The latest issue of Overseas Field Report has now been posted to our blog. If you’re on our regular mailing list, you should be receiving your hard copy in the next couple of weeks.
Download the latest OFR here » May/June 2010 (1.73 MB)
If you would like to subscribe to receive Overseas Field Report by mail, please send us your name and US mailing address. We appreciate your interest in our ministry overseas.
The image below is a picture of the map hanging in our ministry office here in L’viv. Each pin represents a town or village where we have students enrolled studying the Bible. Denise Hutchison recently gathered this info from our student tracking system and set up the map. (Thanks, Denise!) At present, we have 406 students in active enrollment, and with CMO approaching, we’re expecting that number to rise!
A map showing each city/village in Ukraine where we have students enrolled in our Bible course.
Here’s another interesting statistic from our database. We track how every student enrolls in our course: some via pamphlets we pass out, some via the web site, some through the invitation of their friends, etc. Each of our lessons has cut-out invites in the back and we encourage existing students to use these to invite their friends. Right now, this is by far our largest enrollment type – 46%! In other words, nearly half of all our students were invited to start studying the Bible by another Ukrainian student!
Late in last year’s CMO project, we visited a town called Chervonograd (Red City), about an hour or so north of L’viv. We passed out several thousand invites for the correspondence course while we were there. As of this writing, we have 47 students in the city of Chervonograd, and 40 of them (85%!) were signed up by friends!
Passing out CBC invites in Chervonograd
Bottom line: there are lots of people out there who are open to studying the Word of God and ultimately hearing the message of Christ. It’s just a matter of finding them, and breaking through the cultural barriers that so often separate missionaries from the people they are trying to reach. Most people aren’t closed to the Gospel, they’re just closed to what they perceive as a foreign cult trying to convert them to a strange new faith. Find a way to break through those walls, and often you’ll find people on the other side who are starving for the truth of Scripture. That’s what Paul did. (I Cor. 9:19-22)
CMO 2010 begins in just over a week, and we are excited about finding new people this year that we can involve in the study of God’s Word. We are also very excited about the great team of guys that God has brought us this year. In addition to our full-time staff, we will be joined by six other men this summer, three of whom have been here for past CMO projects.
In addition to our normal excursions into the Carpathian Mountains, our team has also been invited to come and minister in an eastern Ukrainian city called Dnipropetrovsk. We will be putting out thousands of CBC invites in Dnipropetrovsk and several smaller towns in the area. This trip will take place in July. Please pray with us that many Ukrainians would enroll in our course and begin studying God’s Word. Sinners who begin to study God’s Word have the greatest chance of becoming believers, and believers make the best building blocks for churches. “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” 1 Corinthians 3:9
At around 12:15pm on April 28th, we landed at L’viv International Airport. To me, this seemed like the shortest and smoothest flight we’ve had yet! The kids did very well (slept a good bit) and overall the trip was uneventful. No ash cloud either. 
That said, I did notice that we were cruising at about 38,000 feet – a good 8,000 feet higher than normal. Maybe we were flying above the danger zone?
Having arrived back at home, we were greeted by a whole crowd of smiling faces. The Beal’s and Nathan picked us up at the airport. When we got to our apartment, we found it clean and the kitchen stocked with several meals and snacks. Our friends Tomasz and Miriam even sent over a French Silk pie! (Am I loved or what?) In short, we want to say a great big “thank you!” to all our dear friends here who made our return to Ukraine such a pleasant one.
I’d also like to express our sincere gratefulness to our friends and family on the other side of the Atlantic who were such a blessing to us while were in the US the past 8 months. Of these, I would like to say a very special thank you to my mom, Cathy, who worked like Wonder Woman to help us get our houses ready to rent. She laid tile, painted, cleaned, hauled junk in the van, made phone calls, screened prospective tenants, etc, etc, etc. After we left, she oversaw the process of emptying our house in the US, returning borrowed items to their owners, and signing the lease with our new tenants. There is no way in the world we could have finished all these tasks without her help. THANK YOU, MOM!!
