty important one that may go a long way in determining whether she’ll be able to deliver their baby boy naturally or not. Pray for her tonight and tomorrow, that all may go well.

It’s after midnight here now.  The dogs are barking outside. It must be bedtime.

Peace,

Allan

On The Front Lines

June 8, 2010 / / 1 Comment

“Never pity missionaries. Envy them. They are where the real action is; where life and death, sin and grace, heaven and hell converge.” ~R. Shannon

I heard Terry Rush  say one time that every single American Christian ought to be required to spend at least one year in a foreign mission field. If everyone spent twelve months of sacrifice and service in a place where the Church is not strong and every soul is regarded as precious and every Christian brother and sister is valued as important, there would be no more arguing or complaining or bickering in our American congregations. We wouldn’t fight about anything. We would understand acutely that the Kingdom of God is so much more important and so much bigger than our small version and definition of it, whatever our small version and definition may be. We would be shaped in such a way as to finally believe that being together in a Body of believers, a family of Christians, is the most wonderful thing in the world. And we would do everything in our power to preserve it.

In a foreign mission field, the battles are against the powers and principalities, the dark rulers of this world, not one another. The smallest physical blessings are giant miracles. That one new soul added to the Kingdom is monumental. The problems of mankind are seen as what they really are: sin and death, not whether a brother isn’t happy with the song selection or a sister has a complaint about the room temperature.

Kingdom community means something in a foreign mission field. Utter dependence on God is real in a foreign mission field. Humility and gratitude and faith and brotherly love are not just empty church words in a foreign mission field. In a foreign mission field — in the middle of all the teaching and preaching and praying and giving and crying and building and compromising and learning — men and women are shaped by God’s Holy Spirit to see everything differently.

Everything.

I’ve been praying that God will use our trip to Ukraine to give me some of that “front lines” perspective. I want him to show me a bigger picture of his Kingdom. I want God to reveal to me exactly what he wants me to see. I want to know. I want to grow.

We’ve been here with David and Olivia for about 18 hours. And just in our brief reconnecting with each other, I’ve seen it. I see all of this big-picture, front-line perspective in them. You know, the things they wrestle with, the things they deal with, the things they have to endure for the mission of Christ in this place put all of our petty problems to shame.

All of them.

Our God is working right now to redeem all of his creation. He’s working in every corner of this huge world. He’s changing people, saving people; he’s healing and forgiving,  loving and comforting; he’s giving mankind hope through his Son. And he’s robbing hell. Every day. In every part of this world. Every people, every nation, every tribe, every tongue.

I spend a lot of my time at Legacy worrying about whether so-and-so is happy.

Some of that time, I’m the so-and-so I’m worried about.

And I’m ashamed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want to keep you updated with everything we’re doing, but I’ve already run out of time. It’s been a busy Tuesday (remember, we’re a full eight hours ahead of Texas time) and we’re just minutes away from an English-speaking Bible study here at David and Olivia’s. I’ve got to make up the bed and straighten up in this guest room before Carrie-Anne and Olivia get back from the market. I’ll update one more time before the day is over, hopefully with a few pictures.

Peace,

Allan

Ukraine Is Game To You?

June 3, 2010 / / 1 Comment

David & OliviaCarrie-Anne and I are leaving Sunday afternoon for ten days in Kharkov, Ukraine to visit our good friends David and Olivia Nelson. David and Olivia are almost to the midpoint of a five year missionary commitment in Kharkov. And we’re going there to see the work God is doing in Ukraine, to join in that work, and mostly to encourage the workers.

I admit my only knowledge of Ukraine comes from the Label Baby episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer and Newman encounter a patriotic Ukrainian while playing Risk on the subway. (“The Ukraine is weak. It’s feeble. I think it’s time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.”) You can see the clip I’m talking about by clicking here.

I know the Nelsons are excited about us coming to see them. And it’s not just because we’re bringing new sheets and Tabasco sauce for Davidcurtains and maternity clothes for Olivia and Tabasco sauce for David. I think they’re genuinely experiencing God at work in their lives and in the lives of the people they’re meeting and they want so desperately for somebody from their home congregation to see it first-hand. They want to share what they’re doing and what God is doing through them with the brothers and sisters here who are supporting them.

No, things have not been completely smooth for David & Olivia in Kharkov. I’ll never forget that Sunday morning in March last year when they told us over the skype on the big screens in our worship center how hard and difficult it is. David looked right into the camera, right into our eyes, and told us that missionary work in Kharkov is not glamorous. Nobody speaks English. It’s a different language, different culture, different everything. They’re dealing constantly with rejection and lonliness six-thousand miles away from family and friends who love them so dearly.

Since that time, David and Olivia have suffered through a miscarriage. There have been other setbacks, too. At the same time, they’ve seen the Russian speaking church there grow from nothing to almost a dozen disciples of Jesus. They’ve baptized Andrei. They’re studying the Bible every day with Christ-seeking Ukrainians. Their resolve is inspirational. Their commitment is beyond measure. And the God they serve is great.

Olivia has written before that they do feel “hugged” every time they receive a letter or a card or an email from Legacy. Carrie-Anne and I can’t wait to give them real hugs next week. We can’t wait to eat with them. To pray with them. To laugh with them and, maybe, even cry. We can’t wait to meet Andrei and Vitali and Galina and Valeria. I can’t wait to sit in on their Russian classes with Yelena and Vladimir. We can’t wait to read God’s Word with Nikita and Ura and Victoria. I can’t wait to share the communion meal with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, united by Christ, blessed together by his love and grace. To put faces and personalities with all these names we’ve been lifting to God in prayer for two years is going to be such a blessing.

The Nelsons’ wedding anniversary is June 10th. I told them we wanted to take them to the nicest, fanciest restaurant in Kharkov. David laughed and said, “McDonald’s it is!” I told him we’d supersize everything.Airport workers are on strike at Heathrow in London which could possibly affect our travel. We’ll be twelve days without Dr Pepper. David tells us the nicest restaurant in Kharkov is a McDonald’s. The only hot water in their apartment is provided by a portable heater in the bathroom.

But we can’t wait.

Peace,

Allan

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