Festival of Lights

Several years ago, our home church went through a period of turmoil. At the center was a debate on "worship" or more exactly what style of worship should the church have. To most people, the term worship  has come to mean a style of music. But, I couldn't help but think that there had to more to it. So, I  began to research the early church and trying to discover how the original Christians expressed their devotion to God. One of the first things I noticed was that the early believers and disciples went to the synagogue. So, I began to study Jewish customs. The more I learned, the more I came to understand how Jesus was a representation of of most of the Jewish feasts.
 The most recent Jewish celebration was Hanukkah or the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah is not on the list of original feasts that God commanded the Israelites to keep (for ever in Leviticus 23) but was added later. Hanukkah commemorates a time when the a small group of Jews were able to reclaim the temple from invading Greeks who had desecrated the altar. You can read the story on http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Winter_Holidays/Chanukah/chanukah.html.
John 10:22 tells us that "Then came the Festival of Dedication ^(Hanukkah) at Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.
So, if Hanukkah was important enough for Jesus to recognize, what can we learn?
Hanukkah is a time of dedication. Originally, it was a time of dedication for the temple. But now we know that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit(1 Corinthians 6:19), making a the eight days of Hanukkah a time when we can stop, reflect and dedicate ourselves to Christ.
Hanukkah celebrations center around the lighting of candles and the light they produce.The dates of Hanukkah follow the Jewish calender and vary slightly from year to year, but generally fall somewhere close to the Christian celebration of Christmas. I don't think this is a coincidence. John1:7-9 tells us, "He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.  He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world".There are also lots of other verses about light. So, as we light  each candle we have the chance to reflect on how Christ brought the true light into the world.

Many people who have visited Ukraine have commented on how dark it seems here. This is both a spiritual and physical phenomenon. We get very little sunshine here and compared to NC, it is never very bright. The even greater darkness is a reflection of the spiritual atmosphere . So, as the seasons of Hanukkah and Christmas comes to a close please pray that we will be able to spread God's light here in L'viv throughout the coming year.

A wise son brings joy to his father

Jewish cemetary-Krakow,Poland. This is located near where
the actual story feautred in the movie "Schindler's List"
took place.

"A wise son brings joy to his father mother " Proverbs 10:1
I have recently listened to  or read about many of my friends and how proud they are of their grandchildren. I haven't made it to that stage of life yet, but I am one proud momma. I just finished a phone call with my son, Evan. He is at a missionary conference in another Ukrainian city. Evan has always been "the quiet' one in our family.Which is OK because the rest of us are loud enough. Dyslexia made school difficult for him even though his IQ is higher than most. Dyslexia also affected his ability to play sports and enjoy many of the "normal" things kids do. But, wow, what an amazing young man he has grown into. The quiet kid is now the young man who notices homeless people on the street and takes the time to learn their stories and buy them food from his own money. He's the young man who is always ready to jump in and help visiting mission teams, even though they are complete strangers. He's the young man who taught himself to play bass guitar; who traveled through the night on a train to play that bass at a Christian conference, learned many new songs in just a few hours and saw God miraculously heal the blisters on his fingers just in time for the opening worship session of the conference. He's the young man who answered another missionary's plea for help and boarded another train to help with a summer camp. At the camp he was the young man that helped put out the fire when a kitchen gas tank exploded and administered first aide to the cook until she could be transported to a hospital.He's the young man who loves on orphans and started a neighborhood football team. And he's the young man who answered God's call to missions. Not just to any mission, but to serve God's chosen people.

And yes, as a missionary he will need support. I realize that  some of you who read this are supporters of our ministry or Chelsey's and for that we are truly gratefully.But statistically, most of those you read this are not current supporters and that's OK. God calls each of us differently. In 1991, while watching a TV story about the falling Soviet Union I knew that I was supposed to love orphans in Eastern Europe. At the time I knew very little about Christian life and definitely didn't understand that God calls everyone to some sort of service. Fourteen years later we boarded a plane for Ukraine and haven't looked back since. So, the point is, maybe God hasn't given you a heart for Ukrainians,orphans, or the victims of human trafficking but maybe,just maybe, the thought of God's chosen people missing out on the fulfillment of God's promises stirs something in your heart. In Genesis 12, God tells Abram "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great,   and you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless you".  In Malachi, God promises," 'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.'". When you support a missionary,yes, you are blessing that person by helping them follow God's call, and you are  blessing the people they serve and you are asking God to bless you---which he promises to do.

