Tim Emerson's Ukrainian Journal

Facebook Link

2010-08-25T10:31:00.002+03:00

This blog is now no longer being updated and has been replaced by Facebook. Click here to go to my Facebook page.

Evolution

2010-08-25T10:22:00.002+03:00

Yeah ... by that title you could expect some great philosophical discussion to brew, but no. I'm not the philosophical type. As you've undoubtedly seen this blog is pretty much defunct and so I have arrived to "drive the final nail in the coffin", as they say.

However, just as the caterpillar enters its chrysalis and ceases to interact with the outside world, it soon emerges anew and changed into a butterfly, so, in some ways, this blog is also changing (evolving if you will). It became necessary to join Facebook last night as an attempt to stay in touch with some people who refuse to communicate any other way. It is really a sad state of affairs when someone close to you will spend hours playing Facebook games, but can't write a simple email ... but I digress - this is not the point of this post.

We are now on Facebook and our Facebook page will be replacing the function that this blog once served - to communicate to others about life in Ukraine. I really have no idea how to link to our Facebook page as it doesn't seem too simple ... but here is an attempt.

08/04/2010 - Newsletter

2010-08-05T00:06:00.000+03:00

Link

New YouTube Vids

2010-07-16T23:28:00.002+03:00

Caleb is Born!
Leah's Second Birthday
Time with the Kids (June 2010)
Caleb Talking
Time with the Kids (July 2010 pt 1)
Time with the Kids (July 2010 pt 2)

07/05/2010 - New pics and newsletter

2010-07-05T21:45:00.003+03:00

Leah's pictures (from this picture click to the right for new ones)

Caleb's pictures (from this picture click to the right for new ones)

Leah's Second Birthday

Trip to the Zoo with Leah and her cousin and grandmother

Recent Baptism

Also I posted the latest newsletter over there --->

06/30/2010 - Internet Ahoy!

2010-06-30T16:04:00.003+03:00

So in the last few days I've spent a lot of my time dealing with various internet related things.

The last 6 months or so I've had it on my heart to maybe start up a Calvary Chapel internet radio for Ukraine with songs, preachings, and miscellaneous other things. In addition to now knowing what the heck I am doing, I have had trouble due to my internet provider as well. With the help of a friend, I finally figured out what we needed to do and got it situated yesterday. Now people will be able to connect directly to my computer so I spent some time raising my security and getting things ready.

I've also delved into the realm of creating forms online for people to use if they are interested in attending events put on by our church. We have two main events coming soon which are a 3-day worship conference and a 3-week missions training. So I have been playing around with different components and made a set of English and Ukrainian forms for the upcoming event. I learned a lot and it was pretty fun.

We've also been spending a lot of time outside with the kids and our friends. It has made for a much busier schedule, but much more enjoyable for sure. I've also enjoyed hanging out with some of my own friends here while discussing both life and more spiritual things.

That's really about it. I'm still horribly backed up on pictures so apologies about that.

06/26/2010 - The sick bug ... again

2010-06-26T11:10:00.002+03:00

So, the illness bug strikes again! Yeah, it has been awhile since I wrote - sorry about that. Can't remember much past this last week (nor can I even remember when I wrote last), but this week our entire ministry team went to Hungary for the Foundations conference at the Bible college. they are on their way back today.

Everything was pretty much canceled this week as far as studies went. The plan was that two of the more active families in our church would attend the conference as well so there wasn't even going to be anyone really to attend anything! Unfortunately they both got turned back at the border due to not having visas for their children :(

In lieu of the regular studies, we endeavored to see if we could meet a few people. I've had a couple conversations with our neighbors as we've been out on the playground with Leah and Leah has met a few of the kids too. We pray this is the beginning of the local outreach we desired. It is strange to me that nothing really much has changed in the way we act (except for my hair length!), and yet things are very different. I chock it up to the Spirit ;)

About the sicknesses ... yeah, all of us are sick now. I've been lightly sick for the last week though it could just be severe allergies now. I was surely sick earlier in the week. Christina began to show signs of illness a few days ago and has really gotten a lot worse since yesterday. The kids begin to show signs of sickness this morning. So please remember us in your prayers.

Also, pray for church this weekend as a lot of it will be spur of the moment with the entire team being in Hungary last week.

2010-06-14T16:32:00.002+03:00

What to say? I'm exhausted! It has been a long time since I last wrote and a lot has happened. I suppose the biggest of these is that we're now back in Ukraine. We flew back a couple weeks ago and had a pretty simple flight with the kids.

As for the last month before we left America? A quick summary of what I remember (not comprehensive, but mostly in chronological order):

* Our Ukrainian friend Ira came to visit us from California.
* I took Leah to the zoo for a day with her cousin and my mom.
* Leah and I both got sick for a couple weeks before leaving. Antibiotics cleared it up before we flew back - praise the Lord!
* Wrote a church newsletter article about Ternopil (you can try to click here ... not sure if it will work, grabbed it out of the email they sent me.)
* Christina's family came to visit us again.
* Leah was diagnosed with a vision problem (lazy eye, can't remember the technical name). She also now has glasses ... can you imagine how hard glasses are to put on a 2-year old?

Aside from an annoying ant problem in the hotel room (not too bad, just annoying), there isn't much to write about the flights. We liked to have nearly missed our flight out of London though just because of being slow - we heard an announcement for final boarding just as we arrived at the gate! Leah was pretty grumpy on that flight too.

After getting into Ukraine (YAY!), we found out that we would be driving ourselves back to Ternopil. We ended up taking a total of 9 hours to drive back which normally takes George about 6 hours - hah! I blame the rain, darkness, and an inadvertent problem with a traffic cop ($30 ticket too!). It was a learning experience though and I definitely feel more confident about driving in Ukraine.

We're still trying to get back on decent sleep schedules. I was chatting with a friend briefly who shared with me that the difficulty in getting your family on a good schedule is directly proportional to the number of kids you have (that was for us math geeks).

Haven't done too much as far as ministry is concerned just yet. I'm planning a few reoccurring things though:

* Re-starting guitar classes, but I think I'm going to make a couple changes. I'll keep the beginner classes separated and make that class more about teaching fundamentals. I'll combine all other levels of students into a practical class where we spend 2-3 weeks learning a new song of their choice.
* Re-starting the baby sitting ministry for Christina's small group for mothers of pre-schoolers.
* I've been requested to create a website/forum for the upcoming worship conference in late July.
* Small/home group study (not sure what about yet though).
* There is a technical device that we're going to give to the family we minister to in Zasluchenya. It is a hard drive which can be hooked up to a TV and play anything that is stored on it (video/audio). We're going to give them a large selection of sound teachings so I've been tasked to go through the materials we were provided and nix the bad stuff.

Esther, a South Korean student from the Bible College in Hungary, is doing her internship here for the last few weeks and will be leaving with everyone else to go to the conference in Hungary. She is a wonderful help and has a really big servant's heart. She'll be missed.

That's really all I can think about for now. We've also got a worship conference coming up in late July along with a missions program (2-3 weeks including outeach) in August so those will be on the radar as well.

Oh, and pretty much everyone else on the ministry team is going to the Foundations conference in Vajta, Hungary this weekend so we'll be by ourselves except for a few others. Pray that things go smoothly. I don't know if they'll be back for next Sunday or the Sunday after. We'd be just too overwhelmed with making another trip like that.

Pictures may come ... or they may not.

05/04/2010 - Newsletter

2010-05-05T04:25:00.001+03:00

Sorry for the late newsletter, it was hard to find time to sit down and write it out until today. Click here to view it.

04/28/2010 - Big Picture Update

2010-04-28T23:19:00.003+03:00

Ok, it took forever and a day to chug through the pictures, but I have them posted for your viewing pleasure. By the way, there will soon be a large exodus of pictures (they will be removed from online) because I'm running out of room. I don't know when I will be doing this, but I'm at 83% of capacity now so I think I'll do it without warning at 95%. If you want any of my older pictures, now is the time.

Check out the links below:

Leah Gayle (this picture and proceed to the right for new ones)
Caleb John
Hanging Out with Friends/Family (Leah Gayle pictures really ...)
Grandpa Rob Comes to Visit

04/26/2010 - Aftermath

2010-04-26T23:27:00.003+03:00

So yeah, had a baby the other day. Of course right now we are dealing with the "aftermath" of that meaning it is hard to sleep and doing a lot of running around to get documents ready and stuff.

We've been blessed to have Christina's mother staying with us until Tuesday or Wednesday and she has been spending a lot of time with Leah while we take care of things. She is a huge blessing to us.

The home groups and our friends have also been taking care of us well lately. Last night our good friends brought us some lasagna and tonight one of the home group people brought some spaghetti. It is awesome to be surrounded by so much love and people going the extra step to help you. Sometimes I wonder if our church still has that point of view due to its immense size (10k on one campus, 12k total I think), but it is refreshing to know that these small little things which are somewhat more indicative of a small church happen.

Today I learned something new which should be better published. Seems when you have a newborn and need a passport for him before a SSN is issued, then you simply need to put 000-00-0000 in the SSN blank. A simple thing, but very difficult to find unless you know it already.

So the next few days ... more appointments and preparations and it will probably stay that way until we go home. thanks for keeping us all in prayer!

It's a boy!

2010-04-23T01:28:00.002+03:00

Off to the hospital!

2010-04-22T13:02:00.000+03:00

The baby finally decided it is time! Pray for mom and baby!

04/20/2010 - Nope, not yet!

2010-04-20T16:25:00.002+03:00

Still no baby :( Christina has felt contractions start up over the last few days, but they always disappear so hopefully we are close. Every night I go to bed hoping and praying to be woken up during the middle of the night to, "it's time!" or, "let's go!"

The last couple weeks have again been nothing much to write about. Random visits with people about this thing or that ... meeting with a few more groups to talk about Ukraine ... etc etc.

I suppose one very cool thing was when one of the home groups I am connected with did a "guys' night out" at a local minor league baseball game. It was the first sporting event I really had ever been to as I wasn't into that too much in high school or college. It was classic though ... down 2-0 at the bottom of the 9th and they tie it 2-2. Then in extra innings they loaded the bases and managed at least a double to make it 3-2 (extra runs don't count) and to win the game. So that was pretty cool and I got to know a few of the guys in that home group a bit better.

So right now we really are just biding our time and waiting until the baby comes. we don't really have much of anything else on the radar of events at all anymore aside from the usual and necessary. The doctor said that she would be willing to induce Christina on Wednesday if Christina wanted, but she is unsure knowing that it would be better for Caleb if Christina were to wait. However, Christina is already very much ready to be done with this pregnancy and I can't blame her due to how difficult it has been on her.

04/05/2010 - Finally better?

2010-04-05T22:32:00.002+03:00

Oi ... yeah I got sick again, but this was the worst one yet! I got bronchitis and even elected to go to the doctor in order to get some antibiotics - which if you know me is a big deal. Leah got the flu at the same time, but thankfully we are both well now.

All of our speaking engagements are finished now and so we're really just in "wait mode" for the baby to come. Right now there are only 20 days left and Leah came 2 weeks early so realistically we could say it will be any time.

Not really much to talk about. We've been spending time with family and relaxing mostly ... what could I say about that? We've had a chance to go out on a couple dates too which was fun :)

I guess I won't really be writing much else either until the baby comes. I am in the process of grabbing and rendering some videos of Leah and a couple for my guitar students so there will be some new videos up soon also.

Check out the previous post for some pictures. Our camera accidentally fell into the sand while at the beach one day so we just got our new one and are using it again. We were worried about not having a camera when the baby came.

04/05/2010 - Pictures Update

2010-04-05T22:15:00.004+03:00

All of these except for Leah's are chronological from most recent.

Leah Pics: This one and to the right

Easter
Caleb's Baby Showers
Leah with Friends
The Beach During the Winter
Goodbye Ponytail!
Some Misc Sunday Pictures from Ukraine
Samuel's Birthday Party

And a word of wisdom I have recently learned ... cameras don't like sand (don't drop your camera on the beach!)

Oh, and also the newsletter list got updated over there --->

03/21/2010 - Ugh ... sick again?!

2010-03-22T03:21:00.003+02:00

Yeah, this is the 3rd time I've been sick this month. I'd use it as an excuse for not writing, but that would be a lie ;) I just plain keep forgetting.

