For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here’s our February ministry report.
February Ministry Report
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Magazine Interview
Recently, Kelsie and I were interviewed by an online magazine called Generation Impact, edited by Grace Williamson. The magazine is a ministry of the Williamson family, and their goal is to encourage homeschoolers to be lights for Christ. Here’s a brief excerpt from their web site:
“Our mission at Generation-Impact is to encourage these young people to stand strong in their convictions. We hope to uplift them by sharing the stories of other homeschool students and graduates who are striving to follow God’s call for their lives instead of the world’s. We hope to encourage those still in the process of homeschooling as well as those who have graduated and are wondering what to do next.”
In our interview, Kelsie and I answered several questions about homeschooling and ministry, including the following:
- What was your homeschool experience like?
- JOSHUA: Briefly describe your history in missions. How did you know God was calling you to the mission field?
- KELSIE: What is the greatest challenge you’ve faced so far on the mission field?
- KELSIE: What is your role in the mission field? How do you strive to be a helpmeet to Joshua as he ministers in Ukraine?
- JOSHUA: What advice would you give young people who feel called to the mission field?
We encourage you to visit generation-impact.com and to pray for their ministry. We are grateful to Grace and her family for the opportunity to share our experiences in their magazine.
♥ Josh & Kelsie, 2011 ♥
Welcome, Hosanna Joy!
After long months of waiting and many prayers, our third daughter has arrived safe and sound. Hosanna Joy Steele was born at 1:57am on November 15th, weighing 8 lbs. and 1 oz. She was 19.7 inches long.
Hosanna Joy Steele - Born November 15, 2010
Abigail gets to hold Hosanna for the first time.
Like her older sister Rebekah, Hosanna was born in a Ukrainian hospital here in L’viv. The birth itself went well, almost textbook you might say. Kelsie was only in labor about four hours. The problems began after we thought “the hard part was behind us.” Kelsie and the baby were cleaned up and left to rest. I was also trying to get some sleep in the same room on a couch. But unbeknownst to us, Kelsie was still bleeding internally. Unfortunately, by the time the doctors realized this, she had lost quite a bit of blood and the clinic went into emergency mode.
Kelsie was placed under general anesthesia, and the operation began. The problem was that the uterus had not properly contracted back to its original position. As the doctors worked to remedy this, I was on the phone with my mom, Cathy who was offering much needed medical advice and also passing on information from my sister, Jessica, who is a nurse.
Soon the bleeding was stopped, but Kelsie’s hemoglobin levels had dropped dramatically. We estimate that she was down to about 7. (Normal levels are around 13, I believe.) Our primary OB-GYN, Dr. Lekh, was emphatic that Kelsie needed a blood transfusion. We felt this was too risky and insisted on boosting her hemoglobin levels by other means, including nutritional supplements such as liquid chlorophyll, spinach, beet juice, etc. While the various options were discussed, Kelsie continued to receive oxytocin as well as a synthetic plasma substitute. In the end, the doctors respected our wishes and Kelsie was not given any blood or human plasma.
I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my life as I was that night when I realized the severity of Kelsie’s condition. I remember walking into her room from the hall just after they had put her under. (I was not aware this had occurred.) She was no more than six feet away from me, but when I called her name, she didn’t answer. As in any trial, we took what action we could, and trusted the Lord with the outcome, calling on Him for deliverance.
God was with us that day, as were the prayers of saints on both sides of the globe. Praise the Lord for His healing hand! Three days later, Kelsie’s hemoglobin level was up to 8.6. She continues to take supplements, getting lots of rest. She is alert, and growing stronger all the time.
Kelsie and Hosanna came home from the hospital on November 17. We are thrilled to report that mother and baby are doing extremely well! We are deeply grateful to all those who prayed for us and offered their assistance in other ways. My mom and Jessica were up through the night researching medical questions and relaying information to me by phone. In fact, for a while my mom was calling me every ten minutes, since I could not call her from my phone.