Here in L’viv, we’re still in the process of unpacking and reorganizing, but are making progress. I’m moving my office over to our ministry center, which will free up an extra room in our house. This will probably end up being the baby’s room/guest room. Once we get our feet under us, we’ll be sending out the next issue of Overseas Field Report with more ministry details. In the meantime, we appreciate your continued prayers for us as we gear up for a full summer of ministry.
VISA UPDATE
For those of you who have kept up with the visa saga, know that our troubles in that arena are far from over. The day we got in from the States, I went with a small group of Americans to meet with a representative of the US Consulate from Kyiv. We discussed with him our concerns and some of the problems we have experienced with registration. He was able to give us quite a bit of information which I believe will be helpful in solving the problems we face. There are still several unknowns, but in a nutshell it appears we will no longer be able to use the Type-K (cultural) visas that we’ve all had in the past. Please continue to pray that the Lord would give us wisdom as we search for lasting solutions to these immigration issues.
Yep, we’re still here! Why? Just Google the terms “Iceland volcano” and you’ll find a whole pile of news stories covering the most recent act of God which has paralyzed European air travel. Bottom line: our original flight to Ukraine was cancelled, and we have been rebooked for April 27th, ash-cloud permitting. Please pray that God would remove this ash cloud and that we would have safe flying conditions for our return to L’viv. Traveling with us on the same day will be Bryan Shufelt.
The Steele Clan at a recent family night
House Update
As many of you know, the Lord provided last year for Kelsie and I to purchase our first house in the US. With the help of many dear saints, we’ve been able to complete all the repairs, and the house is now ready for leasing. Please pray with us that God would bring along just the right tenants. Below are a few pictures of the house since the remodeling.
Yes, God can provide through prayer alone.
The living room
The kitchen
Visa Problems
Remember a few months ago when we told you about some immigration snags that were part of our original reasons for coming to the US? Well, Ukraine is at it again! Just in the last week or two, we’ve learned that the local immigration authorities have decided that they will no longer register cultural visas. Most of the missionaries we know in Ukraine (including us) have this type of visa, so obviously this new restriction poses a significant problem. Without registration, you can only stay in the country for 90 days regardless of the term of your visa. We are currently pursuing some various solutions, but don’t yet have anything definite. It looks like we may have to get new visas of a different type. This may be a solution, but it’s very expensive. (~$300 per visa per person!) Please pray that God would work this out and that missionaries would be able to remain in Ukraine, preaching the Gospel openly.
Hank Thompson
Speaking of preaching, we recently had the honor of hosting Hank Thompson and his family at our house in Fort Worth. Hank and his wife Amy are just back from Thailand and are speaking and preaching at various locations in the US. Also traveling with the Thompsons are the Murphy’s. Like Hank, Bryce Murphy is a street preacher. Bryce, Hank, myself and a couple of other men went to downtown Fort Worth one night while they were here and preached the Gospel on the street corners for a couple of hours. I hadn’t done that in a while, and even though my voice gave out quickly, it was wonderful to once again be proclaiming Christ in the “highways and hedges.” I stand fully behind Hank’s ministry, and I believe that God is using him in a powerful way to open the eyes of sinners to their need for the Lord Jesus. If you’d like to get a fresh dose of encouragement and vision for front-line evangelism, contact Hank about speaking at your church. You’ll be glad you did! Here’s how to contact Hank:
E-mail: henry.hispower@gmail.com
Web site: www.HisPower.org
Hank Thompson, his wife Amy, and their two children
Bryce Murphy, his wife Jenny, and their four children
CMO Plans
Good news for all you procrastinators out there: the CMO 2010 deadline has been moved back to May 15! Time is running out, so if you want to come, download the app from our web site and get it to us ASAP! CMO begins June 1, and if you want to come we need to hear from you right away. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
EVENT CANCELLED
Due to sickness in my family and also in the family that was organizing this event, we have decided to postpone it until a later date. If/when that is scheduled, we will post a new invitation. We apologize for the late notice.