These last couple weeks have been quite busy with a lot of home/small group visits and with a couple visits to the Christian school that our home church has on campus. It has been fun telling others about what God has done in Ukraine and what is on the horizon, but it is also nice to finally have some semblance of rest.

Things have become a bit harder for Christina, but she's still going. There have been a couple time when I've had to tell her to go rest, but she typically is fairly open about her needs thankfully. She often acts like she has to take care of everything even when she needs to rest!

So ... umm ... other than that nothing much to talk about. We had a couple baby showers and a visit to Ocala to spend some time with Christina's family up there. Today we went to the other main campus our church has and saw an old friend whom we've not seen for many years so that was pretty cool. I'll still never get used to the satellite campus thing though ... it just feels awkward having someone teaching from a video when you are sitting in a church. What is nice though is that the other main campus is probably 1/4 the size of the main campus and retains some of the "small church" feel that I hold dear to me.

And on that note of "small church" feel ... I miss Ukraine :(

Oh yeah, and we dropped our camera at the beach into the sand so it is dead with sand grit in the lens extensions. Thus, no pictures. Christina's sister has added a few shots of Leah to her online portfolio and so I want to introduce you to Babushka Leah (sorry, not possible to imbed)

03/05/2010 - Of Frying Pans and Fires

2010-03-06T06:41:00.002+02:00

You guys know the expression, "our of the frying pan and into the fire"? As I understand this expression to mean, you are in some difficult situation and then it partially resolves only to escalate and become worse.

Well, I guess we've jumped from the fire into the frying pan ... or something like that. Our computer has been in for repair and we finally got it back. Turns out they had to nearly gut the entire thing and replace a lot. We got it back so things began to come back to some semblance of normality, but then we made a startling discovery ... WHERE ARE ALL OUR EMAIL CONTACTS?! Yeah, so we lost all our email contacts because the computer geek of the family (me) didn't back them up properly.

For the geeks: I made an assumption in Windows 7 that I shouldn't have. In windows 7 they did away with WAB's and now they are stored in a sub-directory in your user profile called contacts. Since I couldn't find the WAB anywhere I assumed the contacts were stored in the Windows live mail folder. I should have checked it out fist, but live and learn. My old boss heard about it and said it is funny when it happens to the computer geeks :P

Anyways, yeah so now we've lost our email contacts which also housed our newsletter distribution list so we don't know who wanted the newsletter or not. I ended up finding a way to gather some old email addresses we use so I sent a mass mail asking if these people wanted the newsletter or not.

If you didn't get the email, you can either reply here or email me assuming you have my email address.

03/01/2010 - March's Newsletter MIA

2010-03-01T18:05:00.003+02:00

Well, it is March, but no newsletter yet this month. I don't have access to the software I need to write it. I suppose I could just write the body of it and format it later - we'll see.

Had a really cool day yesterday. Christina wasn't feeling good in the morning (but she is better now!) so I took Leah and we went to church. I really enjoyed the service this weekend as it challenged me greatly. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed the last couple weeks because I hadn't been challenged yet. This week had a lot to do with the gaps we have in our lives and for me it was the gap of our expectations versus what God can actually do.

I struggle a lot with being friendly to our neighbors. Of course we say hi and help them out when times come up for that, but for the most part we go about daily without much interaction. I catch myself using the excuse of the language barrier a lot, but this is simply "falling into" that gap I was talking about.

God can do anything, but when I use that excuse I am claiming that he can not. Could God give me that ability to understand the words that come up in conversation? Of course! Could he give me the words I need to say in Ukrainian to carry-out a conversation? Of course! For some reason, however, I just don't fully expect him to do that. Something to think and pray about.

In the afternoon, I spent some time with my care group leaders as we all attended a home group training seminar where we taught about what home groups can do in the view of global missions. That was neat and I met a few new people and old friends in the process.

In the evening we went to visit our good friend Alice. Leah had a great time running around and playing with all of us. It was really neat to see her open up to someone so quickly.

Oh, I also wrote a song the other day, but I'm not sure I really like it. At one point is sounds too much like another song for my tastes so maybe I will change it. Either way, when I like it I'll post a video since that is easier than simply recording.

Still no computer, so still no pictures - sorry Jake ;)

02/27/2010 - Torrential Rain

2010-02-27T21:56:00.005+02:00

We all use words like "hot and cold" or "near and far". All of these types of words have different meanings to different people. Obviously someone who thinks a flight to New York from Florida as being far has a slightly different perspective than someone who travels to Ukraine ;)

However, I have discovered a new word which also falls into this category - rain. When someone in Ukraine says it is raining, they typically mean that there is barely any rain falling. Sure, there are times when the rain is heavy, but these occasions are seldom when compared to the rest of the year. However, to a Floridian, heavy rain is a frequent occurrence ... such as for me today.

I have forgotten how harrowing it is to be travelling at 110-120 Km/h (70 Mph) in a deluge of rain ... it is worse than driving on ice because at least then you can see where you are (or theoretically should be) going. Today it became even worse when travelling down the interstate highway only to be passed by an 18-wheeler going in the opposite direction in a construction zone and spray the car with enough water that it was impossible to see for about 3-5 seconds. I was seriously scared.

Yet, it is remarkably these small and subtle differences which make me love Ukraine even more (and miss it even further). The perspective that Ukrainians have on life is so different than what I once had.

I don't know that I have any real point to this except to say, "It rained a lot today and I got scared on the Interstate highway" hehe. Maybe, in some small way, I'm just finding ways to miss Ukraine even more.

Anyways, back to the point of everything! The last couple weeks have been busy. Most notably we've been struggling with trying to get Christina some Medicaid support for our upcoming delivery. Praise the Lord, she has been approved so we won't be going destitute! At the same time, our new computer has had significant problems since we first turned it on so it is off being repaired (I only mention this because it took a lot of time to convince Hp there was a problem). Along with it though went all our bookmarks, email, etc so I blame HP for my lack of blog writing ... blah, yeah it is still my fault ;)

Christina is doing ok - remarkably better than she ever was in Ukraine which is a huge blessing to me. We've had our struggles with illness, but overall she is doing fine as long as she gets enough rest.

Leah has had a hard time adjusting. When we first arrived she did ok - slept and ate ok, but right now she isn't eating well (being picky) and waking up a lot while sleeping, usually because she rolls out of bed - too used to the crib walls, I guess. She's doing ok too, overall I think.

We've had a couple of times so far to share about Ukraine and what God is doing there, but mostly that will begin this week as we have at least 3 meetings to go to each week - 5 of them being home group meetings! It is all pretty exciting and we hope God works on peoples' hearts. I pray there are some "sleeper" missionaries out there that God wants to bring up.

Last night there was a missions service which is a one-a-month service held in one of the smaller rooms at our home church. We heard the results from a Guatemala outreach and how God used the medical team there to reach over 200 lives for Jesus. Pretty neat what God is doing around the world.

Yup, that is it because I had no more time left to type - Leah just woke up from her nap again :) Oh, and no pictures until our computer comes back. I'm using a loaner and can't install anything.

02/10/2010 - Didn't I say I wanted a trim?!

2010-02-11T00:18:00.006+02:00

Just kidding in the title, but I did finally go and get my hair chopped off today. It was just time and it was becoming more of an annoyance than something I would use for evangelism. The original thought was that younger people would be more apt to start conversations with a long-haired guy, but it really didn't help. In the last 5 years I can only attribute one such conversation to that.

So anyways, 5 years of hair growth was donated today to make some hair prostheses (I guess that would be wigs?) for kids with cancer. That is a pretty cool thing I think and I would highly encourage anyone to do the same :)

I'll have more pictures later since my mother was the one who took the "action" shots, but I did do a before and after with my own camera.

Oh by the way, over the years I've had many people ask me how they can resize pictures. I always had to tell them I did my own via a program I bought, but you can also do it on http://fotoflexer.com/ which is where I made this picture.

Monday we just spent a majority of the day at home resting. It is our normal family day so we decided to keep it the same when in America when possible.

Yesterday we attended the home group which supports us, also referred to as our care group. They were doing a worship night and so we enjoyed some great worship and prayer. It definately had a different flow than the ones we have in ternopil and I have to admit that this was the first small group prayer meeting I have ever attended in America. Perhaps we just don't do them too much?

Tonight we will be going to a special service about a former PLO sniper for Yassir Arafat who changed from a lifestyle of hatred for Christians and Jews into a Christian himself, full of love. It will be his testimony I think. It should be exciting.

02/07/2010 - Superbowl!

2010-02-08T04:19:00.002+02:00

Well, originally I planned on watching it, but the events of today sort of just sucked the desire right out of me so I decided to blog instead! Things have been pretty busy lately, to say the least.

Most of all, we took a flight from Ukraine to America on the 4th and so now we are in America awaiting the birth of our second child due April 25. The flights went well and Leah even slept 3-4 hours on the long trans-Atlantic flight, but the transfer in London was horrible! I cast blame on the cab driver we used to get from Heathrow to Gatwick because he got lost even with his GPS which he setup but refused to follow.

Leah and Christina have not adjusted well to the time change which makes it difficult then on me because I always adjust very easily. Therefore I am staying up the normal time, but wake up at 4-5am when Leah does :D

It was fun today also, we got to attend our home church again for the first time in a couple years. I had forgotten how different it is to attend a service in a "mega-church". I've definitely become a "small-church" kind of person. I was also able to talk with some of my friends back in Ukraine who tell me that services went well (except for the recording!).

So really this was just a blanket update for the last few weeks. I don't have a clue what all happened aside from the generalities of packing, preparing, and setting up numerous times of fellowship to hang out with people before leaving. It is good to be back in America, but I am already longing to go home.

01/23/2010 - Election

2010-01-23T12:43:00.002+02:00

Not really much to say on this, but Ukraine had it's election last Sunday and, at this point, it appears that the hope of liberation held so dearly five years ago during the Orange Revolution has dissipated leaving a void. I'm not so sure what to think of it, but my friend Danny wrote some interesting thoughts you may enjoy.

Click here.

01/23/2010 - Apologetics Vids

2010-01-23T12:10:00.003+02:00

Cruising YouTube has become an occasional past time of mine. There really is a lot of information out there in a form of media which holds my attention so much better than a book. I always fall asleep so easily when reading.

I came across a new profile I had never seen before which is a decently large repository for Christian apologetics. Just yesterday I listened to Ravi Zacharias lecture on atheism which I enjoyed. He's a bit intellectual so I sometimes get lost in the large words (I'm a simple man) but still it was great. I can't vouch for the rest of the profile, but you can check it out here as long as you keep a clear mind so as to be aware of any false teachings which may have sneaked in.

As for the last week, it has been challenging. Christina is more often immobilized by Caleb's kicks making it impossible for her to stay standing for long periods of time. I feel so bad for her and am powerless to really do anything except continue to love and do what I can. By result, I've also been taking care of Leah more like I was when she had the cramping pain.

Leah is doing ok, but she's becoming more obstinate and determined in her will. Meal times can be so trying when she excitedly gets in her chair, only to refuse to even take that first bite of food. I believe I can honestly say that I can identify with being a single parent now and they have it so tough!

Last Sunday the Pratt family came to visit us from L'viv. They are currently serving in a church in L'viv, but are praying to begin a Calvary Chapel there when God permits. Mike taught last Sunday through some verses in Philippians and described what God has been doing in his life. He is a really good teacher and fun to listen to. After church we went out to eat.

On Tuesday, Christina and I used out "date coupon" which a friend, Ruth, gave us for Christmas so we went out to a local pizza place and indulged in some pizza and ice cream. I wish I could say the pizza was great, but it was only ok in my opinion. It was really fun to get out together without Leah - we've not been able to do that in awhile since Brian left for Kyiv.

Samuel (George and Sharon's son) had a birthday party on Wednesday and I provided the entertainment - balloon things! Everyone had a great time - kids and adults alike!