In L’viv, Nathan and Katelin Day were up in the middle of the night as well offering internet support (like the translation of complex Ukrainian medical terms). Nathan was also assisting me with the fast relay of information from the States. As soon as we realized that Kelsie’s hemoglobin was low, the Day family and the Beal family responded immediately by driving a whole box of supplies to the hospital, including several iron-rich dishes cooked by Katelin, who is herself about 8 months pregnant. These supplies were a great help to Kels and her hemoglobin started rising very soon.
I know of many others who were also up in the night praying for our family. Thank you all so very much! Your love and support are priceless and we praise God for giving us such precious family and friends.
Abby and Beka get to meet Hosanna for the first time.
Rebekah Praise - our little future mommy. One of three, actually.
Bible First!
Here in Ukraine, anyone who isn’t Catholic or Orthodox is considered a “sektant” (member of a sect or cult). The mere mention of attending an evangelical church is usually met with fear, skepticism and even anger.
Early in our ministry, we began to realize that traditional approaches to evangelism backfire more often than not. Invite someone to church and they run the opposite direction. Offer them a Gospel tract and it ends up in the garbage, unread. Invite them to a home Bible study and you learn that they have an aversion to religious meetings in houses – especially houses belonging to people they don’t know. Bottom line: how can a missionary reach sinners for Jesus if he can’t convince them to listen to his message? “Faith cometh by hearing…” and despite our best efforts, the Ukrainians were not hearing. In fact they were not actually rejecting the message of the Gospel per se. They were rejecting what they perceived as an attempt to convert them to a foreign cult. It wasn’t about faith versus works, or Christ versus the world. It was about our church versus their church. Think about that for a moment: if you felt someone was trying sweep you and your family away from the church you know into a cult funded by people from overseas, how would you react? Would you attend a few meetings and evaluate their teachings objectively? Unlikely.
As we prayed for answers, we decided to try a new approach. Instead of urging the Ukrainians to listen to us (our tracts, our sermons, etc.) we would urge them to read the Scriptures for themselves. Upon learning that we are American, Ukrainians often ask why we’re here. And we came up with a new answer for them, which we still use today: “We are here to encourage you to read the Bible.” But wait! Aren’t we here to point them to Christ? Of course. But you can’t do that effectively until you first establish a hearing. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Rom. 10:17) There is no more effective weapon against a faithless heart than the Bible itself. Reason with a man using human logic, and you make it easy to reject your message. After all, it’s just your message. But involve that same man in studying the Scriptures and you have brought the very Words of Almighty God to bear on his soul in a way that will cut through his unbelief, his false religion, his love of the flesh, and leave him exposed before his Creator. And in that position, the message of salvation through Christ rings much more clearly.
In late 2004, our team began the development of a Bible correspondence course that introduces Ukrainians to the Scriptures and ultimately to Christ through the book of Genesis. During our summer outreaches, we distribute invitations to our course by the tens of thousands throughout Western Ukraine. To enroll, recipients mail in a sign-up form and request our lessons. Does it work? As of this writing, we have well over 500 Ukrainians in active enrollment, studying the Bible by mail. Not only do they complete our lessons and send them back, but many include personal letters asking questions about the Bible.
Our course consists of 17 lessons and takes students one chapter at a time from Creation, through the stories of Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sodom & Gomorrah, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. In each story, we point them to Jesus, drawing on the types and parallels that God Himself built into Genesis for that very purpose. And now we have a new problem: the number of Ukrainians enrolling in our course continues to grow. It takes the full attention of all seven of our staff to grade the stacks of lessons we receive each week, answer the letters, and write new material to stay ahead of our students.
The development of our course is nearing completion and soon it will be available in English to anyone who would like to use it in ministry. We call it Bible First. If you’d like to learn more, visit our Bible First! web page: www.euroteamoutreach.org/biblefirst
She’s FIVE!