For more information you can contact Evan.
Check out Operation Mobilization : http://www.om.org/
http://www.om.org/en/give
(support a missionary)
(Just for the record, I am very proud of Chelsey too)

Krakow Chronicles

The Rest of the Story

After a bad day at the consulate, God used this beautiful sky to remind us
that He is always in control.

So I am sure most everyone has heard that our visa trip to Krakow, Poland was most eventful. I am also sure most of you are confused about exactly what happened and why it was significant. I will try to explain. But, I will start with the conclusion for those of you who don't want to read the whole story.

 A lot of people have recently asked us why we stay in Ukraine. And to be honest, I didn't really have an answer until today. Today, we went out to meet some other people from church for our regular ministry to the poor. (Every two weeks we pass out small bags of groceries to people we meet begging on the street).As we walked into the parking lot where we meet, one of the older ladies from church exclaimed "our Ukrainians have returned!" She then went on to say how she prayed for us and how grateful she was that we came to Ukraine. We left the parking lot and headed off to pass out our food packages. Our first stop was to visit a lady named Vera. She always calls us her "golden children" and tells us stories about her days as a nurse in WWII. Next, we came across a man we hadn't met before. We gave him the food and told him God loved him. He thanked us and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. Our last stop was to visit a man named Misha. We have been talking to Misha and his wife for several months now and they have been to church a few times. As we leaving them today, they both talked about how they were looking forward to being at church tomorrow.

Probably none of these things sound that fantastic in the grand scheme of life, but to me today they were gifts from God. In Matthew 25, the disciples ask Jesus, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"and he replies "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.". In my heart, I know that each person we meet on the street represents God. I may not be able to effect much change in their physical lives but I can point them to the one who can change their eternity. So, yeah, that's why I'm here.

OK, The Krakow Adventure:

To live in Ukraine for more than 90 days a year we must have a visa. We must leave Ukraine to apply for visas. So we went to the nearest Ukrainian Consulate in Krakow,Poland. Ukrainian visa laws changed in September ( a yearly event) and in October the  application fees for Americans tripled. Apparently, the workers at the Krakow consulate didn't get that information and several Baptist missionaries were charged the normal price. At some point the mistake was found out and the missing funds needed to be replaced. So, the consulate decided to hold all Baptist missionaries responsible. We were aware of the problem and thought that it was being taken care of. We took our documents to the Consulate on Monday morning. The consulate worker looked at out documents and said "you are supposed to pay for someone else". I told him the money was being wired and he seemed satisfied. He gave us forms to take to the bank so we could pay our non-refundable fees. We went across town to the bank, only to find out they were out of cash. So, we had to wait for them to refill the ATM before we could pay. The consulate only accepts applications until 12pm. By the time we finished at the bank it was 11:55am. We returned on Tuesday and handed in our passports. The worker asked "are you submitting your applications?". I replied "yes". Then he went into some big story about how there was a problem and unless the problem was solved by Monday we wouldn't get visas. So I asked for our passports and money back. He refused and kept talking about the "problem". I asked him to explain "the problem" but he refused. I knew "the problem" was that the missing money was going to be deducted from his paycheck if he didn't collect it somewhere else. I asked to speak to the head consulate and he refused to let me. He refused to answer any questions with a straight answer. I told him that I knew about his mistake. At that point, he lost his ability to speak English and just walked away leaving several other people standing in the lobby.

Our biggest fear at this point was that he would just hide our applications and passports in drawer somewhere until Monday and then say our visas were denied. We had already paid $1500 so there was no way we could afford not to get visas. We returned to our hotel where Chelsey called the American Consulate for help. We really didn't expect them to be able to help. The situation was a serious crisis for us but not an international incident. The American consulate worker listened to the story and offered to see if he could do anything. The next morning Chelsey received an email from the chief consulate saying he had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart and that there should be no problem with picking up our passports and visas. Tim called the Ukrainian consulate and was told to come on Thursday. The Ukrainian Consulate is normally closed on Thursdays but  Tim was assured someone would be there to process our visas. So, Thursday morning we went  back to the consulate and were greeted by the same man that had caused us so much grief two days before. He stamped our visas and gave us the apology he was obviously commanded to give.We were able to leave for Ukraine that night and returned home Friday morning.

Please read Chelsey's blog to learn about the spiritual lessons we learned during this experience.

http://keepupwithchelsey.blogspot.com/

The next step---turning our visas into residency permits but tha's a headache for another day.