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I will be speaking in Austin, TX this coming Wednesday, March 31 at 7:00pm. I’ll be showing our missions DVD, speaking about the ministry, and preaching a message on evangelism called “Vision, Strategy, Perseverance.”
If you’re in the area and you’d like to join us, please contact me for details.
Since our last post (which, yes, has been entirely too long) much has happened. So much, in fact, that I’m not quite sure where to begin. I suppose I’ll start with the news that it most exciting:
Kelsie and I are expecting our third child!
The happy couple. Sorry, don't have a picture of Junior yet, so this'll have to do for now.
We only found out about the pregnancy a couple of weeks ago, so we still don’t have a lot of details. The due date should fall in November more or less. We’ll post more info as we get it. In the meantime, please pray for our return trip April 20 to Ukraine. Kels is already experiencing the effects of morning sickness, and we’re praying that she will feel well during the flight.
Young Men’s Conference
Some of you may recall from a previous post that I taught a two-day conference for young men here in Fort Worth, TX. My brother Jonathan is working on making that available on DVD and is nearly ready to begin distribution. Not long after that original conference, I visited No Greater Joy and was asked to do a condensed version of the conference up there. This was recorded on video and is now available for viewing through Vimeo. If you like, you can view all three of these sesssions right here on our blog. Just click the Men’s Conference link on the right-hand menu.
Travel and Reporting
God has recently opened several doors for us to share our work in Ukraine in various churches. (That’s one of my excuses for not posting more often!) As we noted in our last post, we were able to speak at a church in Alabama, then to several groups in Tennessee. We also had the opportunity to speak at a missions conference at South Side Baptist Church in Weatherford, TX this past Sunday, and I’ll be traveling to Austin next week to speak to a group there. It’s been great to be able to share our vision with believers here, and we are sincerely grateful to everyone who is praying for us and supporting us. Exciting days lie ahead, and we can’t wait to get back to the field and continue the work there.
CMO Plans
We already have a few guys planning to come to CMO this year. If you’re thinking about coming, you need to send in your application ASAP. The registration deadline is April 15th. Don’t put it off! If you have questions, check our web site or send us an e-mail. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to help advance the Kingdom of God!
Last Friday morning we managed to break out of the record-breaking Texas snow and begin our trip north towards Alabama. We traveled for two days and arrived late Saturday afternoon at the Ballengers’ home about 50 minutes outside of Birmingham. John Ballenger is one of the leaders of Grace Family Church. He had contacted me several months ago by e-mail about the possibility of our family visiting their church to present our work in Ukraine, and now we finally had the chance to meet in person.
The Ballenger Family
Preaching on evangelism at Grace Family Church.
We stayed the night Saturday in the Ballengers’ home, and we were truly blessed to get to know their family. Sunday morning, I showed our DVD presentation at the church, and then delivered a message on evangelism called “Vision, Strategy, Perseverance.” We were very blessed by the believers there, and look forward to seeing them again sometime, perhaps even in Ukraine, if God wills!
Sunday afternoon, we drove the rest of the way up to Linden, Tennessee to the home of our friends the Courters. If you recall, they are the family who came down to Texas a couple of months ago to assist us in remodeling our house in Fort Worth. My main purpose in coming to Tennessee (where I’ve not been for nearly seven years) was to visit the Courters and also to see Michael and Debi Pearl. Both families have been a tremendous blessing over the years to our family, and I wanted to take the opportunity of seeing them again before we return to the field in April. Michael Pearl is one of my greatest mentors. I met him when I was 12, and in the years since that time, God has used his teaching ministry in a powerful way in my life, especially in teaching me how to study the Bible.
While we’re here in Tennessee, I’ll have the opportunity to speak to several groups of believers about the work in Ukraine. The first of these meetings is tonight, followed by two more tomorrow and Thursday. Please pray that I will be an encouragement to the churches here, and that new laborers will be raised up to serve Christ in harvest fields of the world.
I’ll try to post more details towards the end of the week.