On Saturday we celebrated Abigail’s fifth birthday. (Where does the time go?!) Abigail means “her father is joyful”, and since the time she was born, Abby has truly brought great joy into our lives. She is maturing into a sweet, bright little girl and we love her so much!
Click here to see more pictures from our day!
Looking Forward to 2012
CMO 2010 is over, and we are once again rejoicing as we witness the increase God has given. We were able to show the film and preach the Gospel in 10 mountain villages this summer. We also did literature blitzes in 7 new cities we have not visited before. Over the course of the project our team distributed approximately 160,000 tracts and other forms of Bible literature. Since CMO 2010 commenced on June 1, 168 new students have enrolled in our correspondence Bible course. This year we also made our first trip to Eastern Ukraine, where we did a ten-day literature blitz in several towns and villages in the Dnipropetrovsk area. So far we have gained 21 new students as a result of that outreach alone.
As of this writing, we have 574 students in active enrollment, studying the Bible through our correspondence course. Over the years we have seen the great potential that such a course has as an evangelistic tool, and for some time now it has been our vision to make this course available to other believers, churches, and missionaries. More specifically, we would like to incorporate it into the training that CMO men receive while they serve with us in Ukraine. During their time here, these men learn by experience how to reach a city through literature, and we would like to be able to send them back to the US with a complete Bible course in hand.
Many of you who follow our ministry have also asked about using the course once it’s ready…whenever that will be. So what’s taking so long? The problem has always been a lack of time and manpower. Keeping up with several hundred Ukrainian Bible students, plus new lesson development, plus CMO for three months every summer equals more than a full time job for our small team. That said, the end is in sight and we fully intend to launch our course in the US sometime in 2011. We are currently writing the last two lessons, and going over some final cleanup and revision on our existing lessons.
As you might imagine, we are focusing all our available resources on the 2011 course launch and all the extra details that go into such an endeavor. For this reason, we have decided that it would be prudent to skip next summer’s CMO project and resume in 2012.
Our first CMO project was held in 2006. Since then, we have done CMO every summer, and we’ve seen quite a number of young men come over to learn about missions. The one thing that has always been lacking is our ability to give them a working correspondence course so that they can go home and replicate what they’ve learned here. We believe that by taking a break from CMO in 2011, we will be able to finish the development of our Bible course and bring CMO back in 2012 as a much stronger project than it ever was before.
In the meantime, lots of exciting things are happening over here at ETO headquarters in L’viv. Stacks of completed Bible lessons continue to pour in from our Ukrainian students, new material is being written and translated, and of course, preparations are being made even now for the printing and distribution of our course in the United States. As always, we ask for your prayers for our team as we move forward into an exciting new phase of our ministry. More details about the launch of our Bible course will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
And by the way, we already have our first CMO 2012 applicant. Lord willing, more will follow in the coming months. So put it on your calendar, and start praying now for new laborers. Carpathian Mountain Outreach 2012 begins on June 1, 2012.
Skype Switcheroo
Just to keep everybody guessing, Kels and I have decided to shake up our Skype accounts a bit. Here’s the deal:
Kelsie’s new account: joshandkels (this was previously Joshua’s account)
Joshua’s new account: joshukraine
The kelsiesteele Skype account still exists but is not being used right now. Also, for the record, if you call our Skype phone number (817-349-6412), it rings to the joshandkels account as it always has. That means that for those of you who like to call Kels, you can reach her faster! And for those who like to call Josh, you’ve got to go through our family secretary and request access. 
Yep, we did that on purpose.
So anyway, here’s the summary:
If you’re a Kelsie friend, be sure you have joshandkels in your contact list. You can remove kelsiesteele. If you’re a Josh friend, be sure you have joshukraine in your contact list. If you want to call the Skype number … umm just call it. That hasn’t changed! And finally, if you’re really confused right now, don’t sweat it. It’s just Skype.