The rest of the week has been mostly just preparing for our trip and stuff like that - I even got our taxes done ;)

01/19/2010 - New Pictures

2010-01-19T12:12:00.003+02:00

This picture was given too me just the other day. It is from our city center and I thought it would be nice posted :p

The last few days I've been chugging through 3 months of pictures trying to get them sorted and posted and finally ... I'm done! The easiest way for you to see them is to use the following links:

New Leah Pictures (after viewing this picture, the rest of the new ones are to the right)

Thanksgiving
Church Anniversary
Our Christmas
Church Christmas
Christmas Dorm Outreach
Student Women's Study Christmas Party

I'll do a blog update later.

01/16/2010 -

2010-01-16T09:25:00.005+02:00

So, last week I taught for the first time in a year. It was challenging to me and I'm still convinced that it isn't my calling in life. That said, it was interesting to study Noah and the Ark outside of a Sunday School setting - there is some pretty cool stuff. It was a busy week again last week with half of our team still in Kyrgyzstan, but we made it through. A couple of awesome individuals stayed behind late to help us clean up and I am very much thankful for them!

Sunday night I stayed up to fix the computer. At times I wish I had invested in imaging software because I think it took me about 6 hours from start to finish including all updates and program downloads. The great thing is the computer is working again - whew! I wasn't completely sure I could fix it.

Moms' group went great this week. They studied laughter (and joy I think?) so there was plenty to go around. There were no kids again this week to care for, so it was just Leah and I again - she was disappointed and loves it when her friends come over.

Guitar lessons went fine and one of my students continues to highly impress me. He's already playing the song we are working on whereas everyone else is having trouble putting the strumming and chord positions together. Everyone, however, is doing great overall and they're all learning fast.

Last night I spent a few hours editing and rendering videos: Christmas, a miscellaneous Leah video, and my guitar lesson videos. I'll put up the Leah video here, but you can go to my YouTube page if you are interested in the Christmas videos: http://www.youtube.com/tandcemerson

Still working on some pictures ... I'll get those up soon.

01/08/2010 - Consolation

2010-01-08T11:01:00.002+02:00

We learned last week that one of the students who attends our fellowship suffered a tragedy last week. His father was murdered and it has been very difficult for him. Last Sunday we made a card for the church to sign and then I went to visit him on Wednesday for a bit. We talked for awhile, prayed some, and I think he is going to be ok, but of course it is hard when something like this happens. Please keep him in your prayers if you think of it.

Tuesday we invited some friends over for dinner. Leah had a great time playing with Mark, their son. Sometimes I worry about her social skills since she isn't around other kids too much, but she does ok. We had a great time just eating and chatting. We invited Marylin to come over too and I spent a bit of time working on her laptop to make it work a bit better - she's had a hard time lately with it.

I had my guitar classes last night and had to break the news to my intermediate class that Jan 28 will be our last official lesson. When I come back, I plan to have the same time slot set aside if they want to get together for guidance or help, but my time as their instructor will be over. They've done well, know all the important keys and their open chords with a bit of knowledge in theory and barres. To be honest, they know as much as I do now, but just need to practice and develop their skill is all. Hopefully they will keep practicing while I am gone and surprise me when I come back :)

I'm teaching this weekend and it has been interesting to say the least. At first, I chose a topic, developed it, and then felt like God was leading me elsewhere so I put it aside. Yesterday I began studying for a new message, but mysteriously our laptop began acting up - horribly long load times, audio/video stutters, crashes. It never ceases to amaze me how there are always such distractions when preparing to teach. Anyone who doesn't believe in spiritual warfare has obviously not tried to teach expositionally! Anyways, it's going to be another crazy busy weekend for me with studying/teahing, playing in worship, and trying to organize everything Sunday morning so please, remember me in your prayers too :)

01/04/2010 - Happy New Year

2010-01-04T22:03:00.002+02:00

Happy New Year everyone! I pray everyone had a safe and pleasant New Year celebration? I have to be honest, if there was ever a "grinch" award for New Year, I probably would have won it this year. With Christina feeling pretty crummy, I decided to stay home and pretty much had an ordinary night - nothing special :)

Things have been pretty good lately, even with half the team off in Kyrgyzstan (which I FINALLY learned how to spell ...) Church went surprisingly well last week and it wasn't as stressful as I assumed it would be. We kept it pretty simple with the worship so I was able to fit everything in the taxi both on the way and back. When Christina and I returned we even had this great taxi driver who even helped me with carrying some of the church supplies up to Jon's place.

We finished off the last few verses of 2 Thessalonians this weekend ... mostly about continuing on through hardship and difficulties. Zhenya did a great job teaching! I'll be teaching this next week, but it will be a topical study and I am having trouble deciding what to teach. Tomorrow morning will be my first day I can sit down and put stuff on paper so we'll see how that goes. So far, I've been praying about a topic related to, "Why do you believe what you believe" ... basically about believing in the absolute truth rather than the perceived truth.

Not much else to write about really. Tonight we went over to some good friends' house for dinner and had a wonderful time just hanging out and talking. Leah enjoyed her sled ride both to and from ... she seems to prefer sledding over going in the stroller. Honestly, I'll really miss our friends while we are in the USA, it is like leaving family behind just like when we have to leave the States ... guess that means we'll be doing a family transfer :)

Still no pics to share - sorry.

12/28/2009 - Christmas in Review

2009-12-28T13:17:00.002+02:00

Been busy with all the holiday stuff recently, but it is my day off today so I can write! I can't really recall much from before Christmas, but the events of Christmas are still fresh in my mind.

Last Tuesday, we hosted the moms' group. Not many kids came (only the Markey boys and Leah), but we found out that there is now a fifth person pregnant in our church! It all happened close together last time and so again it happens. Christina is the furthest along though ;)

Right before Christmas, we were busy making our presents - lots of delicious stuff! Bagels, cookies, brownies, candied walnuts, and "Tex Mex" bread. It was hard to give it all away! We attempted to allow Leah to help us make the cookies, but it was hard as she was distracted so often - we also didn't want to botch it up because of lack of time. We plan to make cookies with her again when we can - hopefully it will become a tradition as I am a big fan of family-centric activities!

On Christmas day it was fun to have Leah get into her gifts this time. Last time she was basically a lump of baby who didn't really care. Since then she's been running around constantly with either them or the gift bags.

Afterwards, our entire team went to Jon and Steph's to celebrate together. Ruth joined us again from the Peace Corps as did a new American couple attending the YWAM DTS program. It was good to hang out and to get to know the new couple better - we played some fun games and the food was rockin'.

Saturday, we went to the medical dorm by invitation and had a Christmas party with some of the Africans who live there. We did some songs and just hang out with some snacky foods. I got to meet a couple new people and hope I see them again in the future.

Yesterday, we had our church's official Christmas celebration (even though Ukrainian Christmas is Jan 7). Christina wasn't feeling too good though and due to miscommunication, I was unable to take Leah to church with me so I missed everything after worship. I heard that it was a very fun time though and that the food was delicious - I hope everyone was blessed.

So that is about all I can remember. I will be getting photos of the African outreach/party soon from someone else and I'll post up some pictures later of what I have. We planned to do video, but it didn't really work too well with all that happened.

As for the future, the Markeys take off in about a half hour for Kyrgystan to spend some time with all the family they have on this side of the globe. Zhenya and I will be teaching in the next couple weeks so you can be praying for us to both be filled with insight from the Holy Spirit about what should be taught.

12/17/2009 - New Leah Vid

2009-12-17T12:38:00.002+02:00

Today I took some more video of Leah and wanted to publish all that we had taken to date. It all fit nicely in a 10 min video so here you go! Enjoy!

Other than that, not much to say about the week so far. It's been snowing since Sunday afternoon and now it is about8-10cm deep (couple inches).

Monday was our day off so we hibernated all day. Brian came over to babysit Leah so we retreated to our room and watched a movie together.

Tuesday my morning meeting was canceled and so Tuesday and Wednesday I pretty much stayed home and took care of housework. Not much to say about that :p

About a week ago, our wonderful care team sent a Christmas package with all sorts of goodies. One of the highlights was a bag of nacho Doritos ... and we all know the best thing that a missionary can do with that ... make taco salad! So, last night Christina went out to do the weekly grocery shopping and came home overwhelmed and exhausted so I made my family recipe of taco salad. It was and is heavenly (just had leftovers)!

This just in ... the laptop's power supply just had an unfortunate encounter with a small girl named Leah ... going to be a day or two (hopefully) before I can get it replaced.

12/13/2009 - Weekend!

2009-12-13T20:02:00.003+02:00

Been a bit busy the last few days :)

Thursday, I had my first full class with my newest guitar students. 4/7 people showed up and 2 of the absentees were because they hadn't found guitars yet. One of my new students worried me because she speaks French and not really any English, but I was impressed at her ability to understand and pick things up fast. We'll see how it all goes. So far things are very promising and two of them seem especially to be gifted musically.

Nothing of note really happened on Friday because Christina wasn't feeling good so I took over watching Leah most of the day. It was also a fairly "blah" day so we really didn't go out.

Saturday and Sunday were busy days. I think Saturday I was doing things constantly from 10am until 11pm with practices, preparations for Sunday, prayer meetings, and then caring for Leah in between. I like days like that though ... you can sleep well at night :)

Church today was pretty cool. I think we flowed together on the worship team better than we have before. Nothing really happened to cause that so I blame God :P Wish things went like that more often. Instead of being in the service lately, I have been leaving halfway though to play guitar with the kids lately ... they are preparing for their Christmas presentation :) It should be fun.

12/09/2009 - Leah

2009-12-09T21:29:00.002+02:00

So I decided to write a small bit separately about Leah. She is growing up so fast now ... running and playing with the kids ... repeating countless scores of words ... being disobedient :P She's an amazing kids really!

She's got about 4-5 teeth coming in all at once so she's been in a lot of pain lately also.

So I will post some pictures too ... but there are a few, so click here and then proceed to view the pictures to the right in order to see the ones I uploaded today.

12/09/2009 - Back in Action

2009-12-09T20:04:00.002+02:00

So things have kinda slowed down ... relatively speaking. I'll be trying to blog again.

We found out some things about Christina's pregnancy which brought much peace of mind. We talked to an American midwife who told us that the cramps and pains that Christina is experiencing is, in actuality, normal and nothing to be concerned about. Although she isn't feeling any better, I think psychologically it has helped her to deal with it by knowing nothing is endangering the baby. So things are a bit better.

It would be hard to talk about what has happened the past while since my last entry so I guess I'll just talk about this last week.

Today we went over to George and Sharon's for a team meeting and to celebrate George's birthday! We discussed a few of the upcoming things, but perhaps the one you all might be interested in is that we are weighing two options right now for a new place to meet. We've had a couple instances where the workers at the place where we meet right now have been less than pleased with something which I would consider insignificant (we moved the pile of tables outside the meeting hall for a holiday ... ) We are still looking, but also are hoping that our request for a loan will be accepted. Anyways, we're psyched about it. The meeting and "party" were a lot of fun ... just check out this cute picture of Leah!

This last week, George, Jon, myself, and a guy from the church, Peter, went to a leadership conference in Kyiv which was pretty cool. Met up with a lot of old friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The pastor from Horizon church in Indianapolis came to speak and the subject intrigues me:

-Pursue after the enemy
-Overtake the enemy
-Retake what the enemy has taken

I'm having a hard time applying it though as I found his examples to be more generic experiences than practical application - still praying that I would get it. The teaching was good though, don't get me wrong :)

I also found out that a friend of mine is leaving Ukraine soon so that'll be sad. I always admired his family for how outgoing they were in their neighborhood and how many strong relationships they built. The choice was hard for them, but of course understandable when considering the reasons. We'll be praying for them.

Lets see ... I have only had one of my guitar classes recently due to outside influences and surprise journeys. However, I'm excited that, beginning tomorrow, I can finally begin having them again with my students. Brian, my best student, is leaving Ternopil to go work - part of his University practical work requirement so it'll be sad to see him go, but I will have up to 5 new students joining so there will be much to do!

We've also had a mens' discipleship class in the mornings where we study the book of Romans inductively and also discuss some theology books we read together. We've met a dozen times or so, but recently one of the guys has been traveling so we decided to wait for him. I honestly don't mind because the class is at 7am and it is nice to sleep in! It is more rewarding however, to see others and myself grow through the studies :)

I guess I will stop there ... not sure what else to add from the last few weeks. I don't think I have my newest newsletter up, but probably it will be there by the time you are done reading this --->

I should be writing more ... I hope! :)

Why I've not been blogging

2009-10-28T11:43:00.003+02:00

Vika left a message asking what's up lately so I figured I should probably post about it all.

