I met with 7 pastors over the weekend, participated in a training conference at Vinnitsa Nazarene with about 70 people, visited two rehabilitation centers in Seleshe, visited the Seleshe Nazarene Church where my church from Houston participated in constructing in 2006, visited an orphanage, spent an evening in the home of one of our pastors there, and preached on Sunday. Every meeting had the presence of God in a powerful way!!!

We were taken to the train station on Sunday afternoon at 5:15 PM to catch our train to Kiev. And get ready to hear a short story of a wild ride… we arrived, pressed for time because of meetings. We ran from the car to where we were to load the train. Remember, we had suitcases and both girls (Bekah and Sarah) with us. The pastor’s family was also with us helping us get there.

We were supposed to be on wagon 5. But we couldn’t find it! We found where we thought it should have been, and the pastor quickly began talking with the conductor of the wagon. The train was literally seconds from leaving. It was decision time. We were confused. Our four train tickets and luggage were changing hands from us to the pastor to the conductor. The pastor said, “Load this train.” So, we did… but our tickets in the commotion stayed with the pastor from Vinnitsa, but we were on the moving train.

As the conductor tried to get us to where we were supposed to be (still with our luggage… and train moving), the conductor said in Russian, “Where are your tickets?” Instantly, I realized that they were NOT with us. Oh my word! It was chaotic to say the least. With our bad Russian, no tickets, we further discovered that we were on the WRONG train. LOL

Bekah was asking questions a mile a minute. Sarah was crying because of the panic in everyone’s body language. While the train was not our train, it was going to Kiev. Praise the Lord! The conductor found a room for us and said, “I will take you to Kiev!” Wow!!! We entered the cabin and collapsed! We began to laugh that we were stowaways… Bekah teared up at one point in the cabin because she thought that we might have to go to jail for being on a train without a ticket.

We are building memories to say the least!

This has been a crazy month in Kiev. God is blessing, expanding ministry, and growing us every day.  Here are a few highlights of the past month…

1. Pastors’ Meetings: Pastor’s meetings were held during the final week of September in Kiev, Ukraine and Rostov, Russia. Pastors and leaders from 6 countries gathered at these meetings for training in the Power of One… a plan for evangelism and church planting. We were blessed to spend the week with Dr. Gustavo and Rachel Crocker, our regional directors. This was my first time to meet them and really grew to love and appreciate them both in the week we had together. At the same time, I met with pastors from all over the CIS. What a fantastic week of leadership development and training! Since the meeting, I am hearing stirrings of the vision to be a missional church in a needy world. One district, Russia South, is taking the training to all the churches with a plan to enter new towns with the Good News of Jesus Christ! Very exciting!!!

2. Flash Drives for Pastors: In my early days on the field, I realized the need for our pastors around the CIS to have written resources for ministry. Printed material and textbooks are heavy and costly. I knew there was good discipleship material available in pdf format that could be more easily and economically shared. I had an idea that I would purchase flash drives for all our pastors and load Russian translated materials for ministry and give these as gifts at the pastor’s meetings. I placed an order for 120 flash drives from China to Ukraine. The flash drives looked so cool on paper… with our Russian Nazarene logo printed on each one! I had plenty of time for delivery and loading. However, because of an error in the shipping documents, the flash drives were stopped at customs in Kiev. A three-week struggle ensued as I tried to get these flash drives out of customs before the pastor’s meetings. God made a way! Three days before the meetings, I was able to receive the flash drives and proclaim to a number of people… God made this possible!

3. Cold weather is upon us: Jenni and I have truly become Texans. We know it full well when the fall weather in Kiev seems like winter to us. We have predictions for our first snow this coming week. Bekah and Sarah are excited.  Mommy and Daddy are a bit nervous!

4. Dad and Mom Habegger: Early October was blessed by a wonderful time with Jenni’s parents, Farrel and Marilyn Habegger, visiting Kiev for the first time. They arrived on October 3 and were with us through October 15. We kept very busy as tour guides taking them to the city center, shopping malls and souvenir streets, birthday parties for both Bekah and Sarah, two Kiev churches, an indoor water park, an Ukrainian Architectural outdoor museum called Pyrogova, the Kiev Zoo, World War II museum, and the forest.

As I continue to study the Russian language, I learn more and more nuances to this great language. I was struck by the reality that during the Soviet Union, when the government was intentionally atheistic… teaching people that there was no God… the soviet people could not get away from the concept of God, even in their language.

The word for “thank you” in Russian is спасибо (said “spacybo”). That word comes from two different words, спаситель (said “spacytyel”) which means Savior, and Бог (said “Bog” with a long “o” sound) which means God. When someone says “thank you” in Russian they are actually saying “God save you.” Did you catch that? With a government that was intentionally teaching that there is no God, the people every day whispered a prayer to one another, “God save you.” 

Here is another one… The word for “Sunday” in Russian is Воскресенье (said “Vaskreshenye”). Are you ready for this? Воскрес means “risen”. The word for Sunday in Russian means “Resurrection day”!

How cool is that? God’s prevenient grace on a generation of people who were taught, “There is no God.” These precious people of the former Soviet Union continually talked about God every day for 80 years!

This Sunday, I will be preaching at Vinnitsa Church of the Nazarene. Vinnitsa is about a 3 hour train ride from Kiev. Jenni and the girls will be with me. I would appreciate your prayers for God’s anointing as I share His Word.