A lot has happened recently and I've not been blogging for a couple reasons. First, I've just lost all desire to and second, I just simply don't have the time anymore. I've rationalized this by letting newsletters be the primary medium through which people can read about what is going on.

In September, about the time of my last blog entry, we found out that Christina is pregnant again. However, this pregnancy has been much more difficult than the first and Christina is needing to be lying down very often - at least half the day. I've also started going to a discipleship meeting we're having early mornings with a couple of the guys in the church and also, on the days we're not meeting, I go to an early morning prayer meeting.

So, all told, and including everything else that was already going on, I'm running pretty solidly all day from 6am until 10pm which is just enough time to rest a bit and sleep. That's why I've not been blogging and probably won't continue this blog.

As mentioned earlier, monthly newsletters will be our main medium of communication now so if you'd like to be added to my newsletter list, please leave a comment as it automatically is sent to me via email.

09/04/2009 - Nothing Special

2009-09-05T09:26:00.002+03:00

Thursday and Friday ... what to say? Well, not much unfortunately!

Thursday I spent a majority of the day working on websites. Also, spent 30 minutes trying to write an email in Ukrainian to one of the non-English speaking pastors which was pretty fun. I had guitar class, but only one student came - and she came a half hour late. So yeah, not much to say - just trying to take care of things the best I can.

Friday I did a bunch of walking around taking care of things. Took Leah with me once when I went to the bank. We took the long way and walked until I realized it was her nap time.

Then last night we had a team meeting over dinner and discussed how things were going - normal stuff. Seems that the village outreach will be recheduled because our worship leader won't be getting back until a couple days before and we don't yet have permission. Oh well.

Also, here are some pics from a recent evening walk we took with some friends from the church:

New Leah Pictures

2009-09-02T21:45:00.003+03:00

Use this link and go to the right to see new pictures of Leah.

09/02/2009 - September already?

2009-09-02T20:21:00.002+03:00

It's getting cold here already ... yesterday I was almost uncomfortable in shorts, but today was a bit better. Time flies!

So I got to thinking about stopping the blog again. It's just hard to keep up with and, as if it was an answer to prayer, I got a stats report from my little counter I have on the blog. It tells me that 7-15 people are checking my blog every day so I guess I really shouldn't stop, eh?

So the past week ... pretty much normal stuff. Christina went to a baby shower for a friend and then also has spent some time with the girls so I was with Leah a lot. She's getting so old now it's funny. You can tell from the videos in the post below this one.

We're starting to think about when we'll be going back to the States and so far we're looking at Feb-Apr ... somewhere in there. We've got a couple reasons, but I can't tell you just yet - hah! More suspense.

Really, it's been a rather slow month overall I guess in terms of anything unique happening. We added language lessons into our routine so that took up a bit more of our time.

Not much else to say that I can think of. It's a shame I have such a bad memory and need to post stuff rather soon after it happens or else I'll forget - 100% guaranteed :p

Leah's New Videos

2009-09-02T20:18:00.002+03:00

I had the videos already up since 8/27, but forgot to post about it. Sorry. Here you go!

Day at the Park
Walking
Misc Summer 2009 p1
Misc Summer 2009 p2
Hide n' Seek

08/20/2009 - Leah's first steps!

2009-08-20T21:15:00.002+03:00

Leah took her first steps today - video will come later. We have some guests over right now.

08/14/2009 - A New Place?

2009-08-14T13:49:00.002+03:00

Well, yesterday we had a team meeting and George told us about another place he looked at for a potential church. The previous building we passed on, but this one is both bigger and cheaper and in a better location! Keep it in prayer.

Most of the ministry going on around here the last couple days has been on Christina's end so I've been home with Leah a lot. What that means is I have a whole bunch of nothing to write about!

"Patz!"

(If you don't understand the "Patz" above, you need to read further down)

Newsletters

2009-08-12T11:55:00.001+03:00

I'm not going to be posting to the blog anymore about newsletter updates being available. The last five of our newsletters are always available on the right side of this blog.

Incidentally, the newest one is there too.

08/12/2009 - Accidents happen

2009-08-12T11:45:00.003+03:00

Before I write in depth, everyone is ok, but there was a car accident a couple days ago involving the car we use for many of our church activities. George, our pastor, and a couple of his brothers were on the way to Hungary for an errand and so Aaron could get back to the college. Praise the Lord there is only a bit of back pain as a result. The other car had 6 people in it too, but they are all ok.

Unfortunately the car is incapacitated now though, but George's mom said we could use her car while she is away. Today George is supposed to hear from the other driver's insurance company so we pray we can get the car fixed quickly.

In other news, evangelism went well on Saturday. We didn't really get to talk to anyone, but a young lady came up expecting us to be there and asked for directions to our church before we could even say hi - that was rather surprising! The next day, she and three others came to the church and appeared to have a great time. We look forward to seeing them again!

Christina and I are continuing our trend with inviting people over to our apartment. We've been having two groups of guests a week so far and it's been awesome just to hang out with them. Next week we plan to have some of the African guys over.

Leah is getting very good at repeating words. He newest one, and by far the cutest is, "patz," which is her way of saying pants. She is becoming so much more aware of things and more interactive - it's GREAT! Yeah, she's more ornery too, but that's ok :)

08/07/2009 - Only a few things to write about

2009-08-07T11:54:00.002+03:00

Been kind of a slow week here as far as extra ministries go. I was planning on going out to an evangelism outing with a team from Ireland on Wednesday, but we got rained out. It is a shame too, they said they had a really good turn out when they did it last Saturday. I'll see if I can get back together with them and maybe go out again.

However, a highlight this week was that Christina and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary! We got our babysitter to reschedule to that day (Tuesday) so we went out and spent a few hours together. It was great fun and I am so glad to have been married to the woman of my dreams for that long!

My foot is doing a lot better with the lump about half it's original size and the swelling having gone down a bit. I did some research about achilles tendon pain and the symptons describe what I have for the most part. Unfortunately the recommended treatment is to stay off of it and just wait, using ice to reduce any swelling. That's hard for me because of all the walking I do. Oh well, I'll do what I can.

I guess the only other thing to really write about is that Leah is teething again (we think - no teeth yet) so she has a bit of a cold and cough. She has still been sleeping well for the most part, but been a bit irritable at times with us. I can't imagine what she'll be like when she enters the terrible-twos.

We'll be having house guests this weekend. A family form Kyiv is coming to visit the church so we volunteered to put them up so that will be exciting. They're not coming to visit us though so I assume we'll only see them a little bit.

08/02/2009 - Virginia!

2009-08-02T17:50:00.003+03:00

Last night we decided to try something different with our weekly evangelism. We went out by the main walking area at the lake to see what would happen. We got to talk to a few people, but for the most part people just walked by and weren't really interested in talking.

Today we had church services like normal, but we were packed to the brim and spilling over. We were expecting it though because there was a multi-church Calvary Chapel team from Virginia (and area) visiting the nearby town (2.5 hours away by car) of Rivne and asked if they could come visit us for the day. It was great seeing then and getting to know them. Leah unfortunately has a bit of a temperature and is irritable today so she didn't come to church. We're not sure if she is just starting to get sick or if maybe she is teething again.

After church we we out to lunch/dinner with the visiting team and afterwards I left early because of my foot. I've had some foot pain lately, which I thought could have been bone spurs or something, but at our picnic last week I came home with a large lump on the back of my foot. It has since reduced a lot with icepacks and whatever, but this whole week has been hard on me with my foot hurting so I gave in and asked my friend Zhenya if he could use his connections to find a decent doctor to go to. We'll see :) Pray for me

07/30/2009 - Back and healthy!

2009-07-30T21:55:00.002+03:00

So last I wrote, we were both pretty sick, but I'm happy to report we are well now. It's actually been a few days of good health already, but just wanted to let y'all know.

Been busy around here lately. The last couple days have been almost non-stop with having people over, doing different ministries and whatever. Yesterday we invited a couple Canadians, who are working in the orphanages, over to hangout for the afternoon and evening. We don't know if they are Christians, but it does not appear as such. We had a couple chances to share about what is going on here though so we pray God touches their hearts - especially in these last few days they are here - they leave next Friday.

Last night George, John, and I went to a home group to speak about grace at the invitation of the group leader. These guys all go to one church (and a couple to ours every now and then) and find grace to be an intriguing subject - something they are desiring to know more about. The churches here are very much lacking in grace and specialize in control so a lot of questions were about our church and how it is even possible to have a church without the need to "order" people what to do. It sure is amazing that every need in our church (aside from a >>full<< children's ministry team) is filled by people who desire to serve out of love and willingness rather than obligation! Praise the Lord!

Today we went to look at a possible new church building. The owner is open to renting or buying, but we've pretty much decided that we're not into renting it. If God provides the funds, then we might buy the place - we're not going to limit what God can do. It is a 3-story building that is either new or newly remodeled (I think the latter) which currently has a meeting room to seat 60 people comfortably, but could cram in about 100 if needed. If we were to buy the place, we'd likely clear out an entire floor for a meeting hall. It'd function as a church office too and the top floor could be a parsonage for the Ukrainian pastor who eventually gets raised up to lead the church. It has a lot of potential and we're praying about it to see what God wants to do. When we went to see it today, the guy knew how much he would rent it for, but not how much he would sell it for so we'll see. This is pretty exciting as we are already overflowing our meeting room at the train station complex. God is building his church!!

Worship has been going well and I'm very much enjoying playing bass. It is a hard instrument to improve upon by yourself though (self taught) because it is so simple to play at its base level. To learn to improvise and do melodies and embellishments is difficult. I can hear them in my head, but to bring them out of my mind and into my fingers is hard :) I need a bass teacher! :P

On that note (HAH!), guitar lessons is going good too. I lost a student, but picked up another one so right now I'm struggling with trying to get everyone on the same page.

Not sure if I've said this, but Leah is already walking with only holding one hand. She can walk on her own if she had the courage, but that one hand is her safety net of sorts. She's got about 8 or so works in her vocabulary too. She's getting so big too (I can compare her now to Katie).

Pray for us on the 22nd of August because we are planing to have a small lakeside concert and evangelism that evening. We are still seeking permission and having a hard time obtaining it. Please pray we get the permission and that the organization comes together for the actual event.

Also, please pray tonight for George, our pastor. He's sick with either food poisoning (from the village food he ate during his village outreach today) or picked up the flu bug which has been going around - a nasty one at that!

07/20/2009 - Flu

2009-07-20T21:45:00.002+03:00

Christina and I are both very sick. Christina was doing bad yesterday and is a bit better today, but today is my bad day so this'll be short. Please pray for us.

Forgot to mention that Leah is ok :)

07/17/2009 - Been awhile

2009-07-17T10:11:00.002+03:00

Yeah, been awhile. There are two reasons, but only one of which I can say freely and that I'm lazy. I'll tell you guys the other reason later when it is safer :) Nothing bad, but you'll understand when I tell you :)

Life has been fairly normal lately and there hasn't been much for me to write about.

The biggest news is that Jon and Steph had their baby yesterday, Katie Rose Markey, and everything is going fine as far as I know. Everyone is healthy except for Jon's mom who got very sick. Still waiting for some more concrete details than from second hand.

Leah is now exercising her will to be defiant and is quite adept at it. The potty and eating times are our greatest challenges right now, but otherwise she is an awesome baby! We went out to the park the other day and had a great time looking at doggies (her word), birdies (not her word), and swinging at a playground. She really loves to swing and does so now by herself.

Here are some pictures. Start at the linked picture and go to the right.

The church is growing and for the last few weeks we've been at or near capacity. Last week I had to leave the front to take care of a broken guitar string and when I came back, there wasn't much to sit on, so I sat on my guitar case :) God is good and giving us His daily mercies. With Katie coming, we kinda held off the last couple weeks with evangelism so we'll see what is up n' coming.

06/30/2009 - Back in Ukraine

2009-06-30T10:57:00.002+03:00

Well we're back and we had no problems at the border at all! Praise the Lord! Marilyn, who came back the day after us, also says she didn't have problems! I wish the same could be said for friend of mine in Kyrgystan - pray for him if you think about it because some suspicious KGB guy changed the expiration date on his visa ... with white out?

Anyways, we're back and finally about recovered. Leah is still acting strange though - she won't eat hardly anything. I've read a few places that it is normal, but that still doesn't make it pleasant.

We're currently in the midst of trying to figure out if we are going to move (change apartments) or not. Our rent is way above average so I gave my landlord an ultimatum to lower it or we move out. We're paid through August 20 though so we'll see what happens - he said he might lower it, but if we find something else during that time (and there are a few nice places available) we might move anyways, I dunno.

I got to have a morning accountability/prayer meeting with Zhenya today. He's going on vacation so might start giving Christina and I language lessons as a secondary income during his time off. It would be nice to begin studies again!

So far today I've been working on websites and taking care of stuff so not much else to say. The conference was awesome, but I can't really add much to what I've already said the last time.

06/23/2009 - From Hungary with Love

2009-06-23T22:35:00.002+03:00

Christina and I are in Hungary. Tonight was the first time we turned the computer on since leaving Sunday and lo and behold we have full internet access for whatever reason. Most people have to pay, but I turned the computer on and "whammo" it works. I think the reason is that I am suffering from heightened allergies and planned to watch the service from our room so I'll take advantage of something that might be short lived and post a little about our trip.

So our trip went ok. If you've not known, we were a bit perturbed about crossing the borders and the possibilities of trouble with immigration, but it seems that I was correct in my assumption of how they would interpret the law and we had no problems at all which should hopefully mean entry into Ukraine will likewise be without trouble. There is still the threat of not being allowed back into Ukraine, but I would think if that was the case we would have been fined trying to leave.

The conference is great so far and we've enjoyed meeting with old friends and superb worship and great teaching. Leah's sickness has made it hard sometimes, but we've got medication for her now so hopefully it will pass. Please pray for her recovery.

I was checking out something in 2 Peter today and hope it might encourage you. Cool verses:

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-11

06/17/2009 - A week in review

2009-06-17T10:47:00.004+03:00

Wow, been a week ... someone slap me! Bad Tim!

We've had such a fluster of activity, I'm not sure where to start. We finally got a handle on our tickets to Hungary and I thought there was a possibility we wouldn't have been able to go. A friend of ours went to L'viv (which is the major city on this side of the country) and was able to buy tickets for us there so on Sunday we'll be going to the conference. We're still not 100% sure we'll be allowed back in the country, but 90% sure - it all depends on their interpretation of the laws and such. Pray for us.

Wednesday through Saturday is kinda fuzzy and I don't remember quite what happened - helped someone with internet setup, did a few guitar lessons - pretty normal stuff that I tend to overlook since it is something I do every week. I do know, however, my allergies are causing me some problems all this week so you could pray for that.

Sunday we did an outreach which was ... unique. During the first part of the day we AGAIN had a stormy day and thought it was going to ruin our plans again for the 6th time in a row, but the weather cleared up. Mid-day we had a baptism and then immediately after we went to the square. My friend later wrote a prayer request which really sounds a lot better than anything I could write so I will just quote him:

We did an outreach last night downtown. It was the first time we were able to go out in a few weeks due to rain over the last few weekends. Praise the Lord it really cleared up yesterday and we were able to go play in the center. It was definitely a more trying time than the previous outreaches. Let alone that not many seemed interested, it seemed there was much more resistance. A few guys came and sat on a bench next to us. They were completely drunk and became quite a distraction. After a little while one of them stood up and started to scream to the people saying things about us trying to bring people under bondage and stuff like that, he became really hot about everything and might have physically caused some damage to us had his friends not tried to restrain him. Praise the Lord for His protection, but it was quite a scene, this guy continually tried to make his way towards us even when his friends dragged him away from the scene. This was all while we were singing "Light of the world". I was doing my best to ignore what was going on and to just play and sing the song. Those guys did finally leave and a few people stayed around to listen more. Towards the end of our time out there 4 young guys came up and urged us to keep playing saying that they really enjoyed it. After awhile they were the only people left watching so we got to talk with them for awhile. They really want to come to the service next Sunday and one of them left a cell phone # for us to call him whenever we are out playing. Their names are Andriy, Oleg, Vitalik and Kolya. Please keep them in prayer. I really want to be able to build a relationship with these guys. It was a difficult evening and we could definitely sense the spiritual battle going on, but if for nothing else, perhaps the Lord just wanted us to meet these four guys. I pray for their salvation!

I admit I got a little scared too, but it was cool to see God's protection over it all and the blessing at the end was awesome. We're praying heavily that those 4 guys (or even some of them) would come to church on Sunday :)

Yesterday, our friend Slava invited our team out for a picnic and though it rained, the trees provided enough protection. It was a fun time and I got to throw a baseball around for the first time in a long time - definitely can't throw as far, but my aim was still good :) Had prayer meeting last night too which was the perfect end of the day.

Tonight we are going to go see a jazz vocal group called, Mansound. You can read about them here.

06/09/2009 - Weekend recovery

2009-06-09T14:23:00.002+03:00

It's been a whirlwind of activity the last few days with the service and stuff. We just had mom's meeting and I helped with the childcare. I think I scared one little boy by making him stay in the room because he ran away from me later. It's interesting to see how American and Ukrainian children react differently in a childcare situation.

Anyways ... what to write about the last few days. We *tried* to do a lot of stuff, but it seems we were cut off at every turn. Twice we tried to go out and do evangelism and twice it was called on account of rain. The few times I tried doing some of my website work, I got pulled away as soon as I sat down so I didn't get anything done there either. Living in an interrupt driven lifestyle can be frustrating, but only when you are so fixed on your own goals and stuff. When you try to look at things through others' eyes it makes so much sense and you see the situation in a whole new way.

I guess that is what God has been teaching me lately - to work on truly loving other people and placing their own interests above my own. Kind of a combination of the ten times we are commanded (actually eleven, but this also includes quotes) to love our neighbors and Phil 2:4 which says to put others' interests above you own. By doing this, God also says you will be a good witness because that is how others know we are His disciples - if we love one another.

So, not much in the "here is what has happened" news, but a bit more of a "here is what God is doing" news.

Prayers needed

2009-06-06T22:31:00.002+03:00

It's already late and I still need to begin working on the bulletins for tomorrow so no post today. However, we would like to ask everyone to pray. Here is what was sent to me earlier:

Members of the Kyiv church were on their way to a village outside of Kyiv to do an outreach. They were passing a car on a two-lane road and as they did so, that car started to veer towards them. This forced Yulia (pastor's wife in Kyiv) to go off of the road, and the van ended up turning completely over a couple of times, finally landing on it's side. Praise the Lord no one is in critical condition. There are a couple of girls who need to remain in the hospital for a few days as their injuries are more serious. Please pray for their healing and for the entire situation. There is a long procedure ahead for Yulia as she was driving the van; in fact the matter will most likely go to court. Pray for peace for her, for wisdom in dealing with the authorities and for the Lord to use the entire situation for His glory!

Other than the above, we know very little. One person broke a collar bone. Another broke a rib. Another has some type of head injury. Pray for this situation please.

06/04/2009 - Never made it to register ...

2009-06-05T13:52:00.003+03:00

So yeah we never made it to Zbarazh to register. During the rest of Wednesday it became apparent that we don't need to and currently are in Ukraine under the old 180 day rule as opposed to the new 90 day rule. This all has to do with our entry date, but at least right now everything seems ok and we should have immigration issues until September when we'll have to register again.

Yesterday we just had a team meeting and Christina went grocery shopping so I stayed home with Leah and played with her most of the day. I've started teaching her the alphabet ... or at least I've started talking AT her about the alphabet. She doesn't really express interest yet :)

06/03/2009 - Newsletter

2009-06-03T09:58:00.002+03:00

So I finished the newsletter this morning. I actually had it done yesterday, but didn't have a picture of the family so I needed to wait until Leah woke up. So here it is.

As for the events of yesterday, did the newsletter as you know and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what we're doing about registration. Tomorrow (Thursday) we are going to be going to Zbarazh in an attempt to register without having to pay the monstronimous (I made that word up, I know it should be monstrous) fee. Please pray for us as we make this attempt because we're thinking this may even be the first time a foreigner has tried to register there which is always fun:

1) For favor in the official's eyes.
2) For completion of the registration.
3) For getting it done on a singe day so I don't have to drag Christina/Leah and a friend out there a second or third time.

At the end of the day, we had prayer meeting and someone actually came this time! It is a shame really to get excited about something like that, however I am hehe. I got to walk home with my good friends Slava (fellow computer geek) and his wife Natalia and we talked a bit.

06/01/2009 - Photo update

2009-06-02T14:38:00.003+03:00

One of the byproducts of a newsletter is that I have to get pictures to put on it so ... picture update!

Basketball camp & tournament

and ...

LEAH ATTACK!

06/01/2009 - It's already June?

2009-06-02T11:20:00.003+03:00

So it's already June ... guess that means half of the year is already gone - crazy. I'm in the process of writing our monthly newsletter right now and looked at the events of May. Hard to believe that Leah is already 1 year old and change.

So Saturday was more basketball tournament stuff. I stayed home again with Leah and Christina went to go help. She again had a great time and said that they even had a small chance right before the final game to do a small bit of evangelism. Some kids seemed interested, but then again no one came to church Sunday.

Sunday I had the day off from playing guitar so that was cool. It's hard to worship while you play because you are so preoccupied with chords and words and trying to stay on the right beat. Service was good though - kept going through 2 Corinthians 10 with a focus on how God Himself is our credentials when preaching the gospel. We may be lowly in physical presence, but in spiritual things God is our presence.

Sunday night and Monday were spent as family time without too much to say. It's just good to unplug and spend time together (which is why I've not written!).

So ... back to the newsletter. Once it is done I'll link it up here.

05/29/2009 - Dinner woohoo!

2009-05-29T21:26:00.002+03:00

Lets see ... last few days have been fairly typical. Except for Wednesday's mid-week Bible study, I've mostly been either taking care of the family or working on the websites so nothing really to write about.

Christina went out yesterday and helped with the basketball camp which I hear went really good (both yesterday and today) and I stayed home with Leah. Leah popped in a new tooth so she's been a bit irritable, but that is ok. I heard that during the basketball camp today, David put on a slam-dunk show and let the kids tell him how to dunk the ball which I'm sure was impressive. I don't know too much about David's NCAA carrier, but I do know that he won a competition for dunking.

The conference photos are now up. I'm just going to link to them on Sasha's own Picasa instead of copying them to my own - http://picasaweb.google.com/XanderPetrov. I am going to shamelessly steal the pics of our band playing though!

05/26/2009 - Satan buffets

2009-05-27T10:12:00.004+03:00

Mondays are our normal day off and so we really don't plan anything except our date night. For whatever reason though, none of us slept well the night before, but I think it was because I was coughing and keeping Christina up. We went to a new cafe though which was pretty nice and a welcome change.

Yesterday started off as a fairly low-key day, but that changed as things came up. Didn't sleep good again (pray about this if you think about it) as personally, I went to bed at 10pm, initially woke up at 2am, and then got out of bed at 4am due to boredom.

Then things just started getting busy and complicated as I was asked to help print and put out fliers for the basketball tournament this weekend. First we wanted some colored paper, but I couldn't find any after checking 6 or 7 shops all across town so I gave up and we printed them in white instead hehe.

Of course though, my printer stalled out after only printing 17 so that was annoying. Satan just was messing with me yesterday or something - meanie. Eventually though we got them printed up and some of the Africans came over to help put them up and we had a chance to talk with a few people while walking around. We pray people will come!

At end the day, we had prayer meeting.

David, another Markey brother and former NCAA basketball player, and a friend of his are arriving today to help us with the basketball camp/tournament so it'll be GREAT to see him again. Since the last time we saw them in college, he and his wife have had a baby so that's exciting too!

God seems to be allowing many difficulties to happen to us while we get ready for this tournament and camp so we are excited to see what will happen. I personally won't be too directly involved as Christina is the basketball player in our family so I'll get some good quality time with my daughter. However, even through Satan should buffet us, God is with us and we trust in him for the greater result.

PS - still working on getting the other conference photos.

05/24/2009 - Sunday Rocks!

2009-05-24T23:07:00.002+03:00

The last couple days I've felt so terrible and I think I figured out why. I think I had a regular sickness, but my seasonal allergies kicked into high gear also which compounded everything like infinity times :P I'm still pretty lethargic and stuffed up, but I've decided that I'm not going to let them slow me down (as much as possible). Yeah, nothing much to write about for the last few days as I spent much of the time in seclusion.

Oh, I did help Marilyn move on Thursday ... lots of carrying stuffs - wee. She got all moved into her new apartment and seems to enjoy it very much. She's also praying that she can use it as part of the ministry to the university students since she now lives so close to the dorms.

But Sundays ... I love Sundays. For me it is the hardest/busiest day of the week with lots of lifting and carrying, but to be honest I really enjoy that. It is so cool to see what God is doing here in Ternopil day-by-day as it grows bigger. Today we had our normal Sunday service, now studying 2 Corinthians 10, and then afterward we did a church leadership meeting followed up by some street evangelism.

We normally would have gone out last night for evangelism, but most of us weren't feeling too well and then also our normal evangelism spot had a Ruslana concert going on so we wouldn't have been able to go there anyways. Tonight again we had a large crowd (~150 people) drawn in by songs and Marilyn again shared her testimony - fun times :)

Also, pray for me for the allergies if you think of it ... they're being pretty rough on me and keep waking me up too.

05/21/2009 - Sick again

2009-05-22T09:42:00.002+03:00

Been a pretty simple last couple days without much to write about. Wednesday I put about 8 solid hours into website work and then a couple more into getting pictures and stuff taken care of.

Our Wednesday night church service is booming with only one person coming. That is a 100% increase from the week before when no one came and even the translator forgot to come. The studies are pretty good though :) I'm enjoying them even if no one comes!

Yesterday the whole team helped Marilyn move to her new apartment ... from first floor to *gulp* sixth floor! It wasn't too bad though as she hired some guys and a truck so we let them handle all the super heavy stuff and most of the furniture. 6 of the Africans came to help before their exam so I also had a good time hanging out with them and just talking. We got into a Heaven discussion which was pretty cool. Christina provided lunches and dinner for everyone too so we had a fairly constant train of people coming to our place from lunch time onward.

Other than that, not much to say except that I'm sick again ... yay! Cold/flu stuff, but it's not bad - just congestion and sore throat with a small cough.

Oh, Leah is now being weaned from her bottles and being put on big people food now - yay! Also, we are trying to teach her to walk by herself with her stroller. She does ok, but still doesn't know how to fall well.

Conference Pictures (part 1)

2009-05-20T12:07:00.003+03:00

These are the conference pictures that we took before our camera died.

More to come as people send me theirs.

05/19/2009 - Resurrection of a website ... ?

2009-05-20T10:30:00.003+03:00

So I sit here kinda amazed. It's not too often that people really sit and think, "oh God is truly interested in the small little things of my life," but today that is me.

On the 18th I wrote about how I was so stinkin' frustrated with the website and how trying to do a simple update destroyed 2-3 days of work. Today though, it is back up and running because God gave me insight on a way to get things back - and in only 10 minutes of work. I really don't give God all the credit I should all the time because I know He is interested in our lives even unto the smallest of details - but I should.

Other than that, I kept working on other website things ... helped Ben out with more of the small issues coming up with his site and so forth. I'm learning a lot now for sure. In the evening we had prayer meeting, but the only ones who came were ministry team members and the person who lives there, but we still had a great time :)

05/18/2009 - Death of a website

2009-05-18T21:56:00.002+03:00

Grragh! I'm so aggravated! Just a little bit before leaving for the conference, I accidentally wiped out the "Through the Bible" section of our website. All the HTML tags just mysteriously vanished. At the time though it wasn't a big issues since I was going to redo everything and just post them by date after separating them into Sundays and Wednesdays.

However ... today I uploaded the MP3's from the JW seminars we had and the teaching from last week (guest speaker) and when I edited the page the same thing happened! So now I've lost the sections of our websites which I had put the most work into and which had some 100 links or more in them. Unfortunately I also had my backups in notepad so all my Cyrillic letters got replaced by ? symbols.

I fixed the problem at least which was that Joomla set one of my permissions back to default unknowingly which I did my last update. Too little too late though - looks like I'll be busy the next few days.

Meh!

05/17/2009 - Conference in review

2009-05-18T21:49:00.005+03:00

So we got back from the conference at about 4am this morning. It was an awesome time and just what I needed. Of course it was really hectic, but it's all in the way you look at it :)

Leah ended up getting sick (congestion - couldn't breathe when sleeping) before we even left Wednesday night and we were highly debating even if Christina should go at all. We prayed about it and she came anyways - it was a tough time, but I'm glad she did. Leah didn't sleep well (kinda meaning at all) until the second night there. She is better now though.

The teachings were really great too, but I won't go into much detail about them because it'd be too much to talk about. Personally, the greatest thing I took away was something John Chubik spoke on. John is one of my favorite speakers of the many I've listened to and really preaches God's word with such simplicity. The part which grabbed me the most was a brief few minutes he spoke on marriage relationships saying that the way we treat our spouses is an indication of the direction our marriage is headed. I'm an emotional person and get easily offended - especially at my wife, but I need to maintain that levelheadedness (I checked the spelling - that's actually one word!) around her especially.

Traveling was hard too, but well worth the trip. It seemed everyone who went from our church ... 28 total! ... had a great time. There are other things that happened, but I don't want to share them due to lack of permission :)

By the way ... pictures will be incoming once I get them. Our camera's batteries died on the first night so I asked another guy if I could get him to send me his pics.

[EDIT] Our pictures are now up here. I am still working on gathering and hosting the other pictures from various sources.

05/13/2009 - Conference bound

2009-05-13T20:54:00.002+03:00

Tonight we leave for the conference on the overnight train to Kyiv. It's always such a hassle to travel by train because the 6.5 hour trip (by car) takes 8-10 hours, but the conference is well worth it.

I've always loved the national conference ... getting to see old friends, make new ones, enjoy great worship and teaching, etc. There's also something about setting aside your life during that time to focus on the Lord and place Him as, sadly, a higher priority than we all too often give Him.

I know I personally get very distracted by the work I do at the computer and I find sometimes that I forget to set time aside everyday to focus on prayer and meditation with God. Sometimes even reading the Bible gets shelved due to a busy schedule, but at the conference it's easy to do those things and spend time with our Papa.

So, we leave tonight and I won't be back on the internet until Monday sometime. Hopefully I will have a lot of pictures ready for you :)

Oh yeah ... journal stuff ... today was just a bunch of running around getting ready for our trip. We would have had our midweek service, but literally no one came. That's ok though, because even the translator forgot to come and it gave us more time to prepare :) I hope people do start coming though - last time we tried a midweek service it was the same deal where no one came and it just felt forced and not led by God.

05/12/2009 - Leah Videos

2009-05-12T23:57:00.003+03:00

I uploaded the latest and greatest videos. The first one is something everyone might enjoy which is various antics of Leah over the last couple months - things that she has done. The second two are probably only interesting to family as they are her birthday party video. Part 1 is intro and cake - part 2 is presents.

Various Leah Antics
Leah's First Birthday Party - pt 1
Leah's First Birthday Party - pt 2

Today was a pretty busy day which started off meeting Zhenya for our discipleship and accountability meeting and then I watched the kids during Christina's homegroup for mothers.We had quite a few mom's show up today along with a new mom who brought her two kids. All total I had tied up ... errr ... I mean ... Iwatched 4 kids today ...

After this I spent some tie working on websites before running out for a worship practice. Things are finally beginning to come together for the conference and I'm feeling a smidge more comfortable with playing our set. I still am not completely ready though.

Practice ran right into our corporate prayer meeting tonight which was pretty typical.

05/11/2009 - 1st Birthday

2009-05-12T13:34:00.004+03:00

Yesterday was Leah's birthday party (birthday is the 15th) and we invited everyone who had kids to come after church to celebrate. Leah is finally a year old, but the time went by so fast.

Church was great, but no one came from the outreach we did Saturday unfortunately. Gena, the guy who came to teach at the JW seminars, taught this morning and took an in-depth look at the gospel and used a variety of scriptures.

Afterwards, we had Leah's birthday party so lots of kids and people were at our house. It was fun, but very draining. It was themed with Leah's favorite movie, Finding Nemo, and Grannie Emerson was kind enough to send a variety of party supplies. A Markey tradition is to let the birthday boy/girl to have their first taste of sweets (cake) all by themselves - just let them go at it and see how much of a mess they can make. Well, Leah enjoyed it and ate half of the cupcake we gave her and she;d probably have eaten the other half if we let her. However, she didn't get a single smudge of icing or cake anywhere on her - only her hands.

Pictures:

As far as yesterday goes, we just had a chill day. I had to go to a practice during the afternoon because of the conference, but the rest of the day was just to relax because it's been a few days. I took Christina out to a Mothers' Day dinner at our favorite fancy restaurant.

05/09/2009 - Like a blur

2009-05-10T00:00:00.003+03:00

The past 3 days just whizzed by so fast that I can't even recall fully what I did Thursday.

I typically meet my friend Zhenya on Tuesday/Thursday mornings before he goes to work and we talk over some tea at a restaurant in the center of town. It is always a great time for me because it is good to begin the day discussing what God is or has been doing in our lives. He's also a big encouragement to me and helps me when Satan is annoying me like the punk he is!

Christina usually goes shopping for groceries so I spend time with Leah after I get back. We decided, as a team, to have our team meeting at our favorite restaurant so lunch was great. The rest of the day I worked on websites while Christina prepared a bit for Leah's birthday party which is tomorrow (Sunday).

Yesterday was a busy day too with worship practices and the lovely revelation that I bought the wrong return tickets for the upcoming conference. Thankfully though, it all worked out so that 4 of us will be traveling home together which is always safer because 4 people fill an entire train compartment. We're also coming home a bit earlier.

That night we had our weekly prayer and praise night. A friend of someone in our church has been coming for the last two weeks and I've been getting to know him. He is a believer, but has a lot of hard things going on in his life right now so it's been nice that I've been able to encourage him a bit - though this is not my gifting, conversation and encouragement.

Today was pretty cool. We had our Jehovah's Witness seminars today and surprisingly 40-50 people came, of which a good 30 or more were from other churches. I personally learned a bit more about the JW's and how their doctrine compares to the Bible. The guy who came from Kyiv to teach this seminar is also teaching tomorrow at the main church service.

After the seminars, we went out for our weekly evangelism, but when we stepped out the door we heard someone crying/moaning. Come to find out, an elderly lady had fallen in our entryway and we tried to help her the best we could. Thankfully, our neighbor showed up after about 5-7 minutes and took over, calling the ambulance to have her checked out and being able to talk to the lady a lot better than us. I pray she was ok - she might have broken her hand/wrist/arm since that was where she said the most pain was.

At the outreach, we had an awesome time again this week with bigger crowds of people who appeared genuinely interested in the testimonies and such. Today there was a threat of rain, but God took care of that and we had more of a structured event with testimonies and different stuff rather than just doing worship. It is truly amazing how open people are here in Ternopil.

Just now I also got off the phone with my parents. It is my dad's birthday today and of course tomorrow is mother's day so we talked for a bit while I worked on the bulletins for tomorrow.

But now I'm too tired to do anything else so I'm going to bed :)

Sorry, no pictures from the JW seminars or outreach.

Forgotten video link

2009-05-09T00:35:00.002+03:00

I forgot that some people can't read Ukrainian! On the article, there was a link to the video that the guy took. What's funny is that it is the part of one of our songs which has a repetitive verse of us singing "it's a love that has no bounds" so it's kinda weird :) Seems almost like a chant!

http://www.20minut.ua/news/148783

05/06/2009 - In the news again

2009-05-06T22:41:00.010+03:00

Remember when I told you about the outreach we did last Saturday? Here is the news article about it which was written. It's not negative, but filled with quite a bit of supposition and untrue information. For example, they said there were 2 Ukrainians and 2 Americans, that George was 28, and that we were quoted to have said that we not only play Christian songs, but also those about love and friendship (and our music style is funk!). Oh well, at least they said we'd be coming back out (which we intend to do now!)

Full size picture - readable
Full size picture (toned) - more readable?
Video care of the newspaper "20 Minutes"

So, other than this picture, I had a pretty chill day. I worked on websites a majority of the day. Right now I'm putting the final touches on Svitlovodsk's and am working on bringing Nizhyn's up. Hopefully I'll get Nizhyn's up and running by the conference and then we'll start tweaking it.

Tonight we had our first mid-week service which will be our Genesis-to-Revelation study. It supposedly will go a lot faster through the Bible than our Sunday service, but tonight we only did 1 chapter and George taunt for an hour and 15 minutes :) A few people came, 7 who weren't from our ministry team.

05/05/2009 - Typical

2009-05-06T16:53:00.003+03:00

Another typical day ... not much to write about. That's the problem I originally had with writing daily - that some days just weren't really worth writing about.

I did go out to the train station to buy our train tickets to Kyiv for the conference. I was going to offer to do the legwork in buying some of the others' tickets of the people going to the conference from our church, but they didn't like our travel times. We're leaving for Kyiv at midnight and coming back at midnight too >_< We had to do that though because we don't know when we'll be done and able to leave, but luckily, Kyiv has a lot to offer if we get finished early and Marilyn will be with us who used to live there.

I went over to Jon's place and practiced some of the songs with him which we'll be playing at the conference. I've been spending some time every day practicing in hopes that I can get these songs in my head. So far it's been ... ehh.

Then, at the end of the day we had our weekly prayer meeting and fellowship time at Zhenya and Lyuda's. Zhenya wasn't there because of his accounting classes, but we still had a good time together with one another praying. It's amazing how much more you can think of to pray about in a corporate setting than when by yourself.

Today (Wednesday) is our first mid-week Bible study and it'll be starting at 19:00 which is noon in the EST time zone. If you read this, please pray. We are hoping that a lot of people come!

05/04/2009 - Day of Rest

2009-05-05T09:56:00.002+03:00

Not much to really write about. Monday is our day off generally and I'm pretty busy throughout the week so I like to make it Christina's day to spend time together and do whatever she wants to do. It's also the only day I have reserved for sleeping is! \o/ (<-- little dude with his hands up going yay!)

So after getting up we went out for a walk to the grocery store since Leah needed more formula and just talked some. After we came back, I spent some time on the computer. Every Monday evening, Brian comes over and babysits Leah so that we can have a date without her. Sometimes we go out, but last night we stayed in and watched a movie.

So that's it ... day of rest ... and a much needed one at that!

05/03/2009 - some witty title here

2009-05-04T07:57:00.005+03:00

Yeah, not feeling very creative ... Leah woke up early this morning. Yesterday at church was pretty cool, although not many people came. YWAM is away in L'viv and so with them gone and their DTS class with them it's suprising to start a service with only 10 people in the sanctuary! Others came late though.

I was talking with Roma at choir/worship practice the other day and since Brian is going to be playing with us at the conference, I suggested maybe he play with us during worship. Turns out, that was God's way of telling us to bring a second guitar since a string broke and they were able to trade guitars and continue on. Pretty cool how a few months ago I just started the guitar classes with Brian and now he is playing and using that gift in the church and to bless the entire church in Ukraine!

Brian worshiping at our recent Men's ministry meeting

Jon was off meandering in Svitlovodsk (another Ukrainian town) and so I tried to arrange some help with the equipment as it is way too much for one person. Every Sunday we make 2 trips to get equipment to the church and then another 2 back. Some of it even has to go to a 3rd floor apartment - so we get our exercise for sure. Jon and I usually take care of it, but since he was gone, Zhenya helped me on the way there and Brian on the way back. It's cool too that I kinda asked last minute and they were willing to jump right in and help - putting aside their plans.

It's small things like that which largely go unnoticed, but they make a huge difference to certain people (like me!). Treasures in heave is the reward!

To thank Brian, my wife and I invited him over for pizza afterwards and just talked about his home country and the current government situation there. Supposedly it is a democracy, but actually it quite the dictatorship with the heads of government above the law **completely** with the ability to appoint/fire anyone they wish and not have any trouble if they break the law.

For the rest of the day, we just relaxed. Eh, no other pictures come to mind :)

May Newsletter

2009-05-02T23:30:00.003+03:00

Clicky click

Easter Pics!

2009-05-02T23:11:00.002+03:00

05/02/2009 - Back on track

2009-05-02T22:56:00.005+03:00

Ok, so I've been very slack lately in my blogging. This is supposed to be a daily journal and it gets updated only once a month?! Shame on me :)

Well, I'm going to endeavor to write daily in it now ... or at least as much as I can by making time for it after Christina goes to sleep. Some entries may not be long nor all that "spiritual" but I'll try to do better.

So in the last while a lot has happened. Easter ... chance meetings with people to share with about Jesus ... ministries ... bulletins ... all this stuff. It's kind of a lot to really tackle, but since I'm the author, I don't have to!

Instead, I'd like to tell you about what happened today. Saturday is always a busy day for me. Today, Brian and David (Africans) came over for their guitar lessons and I have decided that they've proceeded enough to not be led by the hand anymore, but instead we're going to be trying a new song at least every two weeks. They've really come a long way to the point that Jon has invited Brian to play at the conference with us which I think is pretty cool.

After that I had to do some running around to get prepared for tomorrow - buying cookies and water. I also had to go buy some power cords and stuff. It's funny, I can't find a cord long enough on a premade one so I ended up buying the pieces and making it myself (which took me an hour hehe!).

But tonight was the highlight of the entire day - an evangelism outing. We only had a few people from the church come - maybe 7 of us total including 4 from the ministry team. People began coming and sitting by us to listen to the music, but then Jon broke the 6th string of the guitar so I ran to grab a taxi and go get mine. That ended up being a blessing because he could keep playing (6th string isn't too important if you play in E) and I got to share a bit with the cab driver and hand him one of our tracts. When all was said and done, we handed out all of the invitations we had and even more people were hanging around.

People here are so open to hearing the gospel - it is amazing. We're going to go back out next week and make it a bigger thing with the sound system/mics and guitar hooked up. If you think about it, please pray.

I'm also going to include our latest list of prayer requests that I wrote our care team earlier tonight so that if anyone feels led to pray for us, please do! No person can change the heart of a man, but God alone is able to do it.

We are already outgrowing our meeting room which, if you are unaware, is a conference room near the train station. It is a great location because of how easy it is to find, but just isn't quite big enough. We were busting at the seams on Easter - praise the Lord! One prospective place we are looking at is an auditorium at the economical college which can hold a huge amount of people ... maybe 500-750?
Our health is better for all of us. Thanks for praying for healing!

Tonight we had an evangelistic outreach and it was awesome! We ended up giving out all of our invitations we had and handed out tracks to others - and this was to people who stopped and we talked with, not just passerbys! We see a lot of potential in making this a reoccuring event so we're again going to go out next weekend. Please pray for fruit!

Currently there is some unease for the foreigners in Ukraine due to recent changes in immigration law. Our next planned trip out of country is in the end of June to Hungary for the Eastern European Conference at the Bible College and we don't completely know what will happen when we leave nor when we come back. Please just be keeping this in prayer for us for the next couple months.

The national conference is in 2 weeks. Our church is doing the worship so I'm (Tim) being stretched by having to play an instrument that I've only been playing for a couple weeks and having to memorize all the notes and words. It's been hard to do this on top of everything else, but I know God will help everything work out.

04/16/2008 - Prayer Updates

2009-04-16T11:18:00.001+03:00

I wrote this yesterday in an email. Figured I would post it here too. Still feeling as bad today (flu type stuff).

* About half our church it seems (no, probably not half, but a lot of people regardless) have been sick the last couple weeks. Two days ago I started feeling iffy and yesterday pretty bad. This morning it's a bit worse so please pray for all of our healings. Christina and Leah seem to be doing well.

* Due to illnesses, no one has been able to go to Zasluchenya to find out what is going on with the Khrom'yak family so please keep praying for them.

* I had a chance meeting with a Turkish man yesterday who was very interested in getting together sometime for a conversation - it had been some time since he had been able to have a good conversation in English. I gave him my phone number since I couldn't find mine (it was in my jacket across the room) with him saying he would call and hang up to leave a missed call on my phone. When I got to my phone, he had already left, but there was no missed call. I hope it was just that he hadn't called yet and intended to later when we would get together so please pray for this or that we would meet again. Also, I do not believe him to be a Christian so please pray for salvation.

* My cousin's son has been diagnosed with what they think of Osteomyeltis - a bone infection. He is in a lot of pain and they are awaiting a full result before giving a complete diagnosis. My aunt asked if we could pray for him.

04/11/2009 - Poland Pics

2009-04-11T21:58:00.002+03:00

Here are the pics from Poland. I'd write more, but I'm currently making some last minute changes to our new bulletin debuting this weekend.

04/10/2009 - Back from Poland - details to come

2009-04-10T09:04:00.002+03:00

I just got up this morning after getting in late last night. I'll write about Poland once I get pictures ready and so forth, but I wanted to post this link that was waiting for me in my inbox. It is self-explanatory.

Update ... I think the story in this link is fishy for a couple reasons. First ... how are so many people so grossly indebted to their utilities companies? Second is why the billboard (which I've not seen here in Ternopil yet) is posted in English?

04/05/2009 - Short n' Sweet

2009-04-05T20:37:00.003+03:00

Yeah, busy ... you expected something else? :p

Things have just been crazy around here lately. I'm doing my normal stuff, covering some other ministries while someone is gone, going to conferences ... and then on top of all that I found out that my website project host has a bad habit of seizing and freezing domains if you go over their non-obvious data-storage limit (which we were grossly over).

Yesterday I got asked if I wanted to come over to Jon's and play bass. I've never played bass before in my life, but I agreed thinking it would be fun. Come to find out there was a conference the next day we were playing at and this was the practice for it. Kinda last minute, but it was pretty neat. It was an evangelistic outreach supposedly, but I think everyone who came was a Christian.

So yeah, that's why I've not written ... busy busy. Lots of other things happening too, but I don't really have the time to write about them. Tonight we are leaving for Poland because every 180 days we have to leave the country. It'll be Leah's first trip with her being as mobile as she is so that'll be interesting. I pray she does well. Also, both Leah and Christina are mildly sick so pray for their healing too.

03/17/2009 - Nizhyn has a blog

2009-03-17T10:19:00.003+02:00

My friends over at Calvary Chapel Nizhyn have started up a blog. Go check it out if you can read Russian ... http://calvarynezhin.blogspot.com/

Hope they continue updating it.

03/11/2009 - Long past due

2009-03-11T15:04:00.002+02:00

So yeah ... haven't really been updating this blog much due to a mix of being really busy and to be honest a lack of interest. There has been a lot happening the last month and a half so I'll just do a brief recap.

First thing is first though ... here is a link to our latest newsletter covering the month of February: Newsletter

What proud daddy wouldn't first want to tell you about what is new in Leah's world? Well our little girl had a couple breakthroughs the last couple weeks. First is a literal break through as she has her first tooth.

After that, she decided that now would be a great time to begin crawling and pulling herself up to a stand. She did both of these for the first time on the same day and so we took some video which can be seen here (7 min long).

If you are interested in the latest batch of Leah pics ... begin at this picture and proceed right.

Christina had an opportunity to go on an outreach to a village that our church frequently goes to. There we do a small Bible study as this family (with 10 kids!) used to come to our church, but then had to move due to domestic violence problems with the father. The kids have it tough as they've never really had a loving father, but we hope that they will put their trust in the Father who will never leave them or forsake them. This family is also the ones who took Molly and so Christina was able to visit Molly too. She has lost weight because of the winter and being an outdoor cat, but is doing ok overall. Click here for the picture album.

George (the pastor) and I have had the pleasure of meeting twice with a couple of Jehovah's Witness guys at my apartment over the last couple weeks. They knocked on our door during worship practice and had a brief chat at that time, but then last week we met again at a time which suited us better. You see Jehovah's Witnesses quite frequently here in Ternopil since it is the largest city in our oblast and also I'm told that L'viv (2 hours away) is their headquarters for all of Ukraine. It can be tough to share with them Jehovah's Witnesses in general, but it is an important thing because God loves them and if God can use us to cast some doubt in what they are being told, then we pray that would happen. Please be praying for these continued meetings.

Our church has also recently started up a womens' ministry which will begin with a class on the names of God and then continue on to other topics. They've had one meeting already which I was told was great. See some pictures here.

Other than that, there are a few new ministries starting up like a couples' ministry and a mens' ministry, but I'll write more about that later. Sorry for the long read :)

02/14/2009 - Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T21:52:00.002+02:00

This Valentine's Day, our church decided to put together a little party for the couples. We had expected 10 couples to come, however one of the elderly men in our church twisted his ankle the day before so they were unable to come sadly.

The guys all showed up at about 4pm to begin decorating and making the place look romantic. We asked YWAM if we could use their meeting room and they were gracious to extend their hospitality.

We began with "appetizers" which was a series of 3 questions to ask one another to help us get into talking with one another. The questions were all about how we feel loved and respected - something like you'd find in the "5 Love Languages" book (which if you are married and haven't read, I highly encourage you to!

Afterward, the guys served their wives some of the delicious food.

As the night went on, we had different things we did. One was a test to see how well we knew each other where we all answered the same questions seperately and shared how our answers matched (or didn't match) Perhaps the highlight of this part of the evening was when the Kapitonov's shared their answers about what Natalia could do to make Slava the happiest man in the world. Slava is quite the extremist when it comes to sports and so Natalia answered to go snow-boarding with him. Slava was disappointed and exclaimed, "I wanted to you go parachuting!"

Eventually it became late and the volunteers watching the children had only so much hair they could pull out so we began to clean up. During our meal, we had some champagne looking bottles of strawberry stuff and so we decided to have a bit o' fun.

Overall, we had a great evening hanging out with each other (ourselves and our friends).

02/16/2009 - Prayer Meeting Pics

2009-02-16T21:51:00.001+02:00

I took some pictures at prayer meeting this last Tuesday night.

02/16/2009 - Leah Pics

2009-02-16T21:48:00.001+02:00

Here are some new pics of Leah that we've had sitting on the camera for awhile. After you click the link, proceed to the right and you'll find about 20 new ones.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tandcemerson/LeahGayle#5272149630332527186

2009-02-04T20:29:00.002+02:00

CLick here.

01/29/2009 - Some pics from Potluck on Jan 4th

2009-01-29T16:02:00.002+02:00

Just some pictures from the potluck we had to celebrate Christmas on Jan 4th. Here.

Been sick lately (the whole family to one degree or another) and so I don't feel like writing.

01/20/2009 - What have I been doing lately?

2009-01-22T16:39:00.002+02:00

This

I've finally made enough progress on the website to make it publishable. Yay - the world rejoices ... I made it completely from the ground up (except for one part which was for the languages).

01/20/2009 - Wow ... seriously?

2009-01-22T16:37:00.003+02:00

What's wrong with this picture?

It's just wrong that Florida would have the same temperature as here in Ternopil ... just wrong ;)

01/12/2009 - Pictures

2009-01-12T12:52:00.002+02:00

Here are the pictures from the night we went and had dinner with our doctor friend and her family.

Anne and Leah

Feather boa!!

Lana and Leah

Group photo

2009-01-06T10:33:00.003+02:00

January's newsletter can be found here.

01/05/2008 - Hangin' with the Guys and Dinner with a Doctor

2009-01-06T09:14:00.004+02:00

A couple of the guys from our church decided to have a day to hang out and fellowship so we all met up at the shopping mall (no, we didn't go shopping!). This new mall in Ternopil has ping pong tables, bowling, billiards, and the like so we got together and played some.

I have to admit, though I consider myself a decent ping pong player, the average person in Ukraine seems to be able to play decently also as both Slavas and Zhenya were of my equal or better.

Russian billiards is an interesting game, especially if you come from a background of playing American pool. The table is much bigger, the balls themselves are bigger, the pockets are smaller, and there is no cue ball - you can hit any ball you want and you even get a point for a scratch. This game is so hard that even after an hour, all four of us (2-on-2 game) had only gotten in 5 balls.

Anways, we had a great time being guys. There was a bit of time for encouragement and we had some discussion while eating, but in general we just had fun.

Afterwards, our doctor friend invited us over to her house for dinner along with Marylin. Again we had a good time looking at pictures and talking about different things - they just adore Leah too!

We pray our relationship with the doctor and her family will continue to grow as we get to know them better. I'm not completely sure where they stand as far as religion goes, but there is maybe a hint of interest there as they were purposeful in crossing themselves before eating. I pray that there will be more opportunity for discussion with them.

12/31/2008 - Last Day of the Year

2008-12-31T11:46:00.003+02:00

So, what's been going on lately? We've been busy during the Christmas season with various things. Christmas in Ukraine is normally the 7th of January, but with our church being so international (with a large African presence too) we celebrated both. If you read further down, you'll see how we spent our Christmas.

Otherwise, things are going well. I've been continuing my guitar lessons with the church and also have started meeting with a guy twice a week for accountability and discipleship. Because of the holidays falling on Wednesdays/Thursdays, we've canceled English club for the last little while, but they came to our Christmas Eve party which was fun.

Christina's moms group is doing good too and those who come are quite faithful in attending.

I got to teach last week too which was great! I felt a bit rusty though to be honest and it took forever to prepare, perhaps because the topic was so vast and challenging - Spiritual Gifts (1 Cor 12:26-13:3). God helped though and at least a few people said they got something from it.

On a more personal note, it's getting easier to deal with the miscarriage now. We don't think about it too much, but when we do it still stings a little. It's hard to think about what could have been, but we just have to trust in God that He knows best!

Tonight, Jon and Steph are going to host a New Year's party, but I think we're just going to show up and leave since they aren't going to start it until it is Leah's bed time. On the one hand I'd like to go, but on the other, I'm tired and glad I don't have to :) The weather has been quite chilly today and that kinda sucks the energy right out of you while walking around. This morning when I went out, it was -6C and a bit of wind. They say it'll get down to -10C.

Jon and Steph leave at the end of this week to head back to the States. They've become such good friends of ours lately and it's been nice to have a couple who we can get close to and have the same interests. We'll miss them.

George and Sharon will be back next week also and we're REALLY excited to see them again along with the kids. I'm sure Samuel is HUGE and Kiyoshi is adorable :)

That's about it for now. I'll be writing up a newsletter today (hopefully) so more ministry details will likely be found within.

12/29/2008 - Wintery Scenery

2008-12-31T11:45:00.001+02:00

Here are some photos of winter from around here that Christina took the other day.

12/25/2008 - Christmas Day

2008-12-31T11:34:00.003+02:00

On Christmas Day we did a team gathering and invited a lady who is with the Peace Corps, Ruth. We had also invited her to hang out with us for Thanksgiving and she had a wonderful time then and so accepted again our invitation. We're glad she could be a part of our lil' family.

We gathered about 2pm or so and hung out a bit while the food was finishing being prepared - turkey, stuffing, potatoes, **sweet potatoes** (YEAH!), beans, and other stuff along with a few deserts. Everything was so delicious and being able to have sweet potatoes was great (we can't find those here).

So, afterward we just continued to hang out, exchanged a few gifts, watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and so forth. Jon got me a pair of toy guns with suction darts for my present so we set up targets from Leah's stuffed toy collection and were also shooting each other all night long.

Here are some pictures:

More pictures can be found here (all Christmas pictures are grouped together though).

12/24/2008 - Church Christmas Eve Party

2008-12-31T11:20:00.005+02:00

I'm sitting here with a baby in hand so I can't write much, but we had a good Christmas (Western Christmas that is) with the Americans and Africans in our church. We gathered for fellowship and snack foods and had a white elephant gift exchange as well as some Christmas caroling. We also invited the students from our English club to come and hang out with the English speakers and 5 or 6 came! Here are some pictures:

More pictures can be found here (all Christmas pictures are grouped together though).

12/20/2008 - Ukrainian Insights

2008-12-20T10:20:00.003+02:00

Marilyn, a lady on our team, told me a story the other day and then she said she was going to use it in a newsletter to help people get idea about some things which happen here. Her friend witnessed an accident this is the story (edited for readability):

Two Sundays ago we came back from church in a taxi. Our driver almost ran down two different people on two different streets.

When Jon arrived at my home, I told him about our experience and he said he’d just passed an accident where it appeared that a taxi had hit a pedestrian. Since we were heading back into town, we drove past the intersection where he’d seen the accident. I was afraid it was the same taxi driver, but it wasn’t. However, my friend Oksana told me the next day that she had witnessed that accident.

She was very discouraged because of what took place. The taxi had hit the man as he was walking on the crosswalk. Fortunately, there was a doctor who also witnessed the accident. She ran to help the man and examined him. He had a fractured skull, but was able to move his toes and fingers. He was coherent.

When the police arrived, another taxi pulled up and ran to the police officer and told him he had seen the whole thing, explaining that the man on the crosswalk turned around to walk back to the side walk causing the driver to hit him. That was a lie. When Oksana and the doctor tried to talk to the policeman to explain what really happened, the policeman turned his head away and refused to listen to them.

They went back to the victim as the ambulance pulled up and asked if he had been carrying anything at the time of the accident. They wanted to make sure he had all of his things when he went to the hospital. He said he was missing a bag and his hat. The women looked all over the area, but his things were no where to be found. Someone had taken them.

From the drivers who are so reckless, to the police who care so little about justice, to the people who would steal from an accident victim, I am sorry to say there are many here in Ukraine. I’ve been hearing and witnessing these kinds of experiences for years. This is everyday life and it is a pity. But for me, it is an encouragement to continue on because the people here need to know the love of Jesus. Only God can change the hearts of those who bow down to a system of bribery and corruption. Only God can change the hearts of those who have given up and accept things as they are. Please pray for revival in Ukraine.

12/11/2008 - Pregnancy Update

2008-12-11T20:09:00.001+02:00

If you read the newsletter update I sent, you already read this.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sorrow comes to everyone at some point in their lives. To some the sorrow is intense and to others not so much - yet everyone will experience it. We've gone through our share of sorrow in our lifetimes, however it has happened once again.

In this last newsletter we announced that we were pregnant and would be having another child, yet on Sunday we had a miscarriage so this is no longer the case. The miscarriage was not 100% completely natural and so the doctor has prescribed some medication, but otherwise everything is ok. Christina is not in a lot of pain any longer and is recovering.

I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple days as I struggled with different thoughts and emotions. Why would God allow the baby to go through this miscarriage? I know the truth of the matter is that God never designed for this to happen, but it is a result of the corrupted world we live in - decay was not in the original blueprints. I also know that God doesn't create anything that is useless and without purpose ... for even mosquitoes (no matter how annoying they can be) have their place - our baby was the same. The Bible says that God forms us while we were still in our mother's womb and so there was a purpose behind his/her conception and miscarriage, but I will likely never know.

This is the way we must look at the many sorrows which happen to us. We may never know the reason why, but rest assured that in the grand scheme there is purpose behind them. However, it is best to dwell upon the hope that we have for the future. The promise is, for those who follow Jesus and ask for His forgiveness, a place where sorrows will cease for eternity.

We thank you all for the innumerable emails we received wishing us congratulations. We were both greatly blessed to see how many people read our news and responded. We are grateful to have you all as friends, supporters, and prayer partners. Thank you again especially for those prayers for their were greatly needed during our time of grief, even though you may not have known about our sorrow.

December Newsletter

2008-12-03T16:00:00.002+02:00

Here is our December newsletter: Clicky click

Also, it should be noted that I changed hosting for all our newsletters so the old ones will stop working when the old host takes the webspace down. The box to the right which lists our last 5 newsletters is already switched over to the new server location.

11/29/2008 - The Moms' Group

2008-11-29T11:57:00.003+02:00

Christina has a ministry that she started up a few weeks ago for mothers. She knows from personal experience that as a new mom you sort of become lonely and she wanted to provide a way for the mothers in our church to fellowship and encourage one another. She prepares a small teaching each time they meet and I take care of the kids along with Steph Markey's help. It's been fun, but taking care of 5-6 kids can be tough especially at nap time :)

Here is the group from this last week. Not seen here are two more mothers and their